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Introduction to Durkheim

I. Durkheim and functionalism — the evolution of the division of labour from 'mechanical' society

Durkheim has been taken to be the father of modern functionalism. Functionalists advance in defence of the class system the ancient idea of a body politic. Each group in society comprises a functional unit that contributes to the survival of the whole, just as individual organs contribute to the survival of the body as a whole. However, Durkheim's comments on the functional origin of class appear as appendages to his main concern with the evolution of society from a mechanical form to what he calls an organic form.
It is an historical law that mechanical solidarity ... progressively loses ground, and that organic solidarity gradually becomes preponderant. [The division of labour and social differentiation]
Traditional society is a mechanical society. Mechanical societies are based upon a moral consensus called the conscience collective. This collective consciousness dictates what is morally acceptable behaviour and what is not. The rules thus imposed — norms accepted unconsciously by the mass of the people — tend to be rigid. They are supported by a religious ideology.
Mechanical society is a society derived from primitive nomadic communities of hunter-gatherers.
The social type corresponding to mechanical solidarity is] an absolutely homoegeneous mass whose parts were not distinguished from one another, and which consequently had no structure. [The division of labour and social differentiation]
He calls this kind of social organisation a horde.
We find an almost perfectly pure example of this social organisation among the Indians of North America. ... The adults of both sexes are equal to each other. The sachems or chiefs ... do not enjoy any superiority. [The division of labour and social differentiation]
The first stage of the evolution of society from a mechanical to an organic form, is the absorption of the horde into a society of similar hordes. When this happens, the horde becomes a clan.
We give the name clan to the horde which has ceased to be independent by becoming an element in a more extensive group. [The division of labour and social differentiation]
Clans adopt the characteristics of families, but in fact, blood relationship is not required to be a member of a clan. Amalgamations of clans can form a society. However,
This organisation [amalgam of clans], just like the horde, of which it is only an extension, evidently carries with it no other solidarity than that derived from resemblance, since the society is formed of similar segments and these in their turn enclose only homogeneous elements. No doubt, each clan has its own character and is thereby distinguished from others; but the solidarity is proportionally weaker as they are more heterogeneous, and vice versa. [The division of labour and social differentiation]
So the society that is an amalgam of clans is not capable of much social cohesion or organisation. The development of a surplus population brings about a concentration of the population in towns. In towns, division of labour starts to take place. The division of labour arises when the boundaries between clans, or segments are eroded. This is particularly possible when people migrate to towns, and when there is a surplus population. Thus “among more advanced peoples population tends to become more and more concentrated”. [Causes of the division of labour]
As long as social organisation is essentially segmental, towns do not exist. There are none in lower societies. They did not exist among the Iroquois, nor among the Germans. [Socialism (1928)]
Improvements in communication and transportation also increase the “density of society”.
As the density increases a new form of social solidarity must take the place of mechanical solidarity. That is to say, as material density increases so “moral density” increases with it. [Socialism (1928)]
In short, division of labour arises from the development of material and moral density, most primarily as a result of the development of cities. Within cities “different occupations can co-exist without being obliged mutually to destroy one another, for they pursue different objectives.”3 In other words, conflict exists when there is close competition. “The closer functions approach one-another, however, the more points of contact they have; the more, consequently, they are exposed to conflict.”3 The transition from mechanical to organic society is marked by the development of towns. In towns there is increasing division of labour, the rise of private property and the development of the recognition of the inter-dependence of the different groups.
However, the development of functional occupational groupings gives rise to the idea of the body politic, adopted by many modern functionalists. In organic society
[Societies with organic solidarity] are formed, not by repetition of similar, homogeneous segments, but by a system of different organs each of which has a special note. [The division of labour and social differentiation]
And
individuals are no longer grouped according to their relations of lineage, but according to the particular nature of the social activity to which they devote themselves. Their natural and necessary milieu is no longer that given by birth, but that given by occupation.
This is Durkheim's account of the origin of class.
In this way classes and castes probably derive their origin and their character in this way; they arise from the numerous occupational organisations which spring up with the pre-existing familial organisation.
Organic solidarity is based upon the division of labour and the reason why people accept moral constraints upon their lives is because they recognise that in society different groups depend on each other, in the way in which different organs depend on each other for survival in the body as a whole.
It is not exactly correct to see Durkheim as a modern functionalist, concerned to provide a moral justification for the existence of a social order in which there are classes, and that among these the wealth owning class has the highest status. Durkheim is more concerned to understand society in terms of its historical evolution. He does attempt, however, to refute both socialism and Marxism, but not on the grounds that the class system is morally justified by the functional role that capital provides to the system as a whole.

II. Durkheim's Account of Socialism

In his Definition of Socialism, Durheim explains that socialists claim that workers suffer injustice because they are dependent not on society as a whole but on a powerful class of people — the capitalists. According to Durkheim socialists argue that workers are exploited by capitalists who are motivated by private interests rather than social interests. The capitalists have the power to exploit workers because they can live without having to engage in economic activity, whereas workers have to sell their labour immediately in order to survive. This is the real meaning of 'capital' — the power to exploit. Because the workers have to work, they are forced to sell their labour for less than it is worth and suffer deprivations as a result. The capitalists expropriate the difference in value.
The workers do not, in effect, interact directly with society; it is not society which directly remunerates them, it is the capitalist. But the latter is simply an individual who as such concerns himself, legitimately, not with social interests but with his own. Thus, the services he buys he seeks to pay for not according to what they are worth socially, that is to say, according to the exact degree of usefulness they have for society, but as cheaply as possible. He possesses a weapon, however, that permits him to constrain those who live only by their labour to sell him the product for less than it is really worth. This is his capital. [Socialism (1928)]
Durkheim comments that orthodox economists argue that the competition between capitalists reduces this power of exploitation to zero.
I do not have to evaluate here whether the preponderance of capital is real or if, as the orthodox economists say, the competition capitalists create among themselves reduces it to nil. It is enough to present the socialist argument without judging it. [Socialism (1928)]
If the socialists are right, and workers are exploited, then the consequence is that the state ought to intervene to protect the rights of workers. The state must regulate the entire economic mechanism. This would be an argument in favour of a mixed economy. However, some socialists would go further and argue that the capitalist intermediary always expropriates the value of labour, and hence the capitalist class should be done away with altogether. This is an argument in favour of a communist society and a command economy. Theoretically, according to the socialist, the workers should be remunerated by society as a whole, but in practice this is impossible. Thus, the state, on behalf of society, decides on the remuneration, and each is paid according to his social worth.
Only the state thus is capable of playing the role of moderator; but for that it is essential that the economic agencies cease to operate outside of it, without the state being aware of them. Rather, by means of a continuing communication the state must know what is happening, and in turn make its own action known. If one wishes to go still further, if one intends not only to improve but to radically change this situation, it is necessary to completely suppress the capitalist intermediary who, by interpolating himself between worker and society, prevents labour from being properly appreciated and rewarded according to its social value. [Socialism (1928)]
Durkheim also notes that the improvement of the conditions of the workers is not the objective of the socialist argument. The socialist argument seeks to redress the injustice caused by the existence of the class system — and specifically, the existence of capital.
Clearly, Durkheim is not a socialist, or rather, analyses socialism in a dispassionate manner. On the other hand, he also distances himself from the 'economists' who argue that competition between capitalists erodes their power to exploit. In his work Socialism Durkheim rejects socialism as utopian.
Socialism, on the contrary, is wholly orientated toward the future. It is above all a plan for the reconstruction of present-day society, a programme for a collective life which does not exist as yet, or only in dreams, and which is offered to men as a worthy object for their strivings. It is an ideal. [Socialism (1928)]
He understands it as a social phenomenon in its own right.
Socialism is not a science, a sociology in miniature — it is a cry of misery, sometimes of anger, uttered by men who feel most keenly our collective unease. [[Socialism (1928)]
Marxism is premised on the theory of material determinism, namely, that economic forces drive historical change. Durkheim explicitly rejects this.
Just as much as it seems to us to be that the causes of social phenomena must be sought outside of individual ideas, so it seems to us to be false that they derive ultimately from the state of industrial technology, and that the economic factor is the source of progress. [Evaluation of Marx]
Contrary to Marx
Sociologists and historians are tending increasingly to reach common agreement that religion is the most primitive of all social phenomena. [Sociology and the Social Sciences (1903)]
Religion cannot be reduced to economic phenomena.
it is indisputable that at the outset, the economic factor is rudimentary, while religious life is by contrast, luxuriant and all-pervading. [Sociology and the Social Sciences (1903)]
Economic influences acquire a life of their own, but their origin is society, and society is coeternal with religion.
We are thus far from holding that the economic factor is simply an epiphenomenon; once it exists, it has its own particular influence, and can partially modify the very substratum from which it results. But this is not reason to confuse it in any way with this substratum, in order to make of it something especially fundamental. Everything leads us to believe, on the contrary, that it is secondary and derived. [Sociology and the Social Sciences (1903)]

III. Durkheim, religion and anomie

Religion is in fact a product of the social structure. His main theory is that there is a distinction between traditional and modern society. Modern societies are based on organic solidarity. This change from mechanical to organic society brings about a decline in the importance of religion. At the same time there is an increase in individualism.
However, the transition to modern organic society is not yet complete. So society is at present in a transition phase, and organic solidarity is not fully developed. We exist in a state of anomie — normlessless — in which there is increased class conflict. However, when the division of labour has been fully completed the class conflict will be eradicated.
In the final organic society there will exist private property and inequality, but the hereditary laws governing the transition of property will be abolished. Thus, the final organic society will be a meritocracy, since the only distinctions between people that will be allowed to exist will be those based on the functional differences between people and the need to reward different contributions to the organic whole in different ways. Everyone will accept this as socially necessary.
It is wrong to regard modern society as being based on egoism. In fact, the cult of the individual is itself a product of modern society, and modern society is based on a social solidarity that is more fundamental than individual aspirations. The development of organic society advances individualism because the individual increasingly becomes aware of how his personality arises from his position in society.