‘Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson and Karl Marx on the Division of Labour’, Journal of Classical Sociology, 7(3) 2007, pp. 339-366.

Abstract

Adam Smith (1723–90) and Adam Ferguson (1723–1816) shared a keen interest in the social, economic and individual effects of specialization. Though this mutual interest led to a protracted priority dispute between them, nevertheless their approaches differed significantly. Ferguson was generally more negative in his attitude and was also less interested in the economic effects of specialization , focusing instead on its adverse social ramifications. In fact, his work on the subject probably constitutes the first fully developed sociological account of the topic. Karl Marx quoted Ferguson approvingly and declared that he had been inspired by the latter's insights. But Smith too made some extremely negative and apparently pessimistic observations about the division of labour, giving rise to suggestions that his comments also 'constitute a major source of inspiration for the socialist critique' of commercialism. This paper compares and contrasts the respective approaches of the two Scots. It also pays particular attention to claims that there are parallels with Marx in their thinking. To what extent is this true? Further, if it is true, do they anticipate him in the same way? The division of labour, 1 and its social and economic effects, has long been an important theme in the history of economic and sociological thought. In this paper I highlight and contrast the work of thinkers whose contributions exerted considerable influence over subsequent elaborators of the concept. Though Adam Smith (1723–90) and Adam Ferguson (1723–1816) were neither the first nor last to discuss the effects of the division of labour, 2 it would not be an exaggeration to

Full text

Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson
(and Karl Marx) on the Division
of Labour
LISA HILL University of Adelaide
ABSTRACT Adam Smith (1723–90) and Adam Ferguson (1723–1816) shared a
keen interest in the social, economic and individual effects of specialization.
Though this mutual interest led to a protracted priority dispute between them,
nevertheless their approaches differed significantly. Ferguson was generally more
negative in his attitude and was also less interested in the economic effects of spe-
cialization, focusing instead on its adverse social ramifications. In fact, his work on
the subject probably constitutes the first fully developed sociological account of
the topic. Karl Marx quoted Ferguson approvingly and declared that he had been
inspired by the latter’s insights. But Smith too made some extremely negative and
apparently pessimistic observations about the division of labour, giving rise to
suggestions that his comments also ‘constitute a major source of inspiration for
the socialist critique’ of commercialism. This paper compares and contrasts the
respective approaches of the two Scots. It also pays particular attention to claims
that there are parallels with Marx in their thinking. To what extent is this true?
Further, if it is true, do they anticipate him in the same way?
KEYWORDS alienation, division of labour, Durkheim, Ferguson, inequality, Smith,
Spencer, Marx, work
The division of labour,
1
and its social and economic effects, has long been an
important theme in the history of economic and sociological thought. In this paper
I highlight and contrast the work of thinkers whose contributions exerted consid-
erable influence over subsequent elaborators of the concept. Though Adam Smith
(1723–90) and Adam Ferguson (1723–1816) were neither the first nor last to dis-
cuss the effects of the division of labour,
2
it would not be an exaggeration to
Journal of Classical Sociology
Copyright © 2007 SAGE Publications Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore Vol 7(3): 339–366
DOI: 10.1177/1468795X07082086 www.sagepublications.com
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describe both accounts of such effects as groundbreaking, not only for the socio-
logical and economic depth of their separate analyses, but also for their influence on
such important sociological thinkers as Hegel (Waszek, 1983: 137–41, 225–7),
3
Spencer, Durkheim, Marx and Hayek. Spencer read Ferguson and is likely to have
been influenced by his work in the development of his own ideas on the ‘division of
labour . . . social differentiation and individuation and integration’ (Lehmann,
1930: 240), while Durkheim begins his Division of Labour in Society by mistakenly
crediting Smith with being ‘the first to attempt to elaborate the theory’ of the div-
ision of labour (1984 [1893]: 1). In particular, Smith and Ferguson’s observations
inspired Marx, though the similarities between the Scottish and German sets of
thought should not be over-estimated, for reasons that will be given presently. Just
as importantly for the purposes of this paper, neither should it be assumed that
Ferguson and Smith were in agreement on all counts. While there were many over-
laps (enough to inspire a disagreeable priority dispute that Smith initiated by accus-
ing Ferguson of plagiarizing his ideas on the division of labour), Ferguson was
generally more negative in his attitude. He was also less interested in the economic
effects of specialization and provided more detail about its social consequences.
Although my main focus here is on comparing Smith and Ferguson, this
comparative analysis is both problematized and enriched by considering their
respective and joint relationships to Karl Marx, relationships that, taken together,
have frequently been noted, sometimes misrepresented, but rarely addressed sys-
tematically.
Previously canvassed aspects of Smith’s work on the division of labour
include intellectual histories of the development of his ideas on the subject,
4
including focused studies of the consistency of his views
5
as well as his anticipation
of Marx’s theory of alienation (e.g. Drosos, 1996; Lamb, 1973; West, 1969).
6
Most
of the scholarship on Ferguson’s approach to specialization has been narrowly
focused on its relationship to the Scots-Militia Debate (e.g. Robertson, 1985: 1–2;
Sher, 1989) or its role in earning him acclaim as a pioneer of modern sociology
(e.g. Brewer, 1989). His anticipation of Marx is frequently asserted but has rarely
been explored in any depth, something this paper seeks to correct.
In treatments of the Scottish Enlightenment it is not uncommon to see the
work of its various thinkers bundled together as though they constituted a unified
school of thought.
7
In fact, there are many fault-lines.
8
This paper explores just
one of them. It also explores another fault-line that has sometimes been blurred,
namely that which exists beneath the alleged continuities between 19th-century
Marx and the 18th-century Scots. In describing these fault-lines this paper might
be thought of as an attempt to complete a chapter in intellectual history.
Although there has been some work on the infamous priority dispute
between Smith and Ferguson (e.g. Brewer, 1986; Hamowy, 1968; Mizuta, 1981),
there has been little sustained treatment of substantive differences and parallels in
their approach to the division of labour, especially within the context of their broader
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systems of thought and their ultimate ideological commitments. Although there has
been some work on their separate relationship to Marx, neither has there been a close
treatment of where they both stand in relation to him. The following questions seem
important: Do they both genuinely prefigure Marx’s views on the division of labour,
particularly his theory of alienation? And, if so, do they do so in the same way?
Though this three-way comparison seems to promise confusion rather than clarifica-
tion, it is adopted here as a way of bringing into relief the precise contours of Smith
and Ferguson’s relationship, thereby underlining a number of previously overlooked
but important similarities.
In John Rae’s biography of Adam Smith it is reported that on the publica-
tion of Ferguson’s Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767) Smith accused him of
‘having borrowed some of his ideas without owning them’ (Rae, 1965 [1895]: 65).
Ferguson apparently replied (via another source) that he had done nothing of the sort
but that they shared in common an unnamed French source (Carlyle, 1910: 299) –
probably either a Physiocrat (possibly Francois Quesnay) or Montesquieu (Hamowy,
1968: 255–6).
9
The dates of the estrangement between Smith and Ferguson are
unclear but it seems unlikely that the rupture in their longstanding friendship was
healed before Smith’s death in 1790.
10
The question of priority remains uncertain. According to Karl Marx, Smith
took the idea from Ferguson, but Marx was unaware that Smith discussed the
topic in his Glasgow Lectures (1766) before the Essay was published.
11
At the
same time, it is possible ‘that Ferguson suggested the theme in the first place’
(Forbes, 1967b: xxxi–ii)
12
because his views on the topic had been developed by
the mid- to late 1750s in his early draft of the Essay and also in his anonymous
pro-Militia pamphlet entitled Reflections Previous to the Establishment of a Militia
(1756).
13
At present there seems to be no definitive answer to the question of pri-
ority. Though the charge of plagiarism against Ferguson does not appear to be
justified, by the same token, as Ronald Hamowy has noted, there is ‘not one whit
of evidence that Smith took his views on the division of labour from Ferguson’s’
Essay, as per Marx’s claim (Hamowy, 1968: 256–7; see also Mizuta, 1986: 813).
Despite Smith’s sensitivities to Ferguson’s overlaps with his own thought, as the
following examination of their respective treatments shows, there were a number
of important differences.
Adam Smith on the Division of Labour
According to Nathan Rosenberg, Adam Smith’s work on the division of labour
‘provided a masterful analysis of the gains from specialization and exchange upon
which, it is no exaggeration to say, the discipline of economics was nurtured’
(1965: 127). Smith shared with Mandeville, the Mercantilists, William Petty and
Henry Martin a keen interest in the positive effects of specialization on ‘product-
ivity and . . . material development’ (Brewer, 1989: 17) and he attributed to it
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almost all the progress and prosperity of the commercial age. ‘[I]n a well governed
society’, Smith noted, the division of labour ‘occasions’ a ‘universal opulence,
which extends itself’ even ‘to the lowest ranks of the people’ (Smith, 1979 [1776],
I.i.10: 22).
Specialization not only promotes productivity and wealth, but it also solves
an erstwhile obstruction to the development of commerce and civilization itself: the
security problem. The internal security of states is solved by the establishment of a
formal system of justice and the development of professional, ‘well-regulated’ stand-
ing armies to ‘execute and maintain’ it. ‘A standing army’, Smith wrote, ‘establishes,
with an irresistible force, the law of the sovereign through the remotest provinces
of the empire, and maintains some degree of regular government in countries which
could not otherwise admit of any’ (1979 [1776] V.i.a.40: 706). An organized sys-
tem of justice underpinned by regular armies affords ‘to industry, the only encour-
agement which it requires, some tolerable security that it shall enjoy the fruits of its
own labour’ (1979 [1776], I.xi.i: 256; see also I.xi.g: 213–14). When ‘[t]he nat-
ural effort of every individual to better his own condition’ is unleashed under con-
ditions of ‘freedom and security’, the society will be prosperous and happy (1979
[1776], IV.v.b.43: 540).
The security threat posed to commercial states by the potential ‘violence
and injustice of other independent societies’ is also resolved by specialization
(1979 [1776], V.i.a.39: 705; also i.a.40: 706).
14
Standing armies afford ‘opulent
and civilized’ nations a considerable military advantage over the ‘poor and bar-
barous’ (1979 [1776], V.i.a–b.44: 708); commercial nations therefore enjoy a
superior capacity to protect the expansion of trade and commerce.
Despite Smith’s enthusiasm for the myriad positive effects of specialization,
he nevertheless appreciated its adverse effect on detail workers. The division of
labour reduces the tasks of workers to one or two simple operations and, since
work is central to intellectual development, the labourer naturally loses the good
part of ‘his’
15
cognitive capacities, including natural inventiveness. Since his field of
experience has become drastically reduced through specialization, occasions for
inventiveness rarely arise. Workers’ physical capacities are also impaired: task sep-
aration limits the labourer’s scope of duties and renders ‘him incapable of exerting
his strength with vigour and perseverance, in any other employment than that
which he has been bred’. The individual thus acquires ‘greater dexterity at his own
particular trade’ but only at the expense of ‘his intellectual, social and martial vir-
tues’ (1979 [1776], V.i.f.50: 782). The worker involved in detail labour is reduced
to a kind of automaton, who is not only ‘as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for
a human creature to become’ but is soon bereft of any capacity to exercise her or
his moral sentiments or to judge of her or his own best interests (1979 [1776],
V.i.f.50: 781–2). The civic capacities of the worker are also diminished by lack of
‘variety in . . . occupations’. Whereas in archaic societies, everyone was ‘in some
measure a statesman’ and capable of forming ‘a tolerable judgement concerning
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the interest of society, and the conduct of those who govern it’, in late commercial
polities detail workers are ‘altogether incapable of judging’ of ‘the great and exten-
sive interests of [their] country (1979 [1776], V.i.f.50: 782).
Martial virtue is a further and significant cost of specialization. Smith was
uncharacteristically animated on this point, noting that the monotony of wage
labour corrupted the ‘courage’ of the labourer’s mind, rendering him unfit for
military service (1979 [1776], V.i.f.50: 782). The coward is described as ‘muti-
lated and deformed in his mind’ and his condition is likened to a ‘loathsome and
offensive disease’ such as leprosy (1979 [1776], V.i.f.60: 787–8). Significantly,
such corruptions were unknown to pre-commercial societies of hunters, shepherds
and rude ‘husbandmen’. The requirements of their ‘barbarous’ existence perpetu-
ally exercised their physical and mental faculties so that every person was re-
sourceful, alert and motivated by necessity to inventive and creative action; such
persons were well-rounded, public-spirited, civically active and courageous war-
riors (1979 [1776], V.i.f.51: 783).
Cultural impoverishment also necessarily accompanies an advanced system
of specialization. Smith regarded the pursuit of beauty as an essential ingredient
in human flourishing. In his essay on ‘The History of Astronomy’ he notes that
‘custom deadens the vivacity of both pain and pleasure’ (Smith, 1980, 10: 37).
Specialization narrows the scope of attention and deadens the moral sentiments to
the point where ‘all the nobler parts of the human character may be . . . obliterated
and extinguished’ altogether (1979 [1776], V.i.f.51, 783–4). For Smith the age of
specialization is the age of declining literacy.
16
The division of labour ‘affords an
opportunity of employing children very young’; consequently their education is
neglected. Whereas in Scotland, for example, ‘where the division of labour is not far
advanced, even the meanest porter can read and write’, in England’s ‘commercial
parts’ such is not the case. Smith posits the ‘general’ rule that ‘in town they are not
so intelligent as in the country, nor in a rich country as in a poor one’. In addition,
an uneducated populace is generally unruly, with no idea of ‘amusement . . . but riot
and debauchery’ (1978a (B), 329–30: 539–40).
Worker ‘alienation’ is not a minor phenomenon restricted to a few workers.
As Marx was to argue later, Smith indicates that this condition could cause ‘the
almost entire corruption and degeneracy of the great body of the people . . . in every
improved and civilized society’; moreover, such a tendency seems to be inevitable
(1979 [1776], V.i.f.49–50: 781–2).
Although it has been suggested that, unlike Marx, Smith did not perceive
worker powerlessness or exploitation as a necessary consequence of specialization
(West, 1969: 7–10), Smith seems keenly alert to the asymmetrical power relations
occasioned and exacerbated by the social division of labour. He notes that ‘in dis-
putes with their workmen, masters must generally have the advantage’ (1979 [1776],
I.viii.14: 85), and he even acknowledges that the social division of labour entails a
certain degree of exploitation.
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The poor labourer who has the soil and the seasons to struggle with, and
who, while he affords the materials for supplying the luxury of all the other
members of the commonwealth, bears, as it were, upon his shoulders, the
whole fabric of human society, sees himself to be buried out of sight in the
lowest foundation of the building.
(Smith, 1978b: 564)
Furthermore, the social division of labour exacerbates social and economic
inequality:
The labour and time of the poor is in civilized countries sacrificed to main-
taining the rich in ease and luxury. The landlord is maintained in idleness
and luxury by the labour of his tenents. …The moneyd man is supported
by his exactions from the industrious merchant and the needy who are
obliged to support him in ease by a return for the use of his money.
(1978a (B), 26: 340)
In savage societies,
17
where the accumulation, maintenance and legal regu-
lation of private property are yet to be developed and where specialization is un-
common,
18
there exists a state of relative equality where ‘every savage has the full
enjoyment of the fruits of his own labours’. Here, ‘there are no landlords, no
usurers, no tax gatherers’ to domineer, exploit or subordinate (1978a (A), 26: 340;
see also 1979 [1776], I.viii.1–2: 82). But in commercial nations ‘those who labour
most get least’ (1978b: 564). Smith obviously disapproved of this arrangement,
noting that it ‘is but equity . . . that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body
of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be
themselves tolerably well fed, cloathed and lodged’ (1979 [1776], I.viii, 36: 96).
Because of these extremely negative and apparently pessimistic observations
it has been suggested that Smith’s comments on the division of labour in Book V
‘constitute a major source of inspiration for the socialist critique’ of capitalism
(Rosenberg, 1965: 127) and that it was Smith ‘who first broached the potentially
explosive topic of the [Marxian alienation] effects of the division of labour’
(Forbes, 1967a: 47).
19
Along similar lines Robert Lamb has argued that Smith
regarded factory workers as alienated in the fullest sense as Marx applied it (Lamb,
1973: 273). It has even been suggested that Smith’s comments should be inter-
preted as a sign that he anticipated the decline and eventual annihilation of the
commercial age. For example, Robert Heilbroner (1973) suggests that, for Smith,
laissez-faire capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction, while Spencer Pack
(1991) contends that Smith sees ‘capitalism’ as only one level or stage of human
development that must eventually give way to something else because of its adverse
effects on moral character.
Such claims are probably exaggerated.
20
It is true that Smith’s outline of the
dehumanizing consequences of specialization on workers does indeed foreshadow
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Marx’s discourse on the same subject to the extent that it hints at the effects of frag-
mentation, product alienation (Kettler, 1965: 8–9) and even exploitation. In fact,
along with Ferguson’s even more detailed account, Smith indirectly inspired Marx’s
ferocious polemic on the same subject,
21
and Marx cited Smith repeatedly as an
authority on this and other topics. In the Poverty of Philosophy, for example, he
rebukes Proudhon for denying that Smith had ‘the slightest idea of the drawbacks
produced by the division of labour’ (Marx, 1969 [1847]: 129). He also quotes
Smith extensively for his observations on the moral, intellectual and social effects of
specialization (1977 [1867–94], I: 342; 1969 [1847]: 131).
But the affinity between Marx and Smith is limited. Smith registers the
drawbacks of specialization but never recommended any revision in specialization
functions. Instead he makes clear that its attendant problems could be solved
within existing social and political arrangements. And contrary to Marx, Smith
regards specialization, and the social inequality it perpetuates and entrenches, as a
natural, inevitable and socially adaptive process.
22
Social order is seen as a direct func-
tion of a well-structured system of rank distinctions (1976 [1759], VI.ii.1.21: 226).
Such distinctions are structurally indispensable because they provide a vital spur to
industry via the mechanism of invidious comparison.
23
Another important point of divergence relates to their differing conceptions
of labour. In Marx’s formulation humans are innately disposed to the enjoyment of
work; it forms part of their basic make-up and, under ideal conditions, gives their
lives dignity and meaning. He wrote that where work is performed in a ‘human
manner’, it constitutes ‘a free expression of my life’.
24
Smith, on the other hand, thought people had a natural ‘hatred of labour’
and a love of ‘present ease and enjoyment’ (1979 [1776], V.i.b.2: 709). Work sel-
dom has intrinsic value, job satisfaction is rare and the primary motivation for
most is pecuniary (1979 [1776], I. XI. 9: 266). There is no hint that labour could
ever lead to human flourishing or self-realization because Smith has a far more
narrow conception of happiness and human flourishing than does Marx. Strange
as this may seem given the apparent seriousness of his account of its effects on
individual workers, Smith sees the mind-numbing effects of the division of labour
as of relatively low importance in the grand scheme of things.
Although the state of ‘savagery’ that he appears to idealize is a state of rela-
tive equality and autonomy, Smith does not take us in the direction we might have
anticipated. Predicting his reader’s assumption, Smith notes that, although we might
‘expect . . . that the savage should be much better provided than the dependent poor
man who labours both for himself and for others’, in fact ‘the case is far otherwise’
(1978a (A), 26: 340; see also 1979 [1776], I.viii.1–2: 82). Instead, he invites his
reader to compare the forlorn poverty of the ‘savage’ age with the ‘general security
and happiness that prevails in the ages of civility and politeness’ (1976 [1759],
V.2.8–9: 205) and notes that ‘[i]n the midst of so much oppressive inequality’ even
the ‘lowest and most despised member of civilized society’ enjoys a level of ‘affluence
and abundance’ far superior to ‘the most respected and active savage’ (1978b: 564).
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Smith was also far from believing that the subordinating power of special-
ization was total, suggesting that workers might be free to become their own ‘mas-
ters’; to leave the factory system and set up on their own. Although such cases were
rare (about one in 20), they did exist (1979 [1776], I.viii.9–10: 83). Further, at a
more general social level, the entire system of commercialism (of which the division
of labour is an integral part) generates great levels of liberty and independence for
all members of society, including the working poor (1978a (A) vi.46–9: 348–9).
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the division of labour delivers security and is
the source of almost all of the growth, progress and prosperity of the commercial
age (1979 [1776], I.i.10–111: 22–4; Lavezzi, 2003: 82–9; Loasby, 1996). This is
significant because, for Smith, the happy society is the prosperous, materially abun-
dant society (1976 [1759], III.5.7: 166; I.iii.2.1: 51; 1979 [1776], I.Viii.36: 96).
In general, Smith took the view that whatever makes a country rich (and the div-
ision of labour does this better than anything else) inevitably enriches the poor also
and is, therefore, in the long view, to their benefit (1978a (B), 212–13: 489–90; see
also 1978b: 563–4). Thus, on balance, and despite its extensive ill effects, the div-
ision of labour yields more, rather than less, human happiness.
Another key difference from Marx is Smith’s attitude to the social effects of
specialization. Though it is doubtless hyperbole to claim that Smith perceives the
whole process of detail factory work as a ‘coherent, positive and constructive social
process’ (West, 1969: 1–23), he does see it as having many deeply positive social
aspects. Even though the division of labour erodes individual intellectual capacity,
on the one hand, on the other, it enhances the general intelligence of the society.
25
And, rather than inducing the isolated and alienated society (as per Marx and even
Ferguson), Smith argued that specialization generates a new and more reliable
form of interdependence, thereby enhancing social harmony and order.
Although technical specialization is a rationalistic and intentional develop-
ment, it has a felicitous and highly adaptive unintended consequence. In an excur-
sus comparing human and animal traits, Smith explains that other species are
destined to lead solitary lives because they are unable to divide their labour. Conse-
quently, as Milton Myers has observed, they ‘cannot form systems of mutual rela-
tions and needs’ (1967: 438). Humans, by contrast, do know how to specialize and
then to trade the products of their specializations. This leads to increased inter-
action and impersonal inter-dependence (Smith, 1979 [1776], I.ii: 30), creating
‘mutual need and therefore social cohesion’ (1978a (A), vi.46–9: 348–9; 1979
[1776], I.ii.1–3: 25–7).
26
Smith’s attitude to the division of labour, though depreciative in parts, does
not share in Marx’s (or Ferguson’s) deeper negativity. Specialization does not
undermine social solidarity but rather transforms the quality and means of interde-
pendence while at the same time enhancing personal and private independence.
27
The division of labour enhances social life precisely because it is a key cause of the
dissolution of those charitable, philanthropic, paternalistic and dependent relation-
ships Smith disparaged. In order to obtain their wants and secure the co-operation
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of their fellows, agents no longer have to resort to the demeaning and unreliable
method of ‘servile and fawning attention to obtain [the] good will’ of others but
are increasingly independent, paradoxically, because each ‘stands at all times in need
of the co-operation and assistance of great multitudes’ as opposed to a single patron
or overlord. The ability of humans to specialize and exchange the products of this
specialization makes them ‘mutually beneficiall to each other’ (1978a (A), vi.46–9:
348–9). By this means mass commercial society is held together (1979 [1776],
I.ii.1–3: 25–7). Thus, in terms of the social effects of specialization, Smith is best
thought of as a precursor, not of Marx, but of the tradition later promulgated
by such thinkers as Spencer, Durkheim
28
and the Austrian school of economics
(especially Hayek) in which specialization is posited as an adaptive, integrating force
rather than as a destructive and disintegrating one.
29
From Smith’s point of view, the main problem with the adverse effect of the
division of labour is not ‘alienation’ or the imminent collapse of commercialism itself
but its entirely ameliorable consequences for public order and personal comport-
ment. Smith regarded this problem as soluble within prevailing social relations. To
this end he advocated the establishment of a compulsory and publicly funded school
system to inculcate patterns of civility suitable for market society subjects (1979
[1776], V.i.i.5–6: 815; V.i.f.57: 786). He suggests that at a ‘very small expense the
public can facilitate . . . encourage, and . . . even impose upon almost the whole body
of the people, the necessity of acquiring those most essential parts of education’,
namely reading, writing and accounting (1979 [1776], V.i.f.54: 785). This publicly
funded education plan is mainly directed towards the working poor, who, unlike the
governing classes, do not have the time or resources to undertake it for themselves
(1979 [1776], II.V.i.f.46–53: 780–6). A basic education will make a people ‘more
capable of seeing through the interested complaints of faction and sedition’ (1979
[1776], V.i.f.61: 788; 1976 [1759]: 249). Further, educated people are ‘more
respectable’ and orderly because more inclined to acknowledge the authority of their
‘lawful superiors’(1979 [1776], V.i.g.61: 788). Thus, the ‘state derives no inconsid-
erable advantage’ from the ‘instruction’ of the working poor due to its projected pos-
itive effect on political and social tranquillity (1979 [1776], V.i.f.61: 788).
Predictably, Marx ridiculed Smith’s relatively modest solution as merely
‘homeopathic’ (1977 [1867–94], I.: 342). However, from Smith’s point of view,
it would have seemed perfectly adequate because ‘alienation’ is really too strong a
word for the problem he is addressing. The fact that he sees the difficulty as one
of public order rather than as a total social and individuo-psychic pathology that
threatens the very basis of society certainly points to this. But even more telling is
the fact that he perceives it as internally soluble whereas, for Marx, the state ‘is
constitutive of alienation’ and cannot, therefore, act as the medium through
which alienation can be remedied (Drosos, 1996: 328).
On balance, then, it is probably fair to say that Smith sees the adverse effects
of specialization more as ‘inconveniences’ (1978a (A), 328: 539) than anything
else and they are far outweighed by the benefits. Contrary to claims that Smith
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regarded the effects of specialization as a threat to the entire future of commercial
societies, it is unlikely that he perceives the retrogressive state as a likely event
(1979 [1776], V.i.a.43: 708; III.I.9: 380).
30
Such complacency on Smith’s part is consistent with his general faith that
the universe is a generally self-correcting and equilibrating natural order. His entire
body of work testifies to a sanguine belief that, on balance, the world is neatly and
propitiously ordered despite any negative (but generally correctable) side-effects of
that order (Hill, 2004. In particular, the intellectually and morally debilitating
effects of specialization are naturally offset by the more general gains in knowledge
and refinement brought about that same process. Smith’s biographer Dugald
Stewart described the former’s reasoning thus:
The extensive propagation of light and refinement ... aided by the spirit of
commerce, seems to be the remedy provided by nature, against the fatal
effects which would otherwise be produced, by the subdivision of labour
accompanying the progress of the mechanical arts.
(1980: 313, my emphasis)
Adam Ferguson on the Division of Labour
Adam Ferguson’s exposition of the nature, development and effects of specialization
merits special attention because he is thought to have been the first thinker to pro-
vide a critique of commercialism based on alienation effects. These prescient obser-
vations have been partly responsible for his reputation as a parent of 19th-century
sociology (e.g. Hill, 1996; Lehmann, 1930). Ferguson was less interested than Smith
in the economic effects
31
of specialization, focusing instead on its social conse-
quences. His analysis was more sociologically rich than Smith’s and he seems more
attuned to ‘the revolution in production and social life that was occurring around
him’ (Brewer, 1989: 29).
32
In fact, it is likely that Ferguson’s work constitutes the
first fully developed sociological account of the effects of specialization
(Swingewood, 1984: 23).
33
It has been said that ‘Ferguson’s pages on the division
of labour are a minor triumph of eighteenth century sociology’ (Gay, 1970, II:
342–3) and that he ‘definitely anticipates, if it does not influence in order, St. Simon,
Comte, Spencer and Durkheim’ (Lehmann, 1930: 187). Marx quoted Ferguson
approvingly, identifying him as the progenitor of the theory of ‘alienation’. In his ‘lit-
erary survey’ of figures in the intellectual history of the idea, Marx decrees that, con-
trary to received opinion, Ferguson has priority over Smith, Say, Lemontey and
others in being the first to systematically outline the bad effects of specialization
(Marx, 1969 [1847]: 129–30).
34
Marx acknowledges his debt to Ferguson’s obser-
vation that the division of labour narrows intellectual and therefore civic capacities
(1977 [1867–94], I.: 334) and identifies him as the originator of the argument that
‘in order to make the collective labourer, and through him capital, rich in social pro-
ductive power, each labourer must be made poor in individual productive powers’
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(1977 [1867–94], I: 341; 342).
35
We would thus expect Ferguson to have more in
common with Marx than with Smith.
Ferguson begins his treatment of specialization by implicitly challenging
Adam Smith’s explanation of the source of specialization. Smith had located the
origin of the division of labour in a peculiar human instinct to ‘truck barter and
exchange’ (1979 [1776], I: 25). Ferguson, by contrast, bases the tendency to spe-
cialize labour functions upon natural human diversity coupled with certain envir-
onmental factors, namely the enormous variety of situations and obstacles
confronted in the range of human experience (1792, I: 246).
Something that seems to have escaped Marx’s attention is that Ferguson was
extremely ambivalent about the division of labour. Paradoxically, the division of
labour was both the cause and product of progress yet it operated, at the same time,
as a key source of retrogression, especially in its effect on statecraft, martial and polit-
ical disposition and defence capability (Ferguson, 1996a [1767]: 206–7). He notes
with cautious enthusiasm the tremendous advantages attributable to specialization:
an increasing accumulation of wealth, a growing population and an infinitely expand-
ing refinement in artistic skills. He also makes clear that the division of labour is cen-
tral to human progress, since it is productive of wealth and prosperity (Ferguson,
1996a [1767]: 173–4; 1978 [1769]: 31–2; 1996b: 141). Yet he also holds simultan-
eously to the less enchanted view that modern commercial society, while affording
many advantages, is yet the scene of what late-modern thinkers would label ‘alien-
ation’, particularly in its alienation from ‘species-being’, process alienation and social
alienation variations, the primary cause of which is the social and work-function div-
ision of labour. Ferguson noted with disdain that Britain was fast becoming a mere
‘company of manufacturers, where each is confined to a particular branch, and sunk
into the habits and peculiarities of his trade. . . . We furnish good work; but educate
men, gross, sordid, void of sentiment and manners’ (1756: 12). Those involved in
factory labour had become mindless cogs in a vast machine.
Many mechanical arts … require no capacity; they succeed best under a
total suppression of sentiment and reason .... manufactures prosper most
where the mind is least consulted, and where the workshop may...be con-
sidered as an engine, the parts of which are men.
(1996a [1767]: 174)
Commercial forms of production impugn Ferguson’s ideal of meaningful
work whereby people ‘are bound to no task . . . are left to follow the disposition
of the mind, and to take that part in society, to which they are led by the senti-
ments of the heart, or by the calls of the public’ (1996a [1767]: 176). This ideal
was reiterated and developed by Marx.
… in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activ-
ity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society
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regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do
one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the
afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a
mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.
(Marx and Engels, 1978: 160)
One highly original aspect of Ferguson’s discussion – which draws him closer
to Marx as it distances him from Smith
36
– was his observation that both the social
division of labour and the technical separation of tasks lead to social alienation. While
it seems ‘to promise’ national wealth and ‘improvement of skill’, in reality, special-
ization erodes that most precious commodity: moral community. The division of
labour leads inevitably to centralization and bureaucratization, both of which ten-
dencies limit a person’s inclination and capacity to be civically active (1996: 179).
‘The members of a community may . . . be made to lose the sense of every connec-
tion . . . and have no common affairs to transact but those of trade . . . in which the
national spirit . . . cannot be exerted’ (1996a [1767]: 208).
37
In this regard Ferguson
seems to foreshadow the notion of social alienation described by Marx as the separ-
ation between society and the state that inevitably takes place in commercial societies
(Drosos, 1996: 328). Whereas in pre-commercial societies, shared defence responsi-
bilities made ‘the public’ a cosy ‘knot of friends’ (Ferguson, 1996a [1767]: 208),
specialized commercial agents are isolated and separated by their lack of martial val-
our, their individuated desires for ‘riches’ and their deep ‘aversion to danger’ (1996a
[1767]: 231). Attention is gradually diverted from public concerns as people are
drawn into the private realm of commerce and manufacturing. Ferguson notes that
work specialization alienates people ‘from the common scene of occupation, on
which the sentiments of the heart, and the mind, are most happily employed’, with
the effect that eventually ‘society is made to consist of parts, of which none is ani-
mated with the spirit of society itself’ (1996a [1767]: 207). Political demobilization
leads to a generalized political incompetence, and when these circumstances combine
with the alienating effects of over-extension and the enervation brought on by idle-
ness and luxury, civic virtue and national strength are imperilled.
We have seen that Smith believed that a well-developed system of divided
labour tended to generate a kind of organic solidarity. Ferguson disagreed: humans
are naturally (and exclusively) co-operative beings, able to ‘unite their labours for
some common purpose, and distribute the burdens of the community according to
some rule of instinct or reason’ (1978 [1769]: 22). Specialized work destroys this
capacity. Ferguson describes the emergence of a division of labour between ‘manual
and mental labour’ whereby those employed in manual labour come to be debased
by it. The specialized worker becomes oblivious to any concerns outside her/his
own narrow work sphere as labour becomes more mechanical. Specialization ‘con-
tract[s] and limit[s] the views of the mind’ making workers unfit for public duties
(1996a [1767]: 174–5, 206–7).
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Ferguson also thought that commercial power relations were far from ideal.
He readily acknowledged the economic exploitation of workers and agreed with
Smith that rank distinctions and class inequalities (though originating with the
development of private property) are reinforced and entrenched via specialization.
In other words, work specialization exacerbates a social division of labour charac-
terized by imbalances in wealth, power and status (1996a [1767]: 178, 175, 235).
38
Ferguson expresses some sympathy for the labouring ‘classes’ and seems to
accept that commercial relations are inherently exploitative. For example, laws in-
tended to protect the poor may actually serve to preserve property inequalities
(1996a [1767]: 151). The work conditions of the labouring poor are less than ideal.
The majority are forced to labour for the benefit of the few (1996a [1767]: 229);
their work is uninteresting and mind-numbing (1996a [1767]: 173–5), and ‘the
genius of the master . . . is cultivated, while that of the inferior workman lies waste’
(1996a [1767]: 175). The intellectual capacities of ‘tradesmen’ are inferior to
those of a ‘savage’, while ‘the minds’ of those who occupy the ‘more liberal stations
of life’ are permitted to ‘profi[t]’ by exemption from inferior cares and anx-
ieties’(1996b: 144). Ferguson also acknowledges that, in commercial states, ‘the ex-
altation of the few’ tends to ‘depress the many’ (1996a [1767]: 177),
39
that the lives
of ‘manual’ workers are ‘sacrificed’ to their trades (1996b: 145), and that some
commercial ‘occupations’ are even ‘more debasing than slavery’. He further hints
that he is prepared to entertain a radical solution to the problem when he says that
‘the separation of tasks is intended for . . . the benefit of mankind in general’ and that
should it ever ‘become prejudicial to human nature . . . no doubt it should be
stopped’ (1996b: 142).
Ferguson’s outline of the dehumanizing consequences of specialization on
workers thus seems to foreshadow Marx’s discourse on the same subject. At times
the affinity with Marx is remarkable, with the development of ideas, in places, almost
as fully realized (Hamowy, 1986: 87). Partly because of his critique of specialization,
it has even been suggested that Ferguson ‘prophesied an inevitable decline’ after
societies had reached the commercial stage (Hont, 1983: 296). But Ferguson’s
remarks, though clearly anticipatory, should not be interpreted as thoroughly proto-
Marxist, as some scholars have suggested (e.g. Pascal, 1938; Rosenberg, 1965: 127;
Lehmann, 1974; Meek, 1967). It should be borne in mind that Ferguson’s interest
in specialization is sparked by classical (i.e. civic humanist) themes. The sociological
impression is brought about by his application of an antique diagnostic tradition to
the novel problems of a rapidly expanding market society. Thus, his concern with
‘alienation’ might be thought of as an ingenious contemporary adaptation of the
Stoic interest in virtue, community, social intimacy and the mechanisms of solidary
association rather than as a proto-Marxist polemic against ‘capitalism’.
Like Smith, Ferguson never recommends any reversal in the evolution of
specialization, and unlike Marx – possibly exaggerating his own affinity with
Ferguson (e.g. Marx, 1977 [1867–94], I: 334) – he regards specialization as a
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perfectly natural development originating in our natural diversity and in our
inventive, progressive faculties (Ferguson, 1996a [1767]: 174). Ultimately, he has
a tendency to see the world from the perspective of elites, reserving his greatest
sympathy for the leisure classes suffering from the apparent torments of boredom
and ennui brought on by modernity. As he wrote somewhat perversely:
We misapply our compassion in pitying the poor; it were much more justly
applied to the rich, who become the first victims of that wretched insignifi-
cance, into which the members of every state, by the tendency of their
weaknesses, and their vices, are in haste to plunge themselves.
(1996a [1767]: 246)
Ferguson regards economic exploitation as an inevitable feature of mass
commercial states (1996a [1767]: 177, 225) and notes the unpleasant facts of
commercial life with regret and occasional
40
– but not sustained – condemnation.
The division of labour has drawbacks but it also has many benefits. While it is true
that specialized labour ‘suppress[es]’ the ‘human faculties’ of detail labourers, it
nevertheless permits the minds of others to be ‘raised and invigorated’, thereby
contributing to a more generalized ‘enlargement of knowledge’. As Ferguson
muses philosophically: ‘[T]he lot of man is never free of inconvenience, so the
inconvenience he suffers is never deprived of all compensation’ (1792, I: 251).
Ferguson’s account of rank distinctions thus embodies no serious critique of
class. Class distinctions are located in natural inequalities which are unavoidable,
therefore Ferguson rebukes that ‘absurdity of pretension to equal influence and con-
sideration after the characters of men have ceased to be similar’ (1996a [1767]: 179).
Even Smith had denied that such inequalities were rooted in natural differences;
nevertheless they agreed that subordination is not only necessary to society and the
attainment of the ‘ends of government’ but is immanent in the ‘order established by
nature’. According to Ferguson, people ‘are fitted to different stations’; therefore
‘they suffer no injustice on the side of their natural rights’ when ‘classed’ accordingly
(1996a [1767]: 63–4).
Unlike Marx, Ferguson’s critical exposition of specialization contains no
extensive calls for reform. And, like Smith, he thought that the problems of spe-
cialization could be solved within existing social conditions (Waszek, 1983: 56).
While his diagnosis of the pitfalls of proto-industrialization has clear Marxian
implications, the normative implications, for Ferguson, are quite different. He has
quite a lot in common with Marx from a descriptive point of view and this is prob-
ably why he has so often been misread as hostile to the division of labour and ‘cap-
italist’ relations in general. But it is very clear that, from a normative point of view,
he and Marx share very little in common.
Furthermore, Ferguson’s chief concern lies not with the degradation and
economic exploitation of workers, which he readily concedes, but with the effects
of specialization upon civic virtue in statesmen. What proto-Marxist readings of
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Ferguson may fail to appreciate is that, unlike Marx, Ferguson thought that it was
the ruling classes, the statesmen and military leaders, who bore the worst effects
of specialization.
For Ferguson, the most dangerous separation in functions is that which
occurs between soldier and statesman; roles which are otherwise ‘naturally’ con-
joined. Ferguson conceives this split as creating a kind of schism in the human psy-
che (Forbes, 1967a: 45). To separate ‘the arts of policy and war, is an attempt to
dismember the human character’ (1996a [1767]: 230). Moreover, a statesman
‘ignorant of war’ is about as useful to the defence of a state as a ‘mariner’ who is
‘unacquainted with variable winds and storms’ (1996b: 148).
In contrast to Smith, Ferguson regards the militarily specialized state as the
insecure and imperilled state (1792, II: 492). Further, while Ferguson certainly
approved of formal systems of justice and police, he was not altogether convinced
that this secured personal safety and property any better than the methods used
by ‘rude’ subjects who relied on spontaneous ‘maxims of generosity and honour’
to ‘prevent the commission of wrongs’ (1996a [1767]: 104).
Security was not Ferguson’s only concern. The neglect of the military skill
of citizens threatened the virtue and moral character of British subjects. Although
production is greatly enhanced by specialization, it also brings with it the danger-
ous tendency to ‘educate men . . . who may be pillaged, insulted, and trod upon
by the enemies of their country’ (1756: 12). The spirit and virtue of nations is
‘considerably impaired’ where the civil and military character has become separated
(1834 [1783]: 183; 1996a [1767]: 145–6, 225; 1756, passim). Ferguson regarded
the modern professional soldier as defective because morally, technically and men-
tally fragmented. It is all very well for the skills and manners of people to be
improved in the course of specialization, but when that same specialization leads to
a corrupt state the price cannot be worth paying. The average trader may find that
while ‘his’ manners are greatly enhanced by modernity, he suffers the loss of the
all-important martial virtues. The trade-off is a zero-sum game because the mer-
chant made rich by specialization has all the polite virtues but none that would
enable him to ‘defend his acquisitions’ (1996a [1767]: 242–3; 1792: 302). Martial
virtue is not the only value at stake. Because specialization is productive of wealth
it encourages ‘such vices as avarice, luxury and jealousy’ (Mizuta, 1981: 814; see
also Ferguson, 1996a [1767]: 140). In terms of the costs of specialization, it is
virtue, rather than ‘alienation’, that is the real focus of Ferguson’s attention.
41
Adam Smith expressed a similar regret at the dismemberment of human character
brought about by specialization, but he was more concerned about the division of
labour’s effect on order and intelligence than on martial or political virtues. This,
Nicholas Phillipson suggests (1983: 181), locates him outside the civic tradition
42
that Ferguson seems so reluctant to abandon.
Hiroshi Mizuta suggests that Smith’s views on national defence differ from
Ferguson’s because the former ‘has no dilemma of wealth and strength’ (1981: 815).
According to Smith, professional armies were more capable and efficient, and better
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protectors of liberty than militias (1979 [1776], V.i.a.: 23; 28; 39).
43
Despite his
shrill declamation against the effects of specialization on martial virtue, he staunchly
advocated the use of standing armies (1979 [1776], V.i.a–b, 44: 708).
44
After he
outlined these views in the Wealth of Nations, Ferguson wrote him a strong letter in
which he pointed out that although he supported many of Smith’s views, he drew
the line at those relating to standing armies (Ferguson in Smith, 1987: 193–4).
In any case, it is significant that, except for his limited militia scheme, and in
spite of any hint to the contrary, Ferguson never recommends any kind of roll-back
in specialization functions because in the end he is thinks it is beneficial; a key gen-
erator of the natural course of progress and therefore productive of wealth and pros-
perity (1996a [1767]: 173–4; 1978 [1769]: 31–2). He does propose a number of
remedies to the problem of worker ‘alienation’, but they are quite modest ones.
This modesty underlines three key differences with Marx: firstly, Ferguson is far less
concerned about the pernicious effect of specialization than Marx; secondly, his
main concern is with the threat to virtue rather than worker ‘alienation’; and, finally,
his interest lies more with the welfare of elites than with that of workers.
The most important of Ferguson’s remedial reforms is the institution of a
citizen militia, which he believed to be the best chance of restoring civic virtue while
in no way impairing productivity (1995, I: 228). Ferguson suggests that soldiering
should be singled out and exempted from the normal course of task specialization,
recommending instead a ‘union of departments’ to avoid the ‘ruinous ignorance’
which always leads to corruption (1996b: 141–51). So, while the division of labour
is a generally positive development, there is one arena of life that must be carefully
quarantined from its effects: the art of war. Ferguson is committed, simultaneously,
to wealth and virtue, apparently believing that it is possible, after all, to accommo-
date the two primary goals of a state: security and prosperity.
45
Ferguson also suggests that, in order to reinvigorate civic spirit and com-
petence, governments could justifiably insert some kind of remedial educational
programme into the existing school curriculum. Though he is quite vague here,
this seems to have consisted in a form of citizenship training with an emphasis on
martial virtue (1996b: 150). Another solution aimed at revitalizing civic virtue is
the encouragement of political activism and conflict.
46
Political faction fighting
preserves the vitality of the polity by providing postures and roles for ‘the scene
that is prepared for the instruction of its members’ (1792, I: 267). So long as fac-
tional conflict is tolerated, accommodated and perhaps even encouraged, there will
always be ‘wise establishments’ advantageous to ‘Liberty and Just Government’
(1756: 2).
Despite the critical tone of Ferguson’s discourse on specialization, his atti-
tude, like Smith’s, is ultimately conservative. For Ferguson, the pursuit of the
commercial arts is not only a natural expression of innate ambition but ‘consti-
tute[s] a material part, in the exercise of those faculties in which human nature is
destined to improve’ (1792: 253–5). Ferguson sought to avoid revisionism in any
of the causes of ‘corruption’ he identified because they were the products of our
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otherwise positive and progressive natural drives. The study of nature’s laws shows
us that history has its own rationale; the laws of spontaneous order demonstrate
the naturalness and inevitability of gradual progress and the corresponding in-
advisability of radical reform (1792, II: 497).
This brings us to another important commonality with Smith (and therefore
divergence from Marx): Smith and Ferguson are spontaneous order theorists and
Marx is not.
47
Accordingly, both Scots regard specialization as ultimately ‘consistent
with a structure of social-co-operation in which both individual interests and the
exertions of independent producers are directly linked to society’s welfare through
the working of the unintended social outcomes mechanism’ (Fiori and Pesciarelli,
1999: 98). Even though they have different explanations for the origins of the div-
ision of labour, both see it as a basically benign, inevitable and even purposeful
development, the end result of a natural and logical developmental stadial process
(Ferguson, 1996a [1767]: 80–1).
48
Both thinkers are thus ideologically committed
to the historical process that brings forth commercialism because it is not only nat-
ural but ordained by a beneficent Creator.
49
Marx, on the other hand, while per-
ceiving the commercial stage as historically inevitable, nevertheless sees it as an
economic stage that should and would be transcended.
Furthermore (and this is also a constraint on the present comparative
analysis), the two sets of writers lived and wrote in distinct periods. In the 19th
century Marx was writing about a far more oppressive, impersonal and disem-
powering system of technical specialization. He makes the distinction between
‘manufacture’ and ‘modern industry’ thus:
In Manufacture it is the workmen who, with their manual implements,
must, either singly or in groups, carry on each particular detail process. If
the workman becomes adapted to the process … the process was previ-
ously made suitable to the workman. This subjective principle of the div-
ision of labour no longer exists in production by machinery. Here, the
process as a whole is examined objectively … without regard to the ques-
tion of its execution by human hands. … The implements of labour in the
form of machinery necessitate the substitution of natural forces for human
force, and the conscious application of science, instead of the rule of
thumb … the labourer becomes a mere appendage to an already existing
material condition of production.
(1977 [1867–94], I: 359; 364; see also 1977 [1867–94], IV: 1317–8
and Ricoy, 2003)
Whereas Marx, living in the 19th century, was writing of a far more de-
veloped and therefore more destructive source of alienation (‘modern industry’), in
the 18th century (as Marx himself points out in 1977 [1867–94], IV: 751), Smith
and Ferguson were still writing about a less malign form of ‘manufacture’ in which
workers might still have some control over the methods employed (e.g. Smith, 1979
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[1776], I.i.7: 20). Even so, it is likely that, due to their broader ideological, intel-
lectual and moral commitments as outlined above, were they all writing contempor-
aneously, the Scots’ conclusions would have been roughly the same and therefore
normatively divergent from Marx’s.
Concluding Remarks
The Scots’ respective approaches to specialization embody a number of important
contrasts: Ferguson is far more critical of the division of labour and of commer-
cialism in general and provides more extensive remedies than does Smith. Whereas
Smith sees the division of labour as socially integrating – in the tradition of Spencer,
Durkheim and Hayek – Ferguson perceives it as having the opposite effect – in the
tradition of Marx, Hegel and Comte. And unlike Smith, Ferguson does not per-
ceive the professionally defended state as more secure than the avocationally de-
fended one. Though both point to the individuo-psychic, martial and moral effects
of specialization, Ferguson identifies more ‘alienation effects’ than does Smith,
extending his analysis to its social and political forms. Further, whereas Smith’s
main concern seems to be with public order, Ferguson’s lies with virtue and secur-
ity. Finally, Ferguson was more inclined to view the social division of labour as a
function of natural inequalities and he was far more interested in the moral welfare
of elites than was Smith.
Ferguson’s greater pessimism is what makes his analysis so sociologically
rich and seems, superficially, to push him closer to Marx than to Smith. Certainly
Marx found more in Ferguson to inspire him and seems to have regarded
Ferguson as the more radical thinker. But while Smith was by no means oblivious
to the negative aspects of the division of labour, he seems more complacent about
its long-term effects due to its ability to secure economic prosperity and personal
autonomy. Whereas Ferguson wants to serve both wealth and virtue, Smith’s rela-
tive optimism locates him squarely in the ‘wealth’ camp of the 18th-century
‘wealth–virtue’ debate (e.g. Hont and Ignatieff, 1983). It was this loyalty that
subsequently secured his position as a founding parent of modern economics.
But an important similarity relates to the fact that, however adverse spe-
cialization might appear to be, both thinkers are ultimately committed to com-
mercialism and the exponential progress of human society it brings with it.
Progress is inevitable and the conveniences it affords are morally indifferent
(Ferguson, 1996a [1767]: 232–4). Claims that either expected the division of
labour to destroy the commercial age are exaggerated, if not incorrect. Similarly,
suggestions that either anticipated Marx are obviously textually accurate because
Marx himself cites them as debts, particular when referring to fragmentation of the
labour process, the intellectual costs of specialization and even exploitation. But
such claims are substantively inflated, partly because Marx himself seems to have
over-estimated his affinity with them (particularly Ferguson). Though it is true
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that, from a descriptive point of view, they anticipated his views about the psychic
and moral effects of factory labour (and in Ferguson’s case, the work process, social
and political alienation effects), their normative conclusions about these effects are
vastly different. Further, as we have seen, although both anticipated Marxian-like
theories of alienation, neither regarded these alienation effects as the most import-
ant consequence of specialization. For Smith, the main problem at hand is order,
whereas for Ferguson, it is virtue and military security.
50
Partly because they are both spontaneous order thinkers (as well as optimistic
Deists), Smith and Ferguson converge in the view that alienation effects can be
solved institutionally by a wise bourgeois state, not through transcending it, nor
through any other such far-reaching social reform as Marx proposed. Neither re-
garded the basic structure or dynamics of market society as inherently objectionable
and, despite surface appearances, neither was troubled enough about worker exploit-
ation to propose any extensive solution such as a global revisionism in specialization
functions or a re-organization of social power relations. Despite their obvious aware-
ness of the noxious aspects of advanced commercial societies, they perceived the rela-
tionship of detail workers to ‘capital’ as symbiotic rather than antagonistic. Though
both expressed regret at the relations of subordination and exploitation exacerbated
by specialization, in terms of their ultimate commitments, both concluded that the
social division of labour was an adaptive and necessary aspect of mass commercial life
and a product of the laws of spontaneous order. In much the same way, Durkheim,
Spencer and Hayek later relied on open-ended emergence explanations for the
expansion and refinement of the division of labour, hence their correspondingly posi-
tive attitudes to its effects. For example, Durkheim described specialization as an
‘evolution’ that occurs spontaneously and unthinkingly’ (1984 [1893]: 1), while
Spencer wrote that his ‘special purpose has been that of showing how marvelous are
the results indirectly and unintentionally achieved by the cooperation of men who are
severally pursuing their private ends’ (1892, Vol. 3: 130).
51
Whereas for Marx capitalism must be transcended to enable the telos (com-
munism) to prevail, for Smith and Ferguson the end point seems to be commer-
cialism itself and, with it, its characteristic mode of production. And despite the
destructive individuo-psychic effects on workers, both thought that at the social-
systems level the price was worth paying because specialization delivered and sus-
tained the commercial society they regarded as the best possible regime for human
flourishing.
52
Marx, of course, disagreed. Thus, in terms of their ultimate com-
mitments, Smith and Ferguson share more with each other than they do with
Marx because the commercial state (and progress in general) is basically natural
and positive.
Notes
1. The division of labour is defined here as both specialization in employment (social differentiation and
co-operation) and specialization in the more technical sense of ‘the process of manufacture’ (Fiori and
Pesciarelli, 1999: 98). Within the latter sense it may be further broken down into specialization ‘within
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firms, by a reduction of the range of tasks of individual workers, and among firms, by the creation
of new firms and sectors undertaking certain phases of the production process’ (Lavezzi, 2003: 82).
2. Bernard Mandeville is thought to be the first to use the term ‘division of labour’ (Brewer, 1989: 17).
Samuel Pufendorf and Francis Hutcheson were also interested in the idea (Skinner, 1995: 170). It has
been suggested that Smith was inspired by Plato’s treatment of the topic (Foley, 1974: 221–2; for a
reply to Foley, see McNulty, 1975). Another author has even sought the ‘roots’ of Smith’s work in
medieval Persia (Hosseini, 1998).
3. It is probable that Ferguson’s (as well as Smith’s) ideas first came to Marx’s attention via Hegel
(West, 1996: 84–5).
4. Such as: Fiori and Pesciarelli (1999); Foley (1974); Groenewegan (1977); Hosseini, (1998); Meek
and Skinner (1973); Rashid (1986); and Waszek (1983).
5. Specifically on the question of whether there is a discrepancy between views expressed in Books
I and IV of the Wealth of Nations, see, for example, Rosenberg (1965); West (1964); and more
recently: Drosos (1996) and West (1996).
6. Because Marx never organized his thoughts systematically on the topic of ‘alienation’, the term is
understood broadly in terms of its measures and forms: powerlessness, isolation, exploitation, self-
estrangement, alienation from species-being, social alienation, product alienation and process
alienation.
7. For example, Waszek (1983) and especially Milton Myers (1967: 435) in his perception that both
Smith and Ferguson see division of labour as a uniting principle. For the Scots as an assumed uni-
fied school, see, for example, Meek (1967).
8. There were many ‘fault-lines’ or disagreements among the various thinkers, some of which have
been canvassed in Hill (2006). John Robertson (2000: 47–8) has urged a greater awareness of
‘potential fault lines within Scottish moral philosophy’, drawing special attention to the eccen-
tricity of Ferguson’s work.
9. According to Vernon Foley (1974), Smith took the pin factory example from the French Encyclopédie.
10. Hamowy (1968: 255–5) has suggested that Smith was referring not to any plagiarism regarding
his analysis of the sociological effects of the division of labour but rather to Ferguson’s use of the
famous pin factory example.
11. Smith’s lecture notes were discovered and published after Marx’s death.
12. According to John Brewer, ‘Ferguson’s work on the division of labour precedes Smith’s in time and
in sociological content’ (1989: 27).
13. Evidence that an early draft of the Essay on the History of Civil Society already existed at this time
is found in Hume’s letters (Hume, 1932; Mizuta, 1981: 813).
14. In concert with the military advantage afforded by the ‘invention of fire-arms’, which though ‘at
first sight’ might appear to be ‘pernicious . . . is certainly favourable to the permanency and to
the extension of civilization’ (1979 [1776], V.i.a–b.44: 708).
15. Smith uses the male form to refer to all workers. For ease of reference, I follow his usage, but on
the understanding that it applies equally to workers of either gender.
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16. Smith’s assertion seems to have been historically accurate. According to Richard Altick
… we may be fairly sure that by 1780 the national literacy rate was scarcely higher than it had
been during the Elizabethan period. … with altering economic conditions … [o]n an elemen-
tary level, the opportunity for children of the poor to learn to read was sharply curtailed.
(1983: 30–1)
17. Smith defines savage societies as those whose subsistence depends on fishing and hunting.
18. Though the division of labour is not peculiar to commercial nations (1979 [1776], i.3: 27–8), never-
theless it is the only stage at which it is fully developed as both an ‘area of employment and
process of manufacture’ (Meek and Skinner, 1973: 1113).
19. According to W.F. Campbell, Smith regarded the division of labour as ‘an important flaw in the
very pillar of his economic scheme’ (1966: 577; see also Pascal, 1938).
20. As Edward West suggests in his exploration of the alienation theme in Smith and Ferguson (West,
1969: 1–23). It should be noted, though, that West does overlook Smith’s allusions to the rela-
tionship between specialization, exploitation and subordination.
21. Indirectly because Smith and Ferguson probably worked together on the ideas, informally in con-
versation. But, as I note below, Marx gives most of the credit to Ferguson (Marx, 1977 [1867–94],
V.1: 342).
22. Though strictly speaking, Marx also saw the early stages of specialization as a natural conse-
quence of ‘differences of sex and age’ (1977 [1867–94], I: 82, 332, 343).
23. The desire
… to be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency,
and approbation and to emulate the rich ... first prompted [mankind] to cultivate the
ground, to build houses, to found cities and commonwealths, and to invent and improve all
the sciences and arts, which ennoble and embellish life.
(1976 [1759], I.iii.2.2: 50; IV.i.10: 183)
24. David McLellan’s translation of a passage from Marx–Engels Gesamtausgabe (Berlin, 1927), cited
in West (1969: 18–19). See also Marx (1977 [1867–94], I: 458).
25. This is because the highly differentiated society
… is made up of an endlessly variegated number of … activities, and although the worker’s
own personal assignment may be unchallenging and lacking in significant opportunities, the
sum total of the occupations in society presents extraordinary opportunities for the detached
and contemplative philosophers.
(Rosenberg, 1965: 136, 139; see also Winch, 1978: 83)
26. According to Myers, other 18th-century thinkers who held to this view included John Maxwell,
who translated Bishop Cumberland’s De Legibus Naturae, James Harris and Joseph Priestly (Myers,
1967: 432). John Brewer adds James Stewart to this list, but notes that, despite their anticipation
of Durkheim, none are acknowledged by the latter (1989: 17). For a full discussion of Durkheim
on the division of labour, see Perrin (1995).
27. This is very similar to the dynamic described by Durkheim. In Robert Merton’s words, ‘the division of
social labour . . . while it enhances, nay compels, individuation, also occasions an “organic solidarity”
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based upon the interdependences of co-operatively functioning individuals and groups’ (Merton,
1934: 320).
28. Contrary to Kemper’s suggestion that this was a point on which they diverged (1975: 190–1), Smith
actually agreed with Durkheim that the division of labour alone is insufficient to hold society
together. Just as Durkheim insisted on the importance of ‘a community of beliefs and sentiments’
(1984 [1893]: 277), so Smith adverted to the centrality of sympathy and the socially equilibrating
effects of the impartial spectator for maintaining cohesion in mass societies of strangers. Sympathy –
or positive identification – works in concert with the judgments of the impartial spectator in order
to elicit social consensus, ‘tranquility’ and ‘concord’ (1976 [1759], I.i. 4.8–10: 22–3).
29. Although Spencer observes ‘that there are some stultifying psychological effects on narrowly spe-
cialized workers’, by and large he tended to focus on ‘its efficiency and positive effect for indi-
vidual survival and well-being and for providing a structural solution to the intense “struggle for
life” bequeathed by high-density populations’. He was also alert to the ‘organic type of cohesion
made possible by specialization of function and subsequent exchange’ and thought that ‘social
bonds can, and often do, follow exchange relations predicated on a division of labour’. Durkheim
also argued that ‘individuals caught up in a complex division of labour experience a “feeling of
solidarity” – a kind of inter-subjectivity – that confers a ‘coherence among friends’. Finally, the
spontaneous order tradition of the Austrian school of economic exemplified by Hayek saw ‘self-
interest based exchange considerations’ as drawing ‘people together’ (Perrin, 1995: 795).
30. John Brewer has argued that ‘it is indisputable’ that Smith’s attitude to specialization is basically
positive and that his ‘outlines of the deleterious effects of the division of labour are only isolated
passages within a wider account of its economic benefits’ (1987: 14). Ferguson’s attitude is simi-
lar, though slightly less positive (Hill, 1997).
31. Ferguson was happy to cede the field of political economy to Smith and readily acknowledged
the latter’s superior expertise in the area.
32. Similarly Charles Kindleberger (1976: 6) has drawn attention to the fact that Smith is a kind of
literary economist more than anything else because his examples of industrial life are all drawn
from books.
33. John Millar, who followed Smith and Ferguson, is said to have ‘dwelt’ in even ‘greater depth than
Smith or Ferguson on the psychological effects of extreme division of labour’ (Lamb, 1973: 280).
His attitude was generally negative:
In proportion as the operation which they perform is narrow, it will supply them with few
ideas, and according as the necessity of obtaining a livelihood obliges them to double their
industry, they have less opportunity or leisure to procure the means of observation, or to find
topics of reflection.
(Millar, 1803, Vol. 1: 155)
This attitude, however, was not always consistently held (West, 1964: 30).
34. According to Hamowy, Ferguson
… can claim priority over Smith in offering, not an economic analysis of the question which
was original with neither writer, but rather, the first methodological and penetrating socio-
logical analysis, an analysis which was to have far-reaching consequences in intellectual his-
tory by contributing substantially to the sociological groundwork of Marxism.
(Hamowy, 1968: 259)
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35. Smith is also cited as a source in this excursus (Marx, 1977 [1867–94], I: 342).
36. Along with many other thinkers of the 18th century (Brewer, 1989: 18).
37. It has been suggested that Hegel’s exposition of bürgerlich Gesellschaft was also significantly
informed by Ferguson’s analysis (Ferrarotti, 1984: 16).
38. And in which the different economic functions of classes ‘have to be mediated by a market econ-
omy’ (Waszek, 1983: 52).
39. As first noticed by John Brewer (1987).
40. For example, in one of his unpublished essays he expostulates that some occupations are so
debasing that ‘the less there is of this sort, the better . . . subordination however valuable is too
dearly bought by the debasement of any order or class of the people’ (1996b: 142–3).
41. I therefore contest Charles Griswold’s (1999: 293) interpretation of Smith’s critical remarks on the
division of labour as a civic humanist lament on the loss of ‘indispensable’ civic virtue.
42. The textual evidence certainly supports this view. See, for example, Smith (1979 [1776], V.i.f–g: 788).
43. Smith did, however, concede that the standing armies of the Roman republic and Cromwell were
pernicious, but insisted that under ideal conditions, that is, where ‘the sovereign is himself the
general . . . a standing army can never be dangerous to liberty. On the contrary, in some cases it
may be favourable to liberty’ (1979 [1776], II.Vi.a.41: 706–7). For a more detailed discussion on
the relationships of the two Adams here, see Sher (1989).
44. It is worth noting that Smith thought Ferguson had exaggerated their differences. For example,
in his response to Alexander Carlyle’s attack on his views, Smith wrote to Andreas Holt:
When he wrote this book, he had not read mine to the end. He fancies that because I insist
that a Militia is in all cases inferior to a well-regulated and well-disciplined standing Army,
I disapprove of Militias altogether. With regard to that subject, he and I happened to be pre-
cisely of the same opinion.
(Smith, 1987: 251)
45. The traditional opposition between private wealth and public virtue is, he says, a mistaken one.
In fact ‘[h]uman society has great obligations to both’; accordingly it was important to devise insti-
tutional and cultural means which served both sets of concerns (1996a [1767]: 141).
46. Though with the important qualification that conflict could only be beneficial in a mixed consti-
tution such as Britain then enjoyed.
47. This claim is well established in Smith’s case. For a detailed examination of Ferguson’s theory of
spontaneous order, see Hill (1998).
48. Driven by inherent, divinely endued drives (1996a [1767]: 14; 1792, I: 190, 313). While Ferguson
entertains a three-stage schema (‘savage’, ‘barbarous’ and ‘polished’), Smith’s has four stages: ‘There
are four distinct states which mankind passes thro . . . 1st, the Age of Hunters; 2ndly, the Age of
Shepherds; 3rdly, the age of agriculture; and 4thly, the Age of Commerce’ (1978a (A), i.27: 14).
49. For a fuller discussion of the Deistic and teleological nature of both systems, see Hill (1998, 2001,
2004).
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50. Further, neither links the division of labour and his labour theory of value to a theory of profit
involving surplus value, which Marx, of course, does.
51. Hayek’s closeness to the tradition first promulgated by Smith and Ferguson should not be surprising
since he drew explicitly upon their work for inspiration. For further discussion of the tradition of
spontaneous order, see Barry (1982).
52. For a fuller defence of this claim, see Hill (1997 and 2001).
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Dr Lisa Hill is an Associate Professor in Politics at the University of Adelaide. Her current research
interests are in political theory, intellectual history and electoral behaviour. Recent publications include:
The Passionate Society: The Social, Political and Moral Thought of Adam Ferguson (Springer, 2006);
‘Adam Smith and the Theme of Corruption’, Review of Politics 68(4), 2006: 636–62; and ‘Low Voter
Turnout in the United States: Is Compulsory Voting a Viable Solution?’, Journal of Theoretical Politics
18(2), 2006: 207–32.
Address: Associate Professor Lisa Hill, School of History and Politics, University of Adelaide, Adelaide,
Australia 2005. [email: lisa.hill@adelaide.edu.au]
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