ABSTRACT
Few socialist thinkers have been ready to accept the division of labour, at any rate in the forms which it has assumed in the industrial capitalist societies, as an inalterable condition. Marx formulated, at different times, ideas about the division of labour which have played a major part in all later criticism and have found, in diverse guises, a practical application. In the first place, Marx's concern is always the same: it is a concern with human liberation, with the possibility of constructing, and the means of achieving, a form of society in which each individual would be able to develop to the fullest extent his own talents and interests, instead of being confined within a narrow and imposed sphere of labour. Secondly, Marx always analysed the division of labour in a more general economic and social context, and with reference to particular forms of society.
