ABSTRACT
Division of labour is a ubiquitous feature of social life. It makes possible specialization and with it increased efficiency in the performance of certain types of work. It allows some people to concentrate on work that they prefer. This classical Marxist approach to the division of labour has long been objected to as at best naively Utopian and at worst menacingly illiberal: Utopian on the grounds that not everyone is capable of doing everything; illiberal because of a supposed implication of imposed collectivist uniformity. The functional division of labour refers to the different kinds of specific work, the different detailed tasks, that have to be carried out in any given society, whereas the social division of labour consists of the social stratification of people into groups possessing differential social power based on relationships of domination and subordination.
