>Of course both the focus "cognitive ability" and on education are varients
>on "information society" ideas.
Fine point, Joe. There are so many questions about how the division of labor is being reinforced or transformed in informational or tech-driven capitalism: the division between intellectual and manual labor within computer mediated workplaces; the possible dissolution of the recent division between the unit of work and the unit of reproduction with homeworking, telecommuting; the effects that information technology will have on the boundaries of firms; the possible dissolution of the old colonial division of labor of core control of mfg and periphery specialisation in agriculture/raw materials (see McMichael in special MR issue on food)
This is indeed one of the great questions in Marxist social science: the historic development and cross cultural variation in the division of labor. And it seems that the intellectual/manual labor split has been given a new lease on life in the information age with all this talk about the increasing informational content or demands of information processing in new jobs. Pryor makes that argument in his last book on Economic Evolution.
And now to digress:
One of the other great questions that comes to mind is the (ir)relevance of modern conceptions of the economy to the ancient world (Max Weber, Karl Polanyi, Moses Finely, Ellen Wood). There is no other way to understand the specificity of capitalism as a social form.
So as Marxists we find ourselves interested in the nature of the division of labor and the historical specificity of capitalism. Those are big questions on which our interest remains focused. In short, the social form of labor remains the chief object of focus.
yours, rakesh