Seeds of Hierarchy 231
of their principle):
The advantage of diversification in the inhabitants of the same region is, in fact,
the same as that of the physiological division of labor in the organs of the same
individual body—a subject so well elucidated by Milne Edwards. No
physiologist doubts that a stomach by being adapted to digest vegetable matter
alone, or flesh alone, draws most nutriment from these substances. So in the
general economy of any land, the more widely and perfectly the animals and
plants are diversified for different habits of life, so will a greater number of
individuals be capable of there supporting themselves (Darwin, 1859, pp. 115-116).^
Consider the form of the classic argument in Darwin's two analogical sources.
Adam Smith began the Wealth of Nations by discussing pinmaking to illustrate the
advantages of division of labor. Smith states the basic argument in the very first
words of his classic book: "The greatest improvement in the productive powers of
labor, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is
anywhere directed or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of
labor." Pinmaking, Smith tells us, may be "a trifling manufacture," but "18 distinct
operations" are still needed to make the final product. If a single worker performed
all these tasks, he "certainly could not make twenty" pins in a day, but allocation of
separate tasks to 10 people (with some individuals continuing to perform 2 or 3 of
the 18 operations) allowed one small factory to make 48,000 pins per day, or 4800
per man. Now who benefits from this division of labor? In part, the workers who
hone their skills and participate in the resulting prosperity. But primarily the larger
polity—the factory through profits, or society itself in the availability of
moderately priced goods. Similarly, in Milne Edwards' physiological division of
labor, the prime beneficiary cannot be the organ (an omnivore's stomach works
perfectly well qua stomach), but again the larger polity, in this case the organism.
Applying the same logic to Darwin's analog, the beneficiary of life's
diversification through division of labor is not the individual, or even the species,
but the larger polity—or life itself through the principle of maximization. Thus we
can grasp the link between division of labor as a pervasive structural principle, and
Darwin's goal in application—the summum bonum of maximization of life,
achieved through division of labor with the larger polity, or life itself, as the
beneficiary.
The logic in this chain of reasoning also illustrates why the coupling of
maximization with division of labor cannot validate Darwin's "principle of
divergence." These arguments may indicate why maximization should occur, but
do not explain how such a plenteous state of nature arises. In other words, this
chain of reasoning does not propose a cause for maximization. Above all else,
Darwin clearly understood that his distinctive style of evolutionary argument
demanded an explanation for any higher level phenomenon as a consequence of
struggle among individual organisms for reproductive success. Maximization and
division of labor represent phenomenological statements about the constitution of
life and ecology not claims about the efficient causes of diversity. Such statements
provide, in other words, a basic