20. Division of Labor: The Miraculous Cornucopia

TODAY, SELF-SUFFICIENCY, FOR the most part, has been replaced by the division of labor. With self-sufficiency, one’s consumption is limited to only that which one produces. As such, consumption is limited primarily to the essentials for survival—namely food and shelter. It is quite obvious that, in self-sufficiency, one’s prosperity is simply the sum of personal production. In a division of labor, one limits one’s own production to specific goods and services and depends on the production by others for the balance of what one desires to consume. The difference between a community where there is a division of labor and one where each person is self-sufficient is that with a division of labor one person’s production is exchanged for that of another. Thus, regardless of the form of labor, one’s production remains the determinant of one’s prosperity, and the sum of each person’s prosperity determines the prosperity of the entire community.

The division of labor allows each person to produce the good or service for which that person is well-suited, thereby increasing that person’s own potential prosperity per unit of effort. It doesn’t matter if one can produce everything better than another person, only that one can produce certain things better than one can produce other things. Bill Gates may be able to develop computer software and also mow his lawn better than his gardener, but both are better off if Gates just develops software and leaves the mowing to his gardener. Thus, enhancing each person’s unique ability to increase individual prosperity enhances the prosperity of the community.