EMILE DURKHEIM: DIVISION OF LABOR IN SOCIETY

Chapter 1: The method of determining this function

In chapter one, Durkheim establishes the role of division of labor. Division of labor increases both the productive capacity and skill of the workman, it is the necessary condition for the intellectual and material development in societies. Labor it has a moral character which is very important to society. Durkheim states that immoral actions (such as crime and suicide) tends to increase in industrial society and do not contribute to credit of civilization. Thus morality is very important in society and society can not live without it. Division of labor can promote morality and its true function is to create a feeling of solidarity between two or more people (17). Durkheim elucidates that similarity and dissimilarity can cause mutual attraction. Dissimilarity causes attraction because of complementarily. Different people are inclined to unite because we possess different qualities that complement each other.

To explain how the division of labor contributes to feelings of solidarity, Durkheim uses an example of a married couple. Men and women are attracted to each other because they are different, therefore, seek each other with passion. He claims that if the division of labor between the sexes were reduced to a certain point, material life would disappear, only to leave behind sexual relationships. The division of labor goes beyond purely economic interests; it constitutes the establishment of a social and moral order sui generis. Durkheim acknowledges that in marriage people are also bounded because of their similarities. In this sense, they are bonded outside the division of labor (22).

Durkheim asserts that great political societies cannot sustain their equilibrium save by the specialization of tasks; the division of labor is the source…of social solidarity. Durkheim states here that Comte was the first to point out that the division of labor was something other than a purely economic phenomenon. Comte argued that it was the 'continuous distribution of different human tasks which constitutes the principal element in social solidarity' (23). The division of labor has a moral character because the needs which it fulfills for social solidarity, order, and harmony are moral needs (24).

According to Durkheim, the most visible symbol of social solidarity is law and claims that solidarity and law are linked. He defines law as the organization of social life in its most stable and precise form. Life in society can not increase without legal activity. Thus all the essential varieties of social solidarity are reflected in law (25). We can classify different types of law to see which types of social solidarity correspond to them. Two types of law exist. The first type is repressive (covers penal law), which imposes some type of 'damage' on the perpetrator. The second type is restitution, which does not necessarily imply any suffering on the part of the perpetrator but consists of restoring the previous relationships which have been disturbed from their normal form (covers civil, communal, procedural law). Custom is not opposed to law and it forms the basis for it.