Market Economics and Division of Labor

"As the principle of the division of labor gained ascendency, the market moved into the central place as the mechanism that linked all the separate procedures with each other and with consumers. The modern science of economics was born. Once again teleology was removed, because economics was no longer part of ethics. It was not concerned with the purpose of human life. ... What does not enter the market is ignored. Gross National Product referes only to what enters the market. It excludes the work of the housewife, of the gardener growing his own food. .. Two further consequences follow. One is the removal of work from the home to the factory, with immense consequences for the nature of society. The home is no longer the unit of work, and the family is no longer the working unit. The way is opened for a deep divide between the public world of work, of exchange, of economics, and the private world that is withdrawn from the world of work and remains under another vision of how things are. In the public world the workers in the factory are related to each other anonymousely as units in a mechanical process. They are replaceable parts."


Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, p. 30-31