well sheeeit, brad! how on earth can you compare today's way of working with that of specialized groups in earlier eras? the point is that the vast majority of us are engaged in production almost exclusively with an eye toward flogging it toward someone else, whereas the eras you point to aren't so completely enmeshed in such a complex capitalist d.o.l. then, of course, there was weber's claims about internal and external norms of exchange and how these mitigated against rationalized market exchange to the extent we see it today...?