Factory division of labor reduces workers to fragments of persons

Evidence

The capitalist has the power (though by no means arbitrary or total) to mobilize the powers of co-operation, division of labour, and machinery as powers of capital over labour. The result is an organized detail division of labour within the factory, which reduces the labourer to a fragment of a person. ‘The absurd fable of Menenius Agrippa, which makes man a mere fragment of his own body, becomes realized’ (Capital, 1 : 340). — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 634

Categorization

• SHARE: The Menenius Agrippa fable citation is a nice nugget for anyone into classical rhetoric or Marx’s use of literary reference.
• XREF: connects to: Industrial society reduces individuals to interchangeable species beings through conformist working conditions; Division of labour in services destroys the very comfort it is meant to provide; People are reduced to objects whether addressed as employees or consumers — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 113 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• The discourse of work and action reduces the human to a laboring animal. #expands (0.78) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 118
• People are reduced to objects whether addressed as employees or consumers #complicates (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 113
• Society, through the division of labour, produces more than the sum of its parts. #contradicts (0.72)
• Workers’ basic insecurity stems from enslavement of labor and person #expands (0.72) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 463
• Society exceeds its individual parts through collective labor and division of functions #contradicts (0.72)