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15 passages · search this phrase →
Often appears with: labor, wages, and the division of work · justice as a virtue · crafts, industry, and manufacture · rank, class, and social order · trade, markets, and merchants · marriage and betrothal · worker degradation · work in eden · women’s sexual norms · women carrying baggage · will, choice, and freedom · virtue and work
Usually: argument (10) · detachment (7) · exhortation (4) · censure (3) · curiosity (3) · dialogue (2) · the test or trial (2) · commentary or gloss (1) · description (1) · narrative (1)
“Did you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature, affecting body, voice, and mind?” Plato, The Republic · insight
“This man resembles more and more the administrator of a vast empire--that man, a brute.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America — Volume 2 · observation
He argues that although democracy grows manufactures, the division of labor can weaken workers and bind them to craft while simultaneously raising wealthy masters, potentially creating new aristocracy.
led to engage in commerce, not only for the sake of the profit it holds out to them, but for the love of the constant excitement occasioned by that pursuit. The United States of America have only been emancipated for half a century [in 1840] from the state of colonial dependence in which they stood to Great Britain; the number of large fortunes there is small, and capital is still scarce. Yet no people in the world …
Tocqueville argues that manufactures create an “aristocracy” by enlarging masters’ minds while narrowing workers’ into physical labor, making the master need science and the worker depend on him.
of the results to be obtained, attract them. Thus at the very time at which the science of manufactures lowers the class of workmen, it raises the class of masters. Whereas the workman concentrates his faculties more and more upon the study of a single detail, the master surveys a more extensive whole, and the mind of the latter is enlarged in proportion as that of the former is narrowed. In a short time the one wil…
It describes Shoshone practices concerning betrothal, divorce-like relinquishment, women’s chastity norms, sexual hospitality controlled by husbands, and the division of labor where men fight and women do most work and carry baggage.
two other wives, he claimed her, but on finding that she had a child by her new husband, Chaboneau, he relinquished his pretensions and said he did not want her. The chastity of the women does not appear to be held in much estimation. The husband will for a trifling present lend his wife for a night to a stranger, and the loan may be protracted by increasing the value of the present. Yet strange as it may seem, notw…
The passage states that Smith differs from the French economists by treating labour as the universal agent of wealth; it compares this to moral sciences and natural sciences, and lists how labor grows.
creation of wealth is labour; and was thence led to analyse the powers of this agent, and to search after the causes to which they owe their origin and increase. The great difference between the doctrine of Smith and of the economists, lies in the point from which they set out, in the reduction of their consequences. The latter go back to the soil as the primary source of all wealth; while the former regards labour …
Johnson elaborates on London’s “secret concatenation of society,” claiming that even low occupations link rich and poor, and that labor prevents mortifying uselessness.
and superfluous kind, which nothing but experience could evince possible to be prosecuted with advantage, and which, as the world might easily want, it could scarcely be expected to encourage. But so it is, that custom, curiosity, or wantonness, supplies every art with patrons, and finds purchasers for every manufacture; the world is so adjusted, that not only bread, but riches may be obtained without great abilitie…
Adam and Eve rise to tend Eden’s garden, discuss dividing labor, and Adam warns that a malicious foe may attack them separately, especially to disturb their marriage and faith.
Adam, well may we labour still to dress This garden, still to tend plant, herb, and flower, Our pleasant task enjoined; but, till more hands Aid us, the work under our labour grows, Luxurious by restraint; what we by day Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind, One night or two with wanton growth derides Tending to wild. Thou therefore now advise, Or hear what to my mind first thoughts present: Let us divide our la…
Socrates constructs an ideal city from basic human needs—food, dwelling, clothing—and assigns specialized occupations, leading to trade, merchants, sailors, a market, and retail sellers.
And they exchange with one another, and one gives, and another receives, under the idea that the exchange will be for their good. Very true. Then, I said, let us begin and create in idea a State; and yet the true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention. Of course, he replied. Now the first and greatest of necessities is food, which is the condition of life and existence. Certainly. The second i…
Polemarchus argues justice is useful like specialized arts—best for keeping money and valuables safely—and Socrates presses the idea that justice is then effective mainly when things are not used.
I think so. And who is best able to do good to his friends and evil to his enemies in time of sickness? The physician. Or when they are on a voyage, amid the perils of the sea? The pilot. And in what sort of actions or with a view to what result is the just man most able to do harm to his enemy and good to his friend? In going to war against the one and in making alliances with the other. But when a man is wel…
Socrates agrees to proceed by a method: investigate justice in the larger scale of a city first, then in the individual, using a model city’s creation from human needs and exchange to reveal where justice arises.
‘Sons of Ariston,’ he sang, ‘divine offspring of an illustrious hero.’ The epithet is very appropriate, for there is something truly divine in being able to argue as you have done for the superiority of injustice, and remaining unconvinced by your own arguments. And I do believe that you are not convinced—this I infer from your general character, for had I judged only from your speeches I should have mistrusted you.…
Socrates sketches a basic city: necessities like food, housing, and clothing require farmers, builders, weavers, shoemakers, and tools-makers; trade by merchants and sailors leads to a market with money, retailers, and hirelings.
And they exchange with one another, and one gives, and another receives, under the idea that the exchange will be for their good. Very true. Then, I said, let us begin and create in idea a State; and yet the true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention. Of course, he replied. Now the first and greatest of necessities is food, which is the condition of life and existence. Certainly. The second i…
Socrates and Glaucon contrast a healthy, minimal city with a luxurious one, showing that luxury expands needs, creates unnecessary occupations, increases reliance on physicians, strains farmland, and leads to war.
And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and health to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them. Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the beasts? But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied. Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People who are to be comfortable are accustomed t…
Because one person should do one job well, Socrates argues guardians must not imitate many roles, and should only imitate virtues; imitation is said to become habit and shape body, voice, and mind.
He cannot. Then the same person will hardly be able to play a serious part in life, and at the same time to be an imitator and imitate many other parts as well; for even when two species of imitation are nearly allied, the same persons cannot succeed in both, as, for example, the writers of tragedy and comedy—did you not just now call them imitations? Yes, I did; and you are right in thinking that the same persons …
Justice is argued to be each person doing their own work rather than meddling, and injustice arises when traders or warriors usurp the roles of others, disrupting the city’s class order.
I grow impatient at the length of your exordium. Well then, tell me, I said, whether I am right or not: You remember the original principle which we were always laying down at the foundation of the State, that one man should practise one thing only, the thing to which his nature was best adapted;—now justice is this principle or a part of it. Yes, we often said that one man should do one thing only. Further, we af…
Engels claims that as production develops in class society, producers lose control to the means of production, and he traces how division of labor creates long-term domination over workers and other groups.
in which production has developed naturally, to which class that of to-day belongs, the producers do not master the means of production but the means of production dominate the producers. In such a society every new leverage of production is converted into a new means of subduing the producers beneath the means of production. This was the cause of that instrument of production, the mightiest up to the time of the in…
Thoreau reflects on building as a human, self-directed practice rooted in “nature” rather than divided labor, arguing that thoughtful construction should be linked to self-reliant thinking.
little, but the least scraps of paper which lay on the ground, my holder, or tablecloth, afforded me as much entertainment, in fact answered the same purpose as the Iliad. It would be worth the while to build still more deliberately than I did, considering, for instance, what foundation a door, a window, a cellar, a garret, have in the nature of man, and perchance never raising any superstructure until we found a be…