divisionoflabor

    Durkheim's "Division of Labor" aims to answer the questions of why individuals depend more on society as they become more autonomous and how they can simulatneously be both more individual and solidary.
      To answer these questions he deveoped four distinguishable ways to look at solidarity, two very broad and distinct ways to express that solidarity, a theory of common conscience, and two different forms of justice law.
      The different ways that he looks at solidarity can be very helpful. First, he looks at solidarity as a system of social links wherein individuals could be independent but instead decide to put their resources together. Second, Durkheim sees individuals as being linked to each other, so as not be seperate and unrelated. Third, he sees solidarity in the system of interchanges that form a "network of solidarity." (Morrison) Finally, he sees solidarity as the links that individuals see between themselves and social groups.
      Durkheim then delineated two types of societal solidarity: mechanical and organic. In a mechanical society individuals are linked directly to society. All individuals are equally bound to the society and these links are such that there is to be no distinguishability between the individual conscience and the collective conscience. it is possible to "mobilize the entire social mass of society due to the immense leverage the common consience has over the beliefs and social practices of the group." (Morrison) The rules and social practices are collective and largely religious in origin. There are very basic divisions of labor basic and designed so that individuals perform tasks that will benefit the collective. There are repressive sanctions used to punish any offense against the common conscience. In instances of strongly unified common beliefs there is a great individual similarity and "the ties linking the individual to the society form an almost perfect concensus." (Morrison)
      The other form of social solidarity has nearly exact opposite characteristics. Individuals are linked to each through contracts because they rely on one another to do things that they cannot do themselves. A person's social rank is determined by what they do, not their kinship. There are autonomous social organs that develop "in which political, economic and legal functions become specialized." (Morrison) Because of this, the strength of the solidarity is less and there are more individual differences. Secular and economic interests take prevalence causing the collective conscience to be less resistant to change.
      In his descriptions of mechanical and organic societies Durkheim often refers to the collective conscience. This is what he uses to represent sentiments which are collectively and commonly held in a society by its members. The four measurable characteristics of this collective conscience are volume, intensity, determinateness, and content.
     Durkheim went on to give two fundamentally different systems of law. First is penal law. Penal law has a clear purpose of "imposing harm and suffering upon the defender." It does this by either causing some form of loss of social honor or by taking either the life or freedom of the offender. Second is contract law, also known as written law. The purpose of this form of law is to make things the way they were before the crime was committed - to "'re-establish what has been disturbed back to its normal state.'" (Morrison)
      Penal is associated to mechanical societies. The homogeneous population and nearly universal collective conscience of these societies makes this harsh system seem reasonable. Contract law is needed in organic societies. Because collective conscience is more likely to be fickle, these more rehabilitative approach is in order.

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WORKS CITED

Morrison, Ken. Marx, Durkheim, Weber: Formations of Modern
     Social Thought. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage
     Publications, 1995