Principles of Macroeconomics / Unit 1 MAC 0004 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Division of Labor
Captions available
The idea
Adam Smith described the division of labor in seventeen seventy-six: split production into separate tasks and give each to a different worker.
In practice
Smith's pin factory split the work into eighteen tasks, and ten specialized workers far outproduced ten working alone.
Where people slip
Division of labor is the first answer to scarcity: the same resources yield more output when the work is divided.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it · Sources for Principles of Macroeconomics