New Books in Critical Theory Michelle Jackson, "The Division of Rationalized Labor" (Harvard UP, 2025)
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Feb 21, 2026 Michelle Jackson, Associate Professor of Sociology at Stanford and author of The Division of Rationalized Labor, explores 150 years of job change. She unpacks task growth versus occupational specialization. She traces how science and prevention reshaped medicine, policing, education and manufacturing. She discusses role creep, community interventions, and how AI and place factor into the future of work.
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Two Faces Of The Division Of Labor
- The division of labor covers both individual task specialization and the broader occupational structure over time.
- Classical theorists predicted rising specialization, but these are distinct processes that can diverge historically.
Measure Specialization Separately
- Measure the division of labor directly rather than assuming uniform specialization trends.
- Track both task-level specialization and occupational boundaries separately to spot divergent patterns.
Rationalized Occupations And Science
- A 'rationalized occupation' defines work by outputs and seeks science-based means to achieve them.
- As science multiplies and becomes probabilistic, occupations acquire many new tasks to meet complex causal models.
