22 sociology theory questions (Durkheim, Emile ).short answers

Chapter VI

The Increasing

Preponderance of Organic

Solidarity and its

Consequences (cont .)

I

Thus it is a law of history that mechanical solidarity, which at first is isolated, or almost so, should progressively lose ground, and organic solidarity gradually become preponderant. But when the way in which men are solidly linked to one another is modified, it is inevitable that the structure of societies should change. The shape of a body must needs be transformed, when the molecular affinities within are no longer the same. Consequently, if the foregoing proposition is accurate, there must be two social types, correspond­ ing to these two kinds of solidarity.

If, by a process of thought, we attempt to constitute the ideal type of a society whose cohesion would result exclusively from resemb­ lances, we would have to conceive of it as consisting of an absolutely homogeneous mass whose parts would not be distinguishable from one another and consequently not be arranged in any order in relation to one another. In short, the mass would be devoid of any definite form or articulation. This would be the real social proto� plasm, the germ from which all social types would have emerged. The aggregate we have characterised in this way we propose to call a horde.

It is true that we have not yet observed, with complete authentica­ tion, societies that correspond in every respect to this description. Yet what gives us the right to postulate their existence is the fact that lower societies, those that in consequence are the most akin to this

1 2 6

Increasing Preponderance of Organic Solidarity (cont.) 1 2 7

primordial stage, are formed b y a mere replication o f aggregates of this kind. We find an almost wholly pure model of this social organisation among the Indians of North America. For example, each Iroquois tribe is made up of a number of incomplete societies (the most extensive includes eight of them) which present all the features we have just pointed out. Adults of both sexes are equal to one another. The sachems and chiefs at the head of each one of these groups, who form the council administering the common affairs of the tribe, enjoy no superior status. Kinship itself is not organised, for the term cannot be applied to the fact that the mass of the people is distributed in various generation layers. At the late stage when these peoples were observed there were certainly some special ties of obligation joining the child to his maternal relatives. But these relationships were confined to being very few in number and did not appreciably differ from those he maintained with the other members of society. In principle all individuals of the same age were linked to one another in the same degree of kinship .l In other cases we are even closer to the horde: Fison and Howitt describe Australian tribes that include only two such divisions.2

We shall give the term 'clan' to a horde that has ceased to be independent and has become an element in a more extensive group, and that of segmentary societies based upon clans to those peoples that have been constituted from an association of clans. We term such societies 'segmentary' to denote that they are formed from the replication of aggregates that are like one another, analogous to the rings of annelida worms. We also term this elementary aggregate a clan because this word aptly expresses its mixed nature, relating both to the family and to the body politic. It is a family in the sense that all the members who go to make it up consider themselves kin to one another, and indeed it is true that for the most part they share a blood relationship. The affinities produced by sharing a blood kinship are mainly what keeps them united. What is more, they sustain mutual relationships that might be termed domestic, since these are to be found elsewhere in societies whose family character is undisputed: I mean collective revenge, collective responsibility and, as soon as individual property makes an appearance, mutual heredity. Yet on the other hand it is not a family in the true sense of the word, for in order to form part of it, there is no need to have a clear-cut blood relationship with the other clan members. It is enough to exhibit some external criterion, which usually consists in

1 2 8 The Function o/ the Division of Labour

bearing the same name. Although this sign is esteemed to denote a common origin, such an official status really constitutes very ineffective proof, one that is very easy to copy. Thus the clan comprises a large number of strangers, which allows it to attain a size that the family proper never reaches: very often it numbers several thousand people. Moreover, it is the basic political unit; the clan chiefs are the sole authorities in society.3

Thus this organisation might also be termed politico-familial. Not only has the clan blood-kinship as its basis, but different clans within the same people very often consider themselves related to one another. Among the lroquois, according to the circumstances they treat one another as brothers or cousins.4 Among the Jews who, as we shall see, manifest the most characteristic features of the same social organisation, the ancestor of each one of the clans making up the tribe is deemed to have descended from the founder of the tribe, who is himself regarded as one of the sons of the father of the race. But this designation has one disadvantage as compared with the former one: it does not bring out what constitutes the real structure of these societies.

Yet, whatever term we assign to it, this organisation, just like that of the horde, whose extension it merely is, plainly does not possess any other solidarity save that which derives from similarities. This is because the society is made up of similar segments and these in turn comprise only homogeneous .elements. Doubtless each clan has its own peculiar features and is consequently distinct from the others. But their solidarity is the weaker the more heterogeneous they are, and vice versa. For a segmentary organisation to be possible, the segments must both resemble one another (or else they would not be united) and yet be different from one another. Otherwise they would become so lost in one another as to vanish. Depending upon the society, these two opposing necessities are met in different proportions, but the social type remains the same.

This time we have emerged from the sphere of prehistory and\ conjecture. Not only is this social type far from hypothetical: it is almost the most widespread of all among lower societies. And we know that these are the most numerous. We have already seen that the type was general in America and Australia. Post reports that it is very common among the African negroes.5 The Jews remained in this same state until a very late stage; the Kabyles have never got beyond it.6 Thus Waitz, wishing to characterise generally the

1

Increasing Preponderance of Organic Solidarity (cont.) 1 29

structure of these peoples, whom he calls Naturvolker, depicts them as follows, where is to be found the general pattern of organisation we have just described:

As a general rule families live side by side in a state of great independence and develop gradually, so as to form small societies (viz. clans Y which have no definite constitution so long as internal struggles or an external danger - such as war - does not lead to one or several men distinguishing themselves from the mass of society and placing themselves at its head. Their influence, which relies solely on personal attributes, is extended and lasts only when confined within the bounds laid down by the trust and patience of others. Every adult remains in a state of complete independence vis-a.-vis such a chieftain. This is why we see such peoples, lacking any other internal organisation, can only hold together through the action of external circumstances and through the habit of living their life in common.8

The arrangement of clans within society and thus the overall shape of the latter can, it is true, vary. Sometimes they are simply juxtaposed so as to form a kind of linear series: this is the case for many Indian tribes in North America.9 In other instances - and this is the distinguishing mark of a higher organisation - each one is embedded within a larger group which, having been formed by the coming together of several clans, has its own life and special name. Each one of these groups in turn may be embedded with several other groups in an even more extensive aggregate, and it is from the successive series formed by the embedding process that results the unity of the whole society. Thus among the Kabyle the political unit is the clan, fixed in the form of a village (djemmaa or thaddart) ; severa,l djemmaa form a tribe (arch' ) , and several tribes form the confederation (thak'ebilt), the highest form of political society known to the Kabyles. Likewise, among the Jews the clan is what translators somewhat inaccurately call the family , a huge society that included thousands of people descended, according to tradi­ tion, from a single ancestor. 10 A certain number offamilies made up of the tribe and the union of twelve tribes made up the whole of the Jewish people.

These societies are the home par excellence of mechanical solidarity, so much so that it is from this form of solidarity that they derive their main physiological characteristics.

I ° 1

1 3 0 The Function of the Division of Labour

We know that in them religion pervades the whole of social life. This is because social life is made up almost entirely of common beliefs and practices that draw from their unanimous acceptance a very special kind of intensity. Using the analysis of classical texts alone to go back to an era exactly similar to the one we are discussing, Fustel de Coulanges discovered that the primitive organisation of societies was of the family type and that, moreover, the constitution of the primitive family was based upon religion. Only he mistook cause for effect. After having postulated the religious idea, without tracing its derivation from anything, he deduced from it the social arrangements which he noted,l1 whilst, on the contrary, it is these arrangements that explain the power and nature of the religious idea. Since all such social masses were formed from homogeneous elements, that is to say, since the collective type is very highly developed in them whereas individual types are rudimentary, it was inevitable that the entire psychologi­ cal life of society should assume a religious character.

From this also springs the notion of communism, which has often been noted among these peoples. In fact, communism is the necessary product of that special cohesion that swallows up the individual within the group, the part into the whole. In the end property is merely the extension of the idea of the person to things. Thus where the collective personality is the sole existing one, property itself is inevitably collective. It can only become individual when the individual, freeing himself from the mass of the people, has also become a personal, distinctive being, not only as an organism, but as a factor in social life. 12

This type can even be modified without the nature of social solidarity suddenly changing on this account. Indeed not all primitive peoples display that lack of centralisation we have j ust observed. On the contrary, some of them are subject to an absolute power. The division of labour has therefore appeared in them. However, the link which in this case binds the individual to the chitf is identical to that which joins things to persons. The relationships of the barbaric despot to his subjects, like those of the master to his slaves or the father of the Roman family to his descendants, are indistinguishable from those of the owner to the object he possesses. There is nothing about them which corresponds to that reciprocity which brings about the division of labour. It has been rightly stated that they are unilateral.13 Thus the solidarity they

Increasing Preponderance of Organic Solidarity (cont.) 1 3 1

express remains mechanical. The difference lies entirely in the fact that it links the individual no longer directly to the group, but to the one who is its image. But the unity of the whole rules out as before any individuality in the parts.

If this first form of the division of labour, however important it may nevertheless be, has not the effect of making social solidarity more flexible, as might be expected, it is because of the special conditions in which it takes place. It is in fact a general law that the most pre-eminent organ in any society partakes of the nature of the collective entity that it represents. Thus where society possesses this religious character, one that is, so to speak, suprahuman, whose source, as we have shown, lies in the constitution of the common consciousness, it is necessarily transmitted to the chief who directs it and who in consequence finds himself very greatly elevated above all other men. Where individuals are merely dependants of the collective type, they quite naturally become dependent on the central authority that embodies them. Again, in the same way the undivided property right that the community exercised over things passes wholly to the superior personality constituted in this way. The peculiarly professional services that he renders therefore count for little in the extraordinary power with which he is invested. If, in these kinds of societies, the power that is directing has so much authority, it is not because, as has been said, these societies particularly need a more energetic leadership. But this authority is wholly a manifestation of the common consciousness, an authority that is vast, because the common consciousness itself is highly developed. Even if the common consciousness were weaker or only included a smaller section of social life, the need for some supreme regulating function would be no less. However, the rest of society would no longer be in the same state of inferiority vis-a.-vis the one to whom that function has been entrusted. This is why solidarity remains mechanical so long as the division of labour has not developed further. It is in such conditions that it even attains its maximum energy: for the effect of the common consciousness is stronger when it is no longer exerted diffusely, but through the mediation of some clearly defined organ.

Thus there is a social structure of a determinate nature to which mechanical solidarity corresponds. What characterises it is that it comprises a system of homogeneous segments similar to one another.

1 32 The Function of the Division of Labour

11

But the structure of societies where organic solidarity is preponder­ ant is entirely different.

These are constituted, not by the replication of similar homogeneous elements, but by a system of different organs, each one of which has a special role and which themselves are formed from differentiated parts. The elements in society are not of the same nature, nor are they arranged in the same manner. They are neither placed together end-on, as are the rings of an annelida worm, nor embedded in one another, but co-ordinated and subordinated to one another around the same central organ, which exerts over the rest of the organism a moderating effect. This organ itself is no longer of the same character as outlined above, for, if the others depend upon it, in turn it depends upon them. Undoubtedly it still enj oys a special place and, one may say, a privileged one. But this is due to the nature of the role that it fulfils and not to some cause external to its functions or to some force imparted to it from outside . Thus it has nothing more than what is temporal and human about it; between the other organs and itself there is no longer any difference save in degree. Thus, with an animal, the priority of the nervous system over the other systems comes down to the right, if it may be so expressed, of receiving a choicer form of sustenance and of taking its share first. But it has need of the other organs, just as they have need of it.

This social type relies upon principles so utterly different from the preceding type that it can only develop to the extent that the latter has vanished. Indeed individuals are distributed within it in groups that are no longer formed in terms of any ancestral relationship, but according to the special nature of the social activity to which they devote themselves. Their natural and necessary environment is no longer that in which they were born, but that of their profession. It is no longer blood relationship, whether real or fictitious, that determines the place of each one, but the functions he fulfils. Undoubtedly, when this new organisation begins to appear, it attempts to use the existing one and to assimilate it to itself. The way in which functions are distributed is therefore modelled as closely as possible upon the way in which society is already divided up. The segments, or at least groups of segments linked by particular affinities, become organs. Thus the clans which as an entity

Increasing Preponderance of Organic Solidarity (cont.) 1 3 3

constitute the tribe o f the Levites, appropriate for themselves the priestly functions among the Jewish people . Generally it may be said that classes and castes have probably no other origin or nature: they spring from the mixing of the professional organisation, which is just emerging, with a pre-existent family organisation. But this mixed arrangement cannot last for long because, between the two elements that it takes upon itself to reconcile, there is an hostility that must in the end break out. Only a very rudimentary division of labour can fit into these rigid, well-defined moulds, which were not fashioned for it. The division of labour can only increase in so far as it frees itself from the frame that hedges it in. Once it has gone beyond a certain stage of development no longer is there any connection between the fixed number of segments and the ever­ increasing number of functions that become specialised, nor between the hereditarily determined properties of the former and the new aptitudes that the latter demand.14 Thus the social substance must enter into entir�ly new combinations in order to be organised on completely different foundations. Now the old structure, so long as it subsists, is hostile to this. This is why it must disappear.

The history of these two types indeed shows that the one has only made progress in the proportion to which the other has regressed.

Among the Iroquois, the social constitution based on clans exists in its pure state. The same is true of the Jews, as the Pentateuch shows us, except for the slight deviation that we have j ust pointed out. Thus the organised social type exists in neither, although we may perhaps perceive its first beginnings in Jewish society.

The same no longer holds good for the Franks of the Salic law: this time it appears with its own special characteristics, free from any compromise. In fact among this people we find, besides a regular, stable, central authority, a whole network of administrative and judicial functions. On the other hand, the existence of contract law, still, it is true, very little developed, bears witness to the fact that economic functions are themselves beginning to s�parate out and become organised. Thus the politico-family constitution is gravely undermined. Doubtless the last social molecule, the village, is indeed still merely a clan transformed. What proves this is the fact that among the inhabitants of a single village relationships of a clearly domestic nature exist, which are in any case characteristic of the clan. All the members of the village have the right to inherit

I • !

Increasing Preponderance of Organic Solidarity (cont.) 1 39

very moment when its structure becomes more prominent, the other becomes more indistinct. The segment formed by the clan, so well-defined, is replaced by the territorial district. At least origi­ nally, the latter corresponded, although in somewhat vague and approximate fashion, to the real and moral division of the popula­ tion. But it gradually loses this character, to become no more than an arbitrary combination, one that is a mere convention. As these barriers are lowered, they are covered over by systems of organs which are more and more developed. If therefore social evolution remains subject to the effect of the same determining causes - and we shall see later that this is the sole feasible hypothesis - we may predict that this dual movement will continue in the same direction, and the day will come when the whole of our social and political organisation will have an exclusively, or almost exclusively, profes­ sional basis.

Moreover, the studies that follow will establish27 that this professional organisation is not even today all that it is destined to become ; that abnormal causes have prevented it from reaching the stage of development that our present social state requires. From this we may j udge the importance that it is destined to assume in the future.

III

The same law governs biological development. Nowadays we know that the lower animals are made up of similar

segments, arranged either in irregular masses or in a linear series. Even at the very lowest point on the scale these elements are not only similar to one another but are even homogeneous in composi­ tion. They are usually given the name of colonies. But this expression - which incidentally is not without ambiguity - does not signify that these associations are not individual organisms. For 'every colony whose members are made up of continuous tissues is in reality an individual' . 28 Indeed what is characteristic of the individuality of any kind of aggregate is the existence of operations carried out in common by all its parts. Between the members of a colony there is pooling of nutriments and an inability to move save by movements of the whole, so long as the colony is not split up. There is something more: the egg, having emerged from one of the

1 40 The Function of the Division of Labour

segments that are associated together, reproduces not this segment, but the whole colony of which it formed part: 'Between these colonies of polyps and the higher animal forms, from this viewpoint there is no difference.'29 Moreover, what makes any radical separation impossible is the fact that there are no organisms at all, however 'centralised' they may be, which to a varying degree do not present the structure of a colony. We find traces of this even in the vertebrates, in the constitution of their skeleton and their uro­ genital mechanism, etc. Above all their embryonic development gives indisputable proof that they are nothing more than modified colonies.30

Thus there exists in the animal world an individuality 'which is produced outside any combination of organs' .31 Now this is identical to that of societies that we have termed segmentary. Not only is the structural plan clearly the same, but solidarity is of the same kind. Indeed, since the parts that make up an animal colony are mechanically intertwined with one another, they can only act as a whole, at least so long as they remain joined together. Their activity is collective. In a community of polyps, as each stomach communicates with the others, one individual unit cannot eat unless all the others do so as well. It is, states Perrier, communism in the fullest sense of the word.32 A member of the colony, particularly when floating, cannot contract without also causing the polyps to which it is joined to move as well, and the movement is passed from each succeeding member to the next.33 In a worm each ring depends rigidly upon the others - this despite the fact that it can detach itself from them without danger to itself.

But just as the segmentary type vanishes as we advance up the scale of social evolution, the colony type disappears as we move higher up in the scale of organisms. Already started with the annelid a , although it is still very visible, it becomes almost imperceptible with the molluscs, and in the end only scientific analysis can succeed in discovering traces of it in vertebrates. \We need not point out the analogies that exist between the type that replaces the preceding one and that of organic societies. In both cases, the structure, like the solidarity, derives from the division of labour. Each part of the animal, once it has become an organ, has its own sphere of action, in which it moves independently, without impinging upon the others. Yet from another viewpoint these parts depend much more closely upon one another than in a colony, since

Increasing Preponderance of Organic Solidarity (cont.) 1 4 1

they cannot separate from one another without perishing. Finally, in organic as in social evolution, the division of labour begins by using the framework of segmentary organisation, but only eventu­ ally to free itself and to develop in an autonomous way. If in fact the organ is sometimes only a transformed segment, this is, however, the exception.34

To sum up: we have distinguished between two types of solidarity. We have j ust discerned that there exist two social types that correspond to them. Just as the first kinds of solidarity develop in inverse relationship to one another, with the two corresponding social types one regresses regularly as the other progresses, and the latter is the one that is defined by the social division of labour. Besides the fact that it confirms the preceding results, this result ends up by demonstrating to us all the importance of the division of labour. Just as it is this which, for the most part, gives cohesion to the societies in which we live, it is also this that determines the characteristics which go to make up their structure and everything leads us to predict that in the future its role, from this viewpoint, can only increase.

IV

The law we have established in the last two chapters in one characteristic, but in one characteristic alone, may have reminded us of the one that dominates the sociology of Spencer. Like him, we have stated that the place of the individual in society, from being originally nothing at all, has grown with civilisation. But this indisputable fact has presented itself in a completely different light than to the English philosopher, so much so that in the end our conclusions are in contradiction to his, more than echoing them.

Firstly, according to him, this absorption of the individual into the group is allegedly the result of a constraint and an artificial organisation necessitated by the state of warfare that is endemic in lower societies. Indeed it is especially in war that union is necessary for success. A group cannot defend itself against another group or subdue it save on condition that it acts as one unit. Thus all individual forces must be clustered together in a concentration that cannot be broken up. Now the only means of ensuring this con­ centration uninterruptedly is to institute a very powerful authority

The Division of Labour in Society

Emile Durkheim With an introduction by Lewis Coser

Translated by W. D. Halls

M MACMILLAN

�. ,:��. .

. .

,

Introduction © Lewis Coser 1984 Translation © The Macmillan Press Ltd 1984

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE.

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

First published 1984 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire R021 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world

ISBN 0-333-3398� hardcover ISBN 0-333-33981-9 paperback

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Reprinted 1988, 1989, 1993, 1994

Printed in China

Contents

Translator's Note Introduction (byLewis Coser) Preface to the First Edition Preface to the Second Edition Introduction

BOOK I THE FUNCTION OF THE DIVISION OF LABOUR

vii ix

xxv xxxi

1

Chapter I: The Method of Determining This Function 11 Chapter 11: Mechanical Solidarity, or Solidarity by Similarities 31 Chapter Ill: Solidarity Arising from the Division of Labour, or Organic Solidarity 68 Chapter IV: Another Proof of the Preceding Theory 88 Chapter V: The Increasing Preponderance of Organic Solidarity and its Consequences 101 Chapter VI: The Increasing preponderance of Organic Solidarity and its Consequences (cont.) 126 Chapter VII: Organic Solidarity and Contractual Solidarity 149

BOOK 11 THE CAUSES AND CONDITIONS Chapter I: The Progress of the Division of Labour and of Happiness 179 Chapter 11: The Causes 200 Chapter Ill: Secondary Factors 226 Chapter IV: SecQndary Factors (cont.) 246 Chapter V: Consequences of the Foregoing 269

vi Contents

BOOK III THE ABNORMAL FORMS

Chapter I: The Anomic Division of Labour Chapter II: The Forced Division of Labour Chapter Ill: Another Abnormal Form

Conclusion

Index

291 310 323

329

343