Organic solidarity and Contractual Solidarity

This is an overview of chapter 7 (Organic solidarity and Contractual Solidarity). It highlights some of the key issues in this chapter. However it lacks an in-depth analysis of the issues raised by Durkheim and Spencer.

In this chapter, Durkheim criticizes Spencer’s conceptions of organic solidarity and contracts. This critic forms the basis of Durkheim’s discussion. Spencer claims that industrial solidarity is spontaneous and that there is no need for a coercive apparatus to produce or maintain it. Social harmony is simply established of its own accord. Durkheim asserts that, were this is the case, the sphere of social action would diminish greatly because it would no longer be needed except to enforce negative solidarity (149). I argue that human beings are dynamic and their actions are influenced by external events. In the free capitalists’ society, external measures actively influence people’s action. Thus social occurrences may not be spontaneous but are driven by other external forces like political and economic factors.

Spencer also argues that the normal form of exchange is contract. For this reason, the extent of central authority diminishes. As freedom of action increases, contracts become more general. This general social contract requires the free agreement of human wills and is irreconcilable with the division of labor. However, Durkheim argues states that this type of spontaneous, general social contract has never existed. Societies are spontaneously contractual only to the extent that an individual chooses to remain in the society in which he was born, and hence he abides by that society's rules. For Spencer, society would be no more than the establishment of relationships between individuals exchanging the products of their labor without any social action intervening to regulate that exchange (152).

Durkheim disputes Spencer by claiming that social intervention is on the rise. The legal obligations which society imposes on its members are becoming more and more complex. restitutory law is growing. If social intervention no longer has the effect of imposing certain uniform practices on everybody, it consists more in defining and regulating the special relationship between the different social functions (153).

Spencer agrues that not every kind of control has decreased, just positive control. However, Durkheim asserts that positive control is far from disappearing; in fact, restitutory law is continually growing (154). In the current situation, Durkheim and Spencer could be right but their arguments are context specific. Currently, with the increase in deviation from ‘normal behavior’, restitutory law is increasing. In Uganda were Kinships still prevail, repressive law still manifests to control people cord of conduct. However, restitutory law still dominates; people are forced to comply with government systems which may not be according to their own will. This could confirm Durkheim’s argument.

Durkheim next states that although Spencer is correct in claiming that contractual relationships are multiplied as society is divided up, he has failed to note that non-contractual relationships are developing at the same time (155). Durkheim argues that 'private law,' typically contractual, is really quite public. For instance, marriage and adoption, although private matters, were formerly endorsed by the church and are now endorsed by civil authority (155). As domestic obligations become more numerous, they tend to take on a private character. The role played by contract is continually decreasing, and social control over the way obligations are regulated is increasing. This is due to the progressive disappearance of segmentary organization. Everything segmentary is increasingly absorbed into larger society.

The contracts that remain are entirely removed from the sphere of individual negotiation and are submitted to the regulatory force of society. Contractual law exists to determine the legal consequences of our acts which we have not settled beforehand. It expresses the normal conditions for attaining equilibrium and constrains us to respect obligations for which we have not contracted. It is the role of society to determine what contractual conditions are capable of being executed, and if necessary, to restore them to their normal form (162). And just as society plays a role in shaping contracts, contracts play a role in shaping society. An extensive network of relationships which contribute to social solidarity can stem from contracts.

Social life is derived from a dual source: the similarity of individual consciousnesses and the social division of labor. The similarity of consciousnesses gives rise to rules, which under the threat of repressive measures, impose uniform beliefs and practices. The more pronounced the similarity, the more completely social life is mixed up with religious life. On the other hand, the division of labor gives rise to legal rules that determine the nature of a divided up society, but punishment for law breakers in this case involves only reparative measures which lack any expiatory character (172). In organic society, members' dependence on the state continues to grow. As a result, they are continually reminded of their common solidarity.

Durkheim argues that altruism is not Spencer's conception of an ornament to social life, but it is the fundamental basis of social life. Every society is a moral society, because men cannot cohabitate without agreeing and cooperating. Hence, even societies characterized by organic solidarity and the division of labour are moral because cooperation has an intrinsic morality. This morality grows as the individual personality grows stronger (as opposed to in mechanical solidarity when morality depends on common sentiment) (173-4).

There are 'two great currents of social life.' The first has origins in social similarity and is segmentary. It gradually becomes overshadowed by the second type of society, which is composed of individual differences and organic cooperation. Nonetheless, the segmentary structure never completely disappears (174).