The Division of Mental Labor

When Adam Smith created his ‘pin factory’ example, he launched the concept of the division of labor.  Before Smith’s concept, production of a ‘thing’ was done in it’s entirety by one individual from beginning to end.

If a spinning wheel was being manufactured, one person made that wheel from beginning to end.  Adam Smith realized that it was more efficient for one person to make one part over and over and to send that part down an ‘assembly line’ until the whole was created by the last person.  He use the manufacture of sewing pins as an example.

People tend to think of this as a point in time and not a progression.  The division of labor was born and it continues to exist.  But what was born was the division of physical labor.  And this matured into vast complexities and methodologies for how to effectively and efficiently manufacture ‘things.’

But it didn’t stop there.  As computers matured and connected, suddenly it had become possible to share mental tasks.  The concept is commonly referred to as ‘crowd sourcing.’  Essentially, individuals began to divide and share ‘mental labor.’

In our day this ‘mental division of labor’ is becoming a deep discipline similar to what has already emerged for the division of physical labor.

When this full progression from the perfection of physical on to the perfection of mental is complete, we will realize that the division of labor concept itself is painfully outdated.

We will learn that the development of physical and mental sourcing does not solve the rapidly growing social crises.

Adam Smith created the division of labor to solve moral issues of his day and in effect created even more moral issues than their were before.  I see the same kind of blind zeal for the mental division of labor, but when it has run it’s course, we’ll only be a little better at managing collective knowledge and still fairly big newbies at running an integral society.

What is coming next is a new way of thinking and an entirely new social model–A Second Enlightenment.  Just as in Smith’s day there were many great thinkers that ushered in the first enlightenment, we will have the same in this next era.  The foundation for this shift is already being laid.

These are exciting times, and I wouldn’t miss any of this for the world.