The Division Of Labor In The United States

Dictionary.com defines the division of labor as, a production process in which a worker or group of workers is assigned a specialized task in order to increase efficiency. Using information researched in textbooks and online resources, this essay will explain the importance of the division of labor and the importance it has to a capitalist economy like that of the United States. Another speculation that will be covered is how the division of labor can lead to more efficient production.

Division of Labor
Division of labor is basically when a whole process of mass production is broken up into smaller more manageable fragments. These fragments are then assigned to a person or group of people to complete their portion of the whole production
This is because when a task is broken down into many segments, more detail can be paid to that specific segmented task. Alongside of better attention to detail, the task can be done quicker and in a larger quantity. Therefore better quality, bulk production, and less man-hours during production equating to less a worker has to be compensated. A more in-depth observation is to look at the cost to train one person to do five tasks in comparison to the cost to train five people to do one specific task (Smith, 1904). An employer would spend more time and money to train that one person then having to compensate that person for the accrued knowledge and extra work. However, the company could spend less time and money training five workers to do the same task at a higher rate of production due to the segmented production. Although the person trained to do many has the knowledge to compete, one could not compete with five people trained individually to complete each task separately. The time it takes for that one to complete the production cycle, four or more items can be produced at a fraction of the cost. In some cases, it may be more beneficial to have a highly and multi skilled worker than having many specifically and singularly skilled
An example of specialization is plant workers such as General Motors. The workers there have specific jobs on an assembly line in which they perform these repetitive production tasks to guarantee quality and speedy production of a vehicle. An example of division of labor would be that of a dairy farmer that specifically yields milk as a product. Although the farmer could produce and sell milk cheese and butter, the specialization of producing milk is more beneficial to that farmers talents. Foregoing the opportunity cost of producing many milk products to only producing milk. In which the milk could be sold to companies that produce the latter while earning the farmer a double profit for both the milk as an end product and the milk as a ingredient to be further