> It is not possible to have a society without a division of labour. Marx's point was that the allocation of social labour under capitalism was attained spontaneously through the exchange of commodities, but that a division of labour could be organised along more rational lines, planned even.
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> One of his examples was the factory, which, despite its oppressive relations of capital to labour, nonetheless showed that you could achieve a complex division of labour without the products of labour taking on the character of commodities before collectivity of tasks before the factory were pooled.
This is pretty much the opposite of what Marx claims.
In Capital, for instance, he claims that "variation of labour" within capitalism was already disproving what called the "nec plus ultra of handicraft wisdom," namely, "ne sutor ultra crepidam,” and that the "final result of "revolutionary ferments" will be "the abolition of the old division of labour."
"Modern Industry, on the other hand, through its catastrophes imposes the necessity of recognising, as a fundamental law of production, variation of work, consequently fitness of the labourer for varied work, consequently the greatest possible development of his varied aptitudes. It becomes a question of life and death for society to adapt the mode of production to the normal functioning of this law. Modern Industry, indeed, compels society, under penalty of death, to replace the detail-worker of to-day, grappled by life-long repetition of one and the same trivial operation, and thus reduced to the mere fragment of a man, by the fully developed individual, fit for a variety of labours, ready to face any change of production, and to whom the different social functions he performs, are but so many modes of giving free scope to his own natural and acquired powers."
"there can be no doubt that when the working-class comes into power, as inevitably it must, technical instruction, both theoretical and practical, will take its proper place in the working-class schools. There is also no doubt that such revolutionary ferments, the final result of which is the abolition of the old division of labour, are diametrically opposed to the capitalistic form of production, and to the economic status of the labourer corresponding to that form. But the historical development of the antagonisms, immanent in a given form of production, is the only way in which that form of production can be dissolved and a new form established. “Ne sutor ultra crepidam” — this nec plus ultra of handicraft wisdom became sheer nonsense, from the moment the watchmaker Watt invented the steam-engine, the barber Arkwright, the throstle, and the working-jeweller, Fulton, the steamship." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm
In the Poverty of Philosophy, the claim that capitalism leads to a "variation of labour" that will end ultimately in "the fully developed individual, fit for a variety of labours, ready to face any change of production, and to whom the different social functions he performs, are but so many modes of giving free scope to his own natural and acquired powers," is made explicitly with respect to "variation of labour" within "the automatic factory."
"What characterizes the division of labour inside modern society is that it engenders specialized functions, specialists, and with them craft-idiocy.
'We are struck with admiration,' says Lemontey, 'when we see among the Ancients the same person distinguishing himself to a high degree as philosopher, poet, orator, historian, priest, administrator, general of an army. Our souls are appalled at the sight of so vast a domain. Each one of us plants his hedge and shuts himself up in his enclosure. I do not know whether by this parcellation the field is enlarged, but I do know that man is belittled.'
"What characterizes the division of labour in the automatic workshop is that labour has there completely lost its specialized character. But the moment every special development stops, the need for universality, the tendency towards an integral development of the individual begins to be felt. The automatic workshop wipes out specialists and craft-idiocy." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/ch02b.htm
In the German Ideology, it's claimed that "local and national narrowness ... arises entirely from division of labour" and that, "with a communist organisation of society," such division with its associated "narrowness" will also disappear from artistic activity.
"with a communist organisation of society. there disappears the subordination of the artist to local and national narrowness, which arises entirely from division of labour, and also the subordination of the individual to some definite art, making him exclusively a painter, sculptor, etc.; the very name amply expresses the narrowness of his professional development and his dependence on division of labour. In a communist society there are no painters but only people who engage in painting among other activities." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch03l.htm
In the Critique of the Gotha Programme, it's claimed that "in a higher phase of communist society ... the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished." This and the associated "all-around development of the individual" are, it's claimed, a necessary prerequisite for actualization of the true principle of "right."
"In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!" http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm
Ted