Friendly reminder: This is a dry article and requires in-depth reading.
A few days ago, I saw a big V in self-media saying this: Division of labor is the secret to wealth .
Then, I made some extensions based on this sentence.
Division of labor is the secret of wealth. The finer the division of labor, the more opportunities there are to make money and the greater the possibility of making big money.
The division of labor makes people more and more tool-oriented and simplistic, which makes it very easy to create information gaps. The secret to making money lies in information asymmetry. Platforms can make big money by integrating resources, and they themselves are trying to find ways to eliminate information. Asymmetrical.
The trap of division of labor
I have said before that professional division of labor is the biggest trap in modern society.
The biggest trap in modern society is the highly specialized division of labor. Although this process, engineering, standardization and scale approach greatly improves production efficiency, it also makes it very convenient to control productivity.
Human beings are like screws in a machine. As long as the machine keeps running, we workers seem to be unable to stop and are constantly trapped in involution. Specialized division of labor has two major traps for people:
1. People have been instrumentalized and simplified, and their substitutability has become very strong. If you don’t do it, it will be easy to find a substitute to replace you. Therefore, one of the traps of specialization is the standardization of people.
2. Because of standardization, tooling, and simplification, the meaning, value, and richness of work and life have been greatly weakened. People are forced to work in limited positions and fields, which limits people's abilities and thoughts.
The French sociologist Durkheim once wrote a book called "The Division of Labor in Society". To put it simply, one of the biggest changes in human beings' transition from traditional society to modern society is that the occupational differentiation in the entire social field has become increasingly detailed, the social division of labor system has become more complex, and occupational categories have become increasingly diverse. On this basis, the entire society’s requirements for professionalism have become increasingly prominent. Durkheim called this way of connecting people to form a society based on professional division of labor "organic solidarity." In a society of "organic unity", human beings not only rely on occupation to satisfy their basic livelihood, but also rely on occupation to settle their lives. Whether one has a certain skill or “the art of eating” has become an important source of anxiety for modern people.
So, we humans are caught up in quantifiable, usefulness. This is also a kind of alienation.
Division of labor blocks the flow of information
When I see the sentence division of labor is the secret of wealth, I can actually add another one:
3. Division of labor allows humans to reduce the flow of information and reduce various human experiences. When the flow of information is reduced and various human experiences are restricted, then you must spend money to realize the flow of information and spend money to allow yourself to experience various experiences. life, which promotes consumption.
Of course, for a modern society that takes both efficiency and fairness into account, the advantages of professional division of labor outweigh the disadvantages. After all, human energy is limited, allowing humans to focus on what they like and are good at, and perform their respective duties, greatly increasing efficiency. Only then can individual abilities and values be brought into full play, and society can develop so fast.
Integration eliminates information asymmetry
However, people not only work, they work to live. At this time, the various experiences and materials we need in life are produced by others. How to integrate this information and eliminate asymmetry is the opportunity and secret to make money.
Whoever has the ability to integrate and help people save time and money will make money.
Commodity consumption
From the perspective of commodity consumption, there are two ways to eliminate information asymmetry:
1. People look for goods
The so-called people looking for goods means that when people want something, they open the shopping platform themselves, search on it, and then compare prices and search to find products that suit them. For example: Taobao, Tmall, and JD shopping platforms before the rise of algorithm recommendation.
This is just about integrating resources.
2. Find people for goods
The so-called "finding people for goods" refers to the interest in e-commerce that arose after the rise of Douyin. That is, after the rise of the mobile Internet era, it is easier to profile people based on individual accounts and behaviors. Combined with algorithm analysis, it is possible to find people for goods.
What do you usually like to read in the software? What do you like to play? The background algorithms are all recorded and even analyzed in detail. Some software even monitors the input method and voice. Your chat content on other software is monitored, so that you can know what you want most now?
When you open a short video, you will be constantly pushed to the products you want. Under constant recommendations, you may not be able to restrain your impulse and make purchases.
information consumption
The so-called information consumption is a term I coined, which is cognitive consumption. To put it bluntly, it means: selling knowledge.
What does that mean? It is a circle. Whoever has high-quality information and valuable information can make money.
Look at the various paid circles and paid groups that are emerging now, it is a typical one.
You may ask: What does information consumption have to do with division of labor?
Didn't I say that? The division of labor blocks the flow of information. People may only focus on their areas of interest or work for a long time, ignoring other areas, or even have no time to learn knowledge in other areas. However, at this time, if someone can integrate it so that people can learn quickly, anyone can make money.
Why is the Xiaohongshu platform so popular? It’s because Xiaohongshu shares experiences in the form of short notes.
For example: Everyone may need decoration, but my job is programming and I don’t know how to decorate? How to avoid stepping on pitfalls? Just go to Xiaohongshu to find experience sharing and decoration notes. If you want to get better service, you may need to join the group and pay.
All paid circles and communities basically have this underlying logic.
In addition, our era has two most terrifying characteristics:
1. Information deluge (information explosion)
Two hundred years ago, there may have been an era of scarcity of information, but now we live in an era of overflowing information. The reason why the era of information overflow is more terrifying is that in the era of information explosion, it is more difficult to find high-quality information, just like finding a needle in a haystack.
2. Rapid change
Before entering the era of the Industrial Revolution, we were in an agricultural society, and social changes might only happen once every few hundred years, and the changes were very small. However, after the industrial revolution, especially the arrival of the technology and information revolution, there may be a revolution in three to five years, which will make people very anxious, tired, and always worried about being unemployed and eliminated.
These two characteristics themselves are also caused by the division of labor, because after the industrial revolution, in order to pursue efficiency, the era of specialization of labor has arrived, and division of labor and specialization has also forced the rapid development of the times.
However, there is a very paradoxical thing here, that is, if we want to innovate and innovate, we cannot do without cross-professional integration. Therefore, on the one hand, human beings are constantly being specialized in the division of labor, and on the other hand, in order to prevent themselves from being eliminated, To be more competitive, you need to learn more interdisciplinary knowledge.
This has led to the rise of cognitive consumption and information consumption.
Of course, the biggest reason why there is a market for selling knowledge anxiety is that the times are changing too fast. Human beings are always worried about being unemployed and eliminated. Therefore, they always want to do side jobs and build their own diversified income structure. The rise of paid communities , it is not difficult to understand.
Therefore, it is not difficult to understand the saying that division of labor is the secret of wealth, right? The finer the division of labor, the more opportunities there are to make money and the greater the possibility of making big money. The division of labor makes people more and more tool-oriented and simplistic, which makes it very easy to create information gaps. The secret to making money lies in information asymmetry. Platforms can make big money by integrating resources, and they themselves are trying to find ways to eliminate information. Asymmetrical.
Click on the official account card below to follow me
In the public account dialog box, reply with the keyword "1024"
Get free practical tutorials on how to make money with your side hustle
