The Division of Rationalized Labor

A pathbreaking study of why, paradoxically, workforce specialization and job responsibilities have increased hand in hand.

In the United States and other late-industrial countries, the division of labor has changed radically over the last 150 years. This comes as no surprise: the nature of work has been transformed by new technologies, new discoveries, and new challenges. While the fact of change was predictable, the type of change is not at all as theorists envisioned.

For all their differen...