Contradiction and Exploitation

In Dialectical Materialism, Contradiction is Conflict.  Now, Confict is a situation in which there is at least one less good than there are parties that desire it.  In nature, Conflict is usually constituted by Scarcity, and resolved by either the elimination of the excess claimants, or by a distribution of the good among all the claimants.  Artifactual Conflict, e. g. sports competition, is usually resolved in the former manner.  Now, the fundamental target of Marxism, Exploitation, consisting in the enjoyment, by the owner of the means of production, of the product of someone else's labor, can be conceived as a case of Conflict--between those two parties, over the product, resolvable by either exclusive possession or sharing.  However, neither solution in itself addresses the essence of Exploitation--that it is stealing, resolvable, according to Marxism, only by the elimination of private ownership of the means of production.  So, Dialectical Materialism is irrelevant to both the ill that Marxism diagnoses of Capitalism, and its proposed cure.

Division of Labor and Dialectical Materialism

Contradiction is a special case of Differentiation, e. g. red and blue are different, but they are not in conflict with each other.  However, in any Dialectical system, all Differentiation is Contradiction.  Now, Division of Labor entails Differentiation, but not necessarily Contradiction.  Thus, insofar as Marx-Engels adhere to Dialectical Materialism, they cannot adequately represent Division of Labor.

Labor, Theory, Oracle

Marx-Engel's concept of "pure" theory, e. g. "theology, philosophy, ethics", as embodying non-material mental labor, abstracts from one dimension of the production of them--they are communicated, which requires physical exertion of some sort.  Thus, the producers of them have less in common with the priest who performs rituals in order to harness higher powers that can benefit a tribe, e. g. bring rain, than with the oracle, who is a medium of communication between the former and the latter.  But, such communication is still a material act that serves a social function, even if it is merely to prepare for the inevitable.  So, if the purpose of the exposition in these passages in the German Ideology is to correlate fundamental Division of Labor and Mind-Matter Dualism in some way, the presentation is less than convincing.

Division of Labor, Mental, Material

As is the case in several sections of the German Ideology, Marx-Engel's attempt to derive a separation of mental labor from physical labor is methodologically sloppy.  For, it presupposes a distinction of "material" and "mental", that, especially in the context of an apparent subscription to a Materialist concept of Mind, itself requires further elucidation.  Now, one approach to such a derivation that is seemingly consistent with some of the principles of Marxism, is to begin with the concept of Labor, and analyze it as "intelligent motion".  Accordingly, the separation, and its hypostasization, of the latter two terms produces a 'mental-'material' duality, plus, it is also produces a division of Labor.  However, as rigorous and potentially fruitful for Marxism as such a derivation might be, that it is adequate without the concept of Dialectical Materialism likely disqualifies it from serious consideration among Marxists.

Division of Labor and Opposable Thumb

Marx-Engels recognize the sexual act as constituting both the original Division of Labor, and the nucleus of exploitative relations.  Now, regardless of whether or not each of those attributions is accurate, another equally primitive Division of Labor can be found in the human hand, specifically in the distinction between the thumb and the fingers.  More precisely, that distinction is generally characterized as opposition, i. e. the thumb is generally classified as 'opposable'.  But, unlike other oppositions in Marxist Dialectics, this one is not at all antagonistic, nor is it exploitative.  Rather, it is the source of the capacity that makes most of human labor even possible--the grip, without which most tools would not even exist.  So, the exploitative antagonism that they try to attribute to Division of Labor, is not, as they try to establish, inherent in it.

Labor and Contemplation

Marx-Engel's division of material labor from mental labor entails that an activity such as the contemplation of an Idea is a variety of Labor.  However, that classification conflicts with a definition of Labor that seems to govern most Marxist works--'a modification of some matter'.  Furthermore, it prevents Marx-Engels from conceiving a corresponding Class distinction the way Dewey does--that between the Working Class and the Leisure Class.  So, their thesis that the separation of mental labor from material labor is the origin of Division of Labor is not only, as has been previously discussed, poorly grounded, it is systematically incoherent, and undermines some fruitful further development.

Division of Labor, Geometry, Architecture

One of the earliest recorded examples of a separation of what Marx-Engels call, in the German Ideology, "mental" from "material", is Pythagoras' conversion of applied Geometry, e. g. land measurement, to pure Geometry.  But Pythagoras does not maintain that duality.  Rather, he further proposes that 'matter' is nothing but 'mental' entities, i. e. combinations of pure Geometrical figures, a thesis that continues to have influence, from Plato, to Leibniz, and lately among Fractal Geometers.  Now, one prominent recent Pythagorean is Buckminster Fuller, who not only conceives 'matter' to be constituted by triangles, but extends that vision into his own artifacts, i. e. geodesic domes, structures that are actualized by builders. So, Marx-Engels' claim that Division of Labor begins with the separation of mental labor from material labor is far-fetched in several respects.  First, it is sheerly speculative, whereas according to a better-evidenced account, pure mental activity is first separated from applied mental activity, not from merely material activity.  Second, it is not the case that perhaps the most influential Mental ontology in history is part of a Dualism--it is Monistic. And, third, the Architect-Builder division of labor, in which the former is inspired by a purely Mental ontology, is one that is complementary, not antagonistic.  In other words, its history of Division of Labor is another less than compelling theoretical feature of Marxism.