Social aggregates exceed their components because division of labour creates unownable collective production

Evidence

The most concrete theoretico-practical explanation, however, is that to be found in the first volume of Capital , where it is demonstrated that in the factory system there exists a quota of production which cannot be attributed to any individual worker but to the ensemble of the labour force, to collective man. A similar process takes place for the whole of society, which is based on the division of labour and of functions and for this reason is worth more than the sum of its parts. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1655

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gramsci grounds the abstract ‘society exceeds its members’ claim in Capital’s factory demonstration, giving the concept a concrete Marxian mechanism rather than mystical content.
• XREF: This supplies the structural ‘collective man’ scaffold that later Islamophobia readings treat as hegemony’s material base. — connects to: Society exceeds its individual parts through collective labor and division of functions; Society, through the division of labour, produces more than the sum of its parts.; Combined labor generates a social force exceeding the sum of individual efforts — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 246 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Society exceeds its individual parts through collective labor and division of functions #corroborates (0.95)
• Society, through the division of labour, produces more than the sum of its parts. #corroborates (0.95)
• Combined labor generates a social force exceeding the sum of individual efforts #corroborates (0.88) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 246
• Division of labor makes modern societies possible, not merely more productive. #expands (0.78) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 580