ABSTRACT
The division of labour is central to civilization but it is the result of a process of unintended consequences. As Smith would have it: the division of labour ‘is not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion’ (WN: 23); rather ‘it is the necessary, though very slow and gradual consequences’ (WN: 23) of the interaction of human nature with the circumstances in which it finds itself: in brief it is the result of the growth of experiential knowledge (LJP: 570-1). Again and again Smith stresses that the division of labour is not the product of purposive or deliberative human action guided by rational analysis. He claims that: ‘No human prudence is requisite to make this division’ (LJP: 351), and that ‘This division of work is not however the effect of any human policy’ (LJP: 347).
