Now, Lets imagine 2 economic societies, where each of them consists a total of N population, as follows :
"The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour"
Adam Smith ( Wealth of Nations, 1776).
Society #1: Adopting Specialists Strategy
[ 1 Economist + 1 Engineer + ...... + 1 Psychologist ]
All workers in society #1 are highly skilled, ie: all of them are PhD in their fields.
Society #2: Adopting Generalist Strategy
[ 1 ( Economist & Engineer ) + ...... + 1 (Economist & Psychologist ) ]
All workers in society #2 are mediumly skilled, ie: all of them are undergraduate or even less, but they had at least 2 degree in different fields.
Smith argue that this society #1 (The Specialist) is far more productive compared to society #2 (The Generalist) due to increasing return to scale properties.
However, I think "Smith, You are wrong !!!" *how dare of me, heheheh* I argue that society #2 will result in a far more creative, dynamic, enduring and thus a far more superior society. My arguments are as follows:
1. Dont put your eggs in one basket, if someone due to economic shock losses his/her job in society #2, he/she can switch his role easily and serve the community with different knowledge he/she posses compared to person in society #1, so society #2 has more labor/job flexibility than that of society #1 while maintaining average productivity.
2. In the light of argument above, suppose if 1 member in the society #1 died without passing their knowledge to their youngs, society #1 will experienced the effect of "forgetting a technology", but this didn't happen in society #2 because at least there are 1 other person who also know about the technology, so society #2 is more resilient in terms of preserving the technology compared to society #1.
3. According to game theory, Coordination cost will exponentially increases as each new additional node/players enter the game of cooperation. There are higher chances for society #2 member to have exactly all the required knowledge foundation with lesser people compared to society #1. It means lesser coordination cost and therefore society #2 is more liquid and more likely to complete the cooperative works in time.
4. Different knowledge exists in 1 person will allow for the ideas to meet and mate more efficiently, thus society #2 citizens are capable of creating new ideas and propagating ideas at faster speed. This also means that new ideas can be scrutinized by different people having different knowledge domain, result in having a more comprehensive and creative solution.
So, I arrived at the conclusion that "Specialization may not be that good after all !", or perhaps there should be an optimality constraint in the degree of specialization.
I rather agree with the following quote:
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
-Robert A. Heinlein
Okay, Smith, I'm done with you,... ;)
