Division of Labor - Intro to Political Economy, Lecture4

https://sites.duke.edu/intrope/

COURSE OVERVIEW:
Introduction to Political Economy is a self-contained and nontechnical overview of the intellectual history of political economy, the logic of microeconomics, and the definitions used in macroeconomics. It introduces the notion of a political economy, emphasizing the moral and ethical problems that markets solve, and fail to solve.

LECTURE OVERVIEW:
1. Division of Labor: In a production process, the assignment of different parts of a manufacturing process or task to different people in order to improve efficiency. In a society, the acceptance of a complex interdependence based on specialization, requiring that people meet each other’s needs
2. Cooperation Horizon: The set of transactions, exchanges, or mutually beneficial actions that are organized in a jurisdiction. The “extent” of the cooperation horizon encompasses both space and time. So we would want to know how far cooperation extends, and for how long.
3. Markets: Markets are the set of institutions for reducing the transactions costs of impersonal exchange. Need not be a physical space. Involves trading infrastructure of transportation, trust, and transaction. The “extent” of a market comprises both the physical distance over which goods are exchanged and the variety of goods exchanged.
4. Theories of origin(s) of the state: Old Testament (1st Samuel, Chapter 8), Plato, Ibn Khaldun, Hobbes, Rousseau, Weber
5. Adam Smith’s dynamic theory of "division of labor" and the role of markets in fostering division of labor.

READINGS:
Smith, A. The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapters 1-4 (http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN1.html#B.I , Ch.1, Of the Division of Labor)
Durkheim, Emile. 1897. Division of Labor in Society (summary) (http://durkheim.uchicago.edu/Summaries/dl.html )
Munger, Michael. 2015. “Division of Labor.” (http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/DivisionofLabor.html)
Munger, Michael. 2007. “I’ll Stick with These…” (http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2007/Mungerpins.html)

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