Division of Labor and Nature

The proposition, in the German Ideology, that Division in Labor, in general, "is based on the natural division of labor in the family", contains a potentially significant problem for Marxism. For, the biochemical interactions and animal instincts that constitute natural reproductive and child-rearing processes are independent of the exploitative social relations of father, mother, and child, that Marx and Engels attribute to them. Thus, by their own proposed generalization, so, too, is the Division of Labor in Capitalism a distortion of natural associations, and a similar argument can be made regarding Class distinctions. Accordingly, Socialism, while transcending private property, does not necessarily dispense with a Division of Labor or Class distinction, despite what they propose in the section 'Private Property and Communism', but as is implied by the later formulation, "From each according to his abilities". Also, the mistaking of the immediately observable for "natural" in the family constitutes a lapse of an otherwise usually careful method concerning social phenomena.