Abolishing division of labour or making it better?

Abstract

In some of his latest publications, Honneth claims that what is problematic with the contemporary forms of division of labour is that they are not in tune with what the division of labour should be. He endorse a Hegelian-Durkheimian conception of a division of labour as a source of social recognition and solidarity and therefore rejects Marx’s assumption that the division of labour is problematic as such, and therefore should be abolished. In a first step, this article reconstructs Honneth’s central argument. In a second step, it distinguishes different meanings of the very notion of the division of labour. In a third step, it raises two sets of questions: Would it be possible, and legitimate, to try to improve all dimensions of the division of labour, or would a normative conception of the division of labour imply that some of them should be abolished? Should we not use two distinct concepts of division of labour rather that only one?