To Weber, capitalism is entirely rational. Although this leads to efficiency and merit-based success, it can have negative effects when taken to the extreme. In some modern societies, this is seen when rigid routines and strict design lead to a mechanized work environment and a focus on producing identical products in every location.
Weber was also unlike his predecessors in that he was more interested in how individuals experienced societal divisions than in the divisions themselves. For Weber, the culmination of industrialization, rationalization, and the like results in what he referred to as the iron cage , in which the individual is trapped by institutions and bureaucracy.
Indeed a dark prediction, but one that has, at least to some degree, been borne out Gerth and Mills In a rationalized, modern society, we have supermarkets instead of family-owned stores.
We have chain restaurants instead of local eateries. Superstores that offer a multitude of merchandise have replaced independent businesses that focused on one product line, such as hardware, groceries, automotive repair, or clothing.
Shopping malls offer retail stores, restaurants, fitness centers, even condominiums. This change may be rational, but is it universally desirable? Cubicles are used to maximize individual workspace in an office. Such structures may be rational, but they are also isolating. In a series of essays in , Max Weber presented the idea of the Protestant work ethic , a new attitude toward work based on the Calvinist principle of predestination.
In the sixteenth century, Europe was shaken by the Protestant Revolution. While Catholic leaders emphasized the importance of religious dogma and performing good deeds as a gateway to Heaven, Protestants believed that inner grace, or faith in God, was enough to achieve salvation.
John Calvin in particular popularized the Christian concept of predestination, the idea that all events—including salvation—have already been decided by God. Because followers were never sure whether they had been chosen to enter Heaven or Hell, they looked for signs in their everyday lives.
If a person was hard-working and successful, he was likely to be one of the chosen. If a person was lazy or simply indifferent, he was likely to be one of the damned. Weber argued that this mentality encouraged people to work hard for personal gain; after all, why should one help the unfortunate if they were already damned?
Over time, the Protestant work ethic spread and became the foundation for capitalism. For Karl Marx, society exists in terms of class conflict.
With the rise of capitalism, workers become alienated from themselves and others in society. Sociologist Max Weber noted that the rationalization of society can be taken to unhealthy extremes. The Division of Labor in Society. Translated by George Simpson. New York: Free Press. The Rules of the Sociological Method. Translated by W. Engels, Friedrich. The Condition of the Working-Class in England in In mechanical solidarity, groups are small, individuals in the group resemble each other, and their individual conscience is more or less synonymous with and dependent on the collective conscience.
Individuals belong to the group and the individual and individuality as we understand them do not exist. As the moral density increases, this changes.
In order to mitigate the competition and make social life harmonious, individuals in a society will specialize their tasks and pursue different means to make a living. The more a society grows in moral density, the more the labor of a society will divide and the more specialized the tasks of its individuals will become. In his later work he continues examining how societies change as a result of an increase in dynamic density, yet he understands solidarity in more symbolic and religious terms, with periods of great ritual and collective effervescence, such as the Renaissance, the Reformation, or the French Revolution, playing an integral role in social change.
Concerning the specific impacts of the increase of dynamic density and the division of labor in society, Durkheim concentrates his analysis on Europe. The industrialization and urbanization of Western Europe had great effects on society in a number of different ways. One of the most important effects was the rise of individualism and the importance of the individual within Western society, which took place on different levels.
With the division of labor, there was a specialization of tasks, which gave the individual more freedom to develop their work. As a result, individual autonomy increased, since the rest of society was less and less capable of telling the individual how to do the work. At the same time city life was characterized by fewer and weaker intimate relationships and greater anonymity, which granted greater personal freedoms. As a result, the individual felt in a real way less acted upon by society and there were fewer and fewer collective experiences shared by all members of the group.
These changes in society had the effect of individuating the population and creating differences between individuals. Christian moral doctrine, which places emphasis on individual spirituality, also had a role in shaping these changes and influencing Western individualism. The creation of the individual in these ways is perhaps the defining characteristic of modernity. In many ways his book Division is a refutation of this theory and strives to show that collective life is not born from the individual, but, rather, that the individual is born out of collective life.
The increase in dynamic density and the division of labor also had major impacts on economic, social, and political institutions. In medieval society, there were well-defined social institutions in the realms of religion, politics, and education that were each distinct from one another.
The organization of the economic sector was especially important, with guilds developing into strong, independent institutions that were at the heart of social life. These institutions regulated prices and production and maintained good relations between members of the same craft.
These institutions and structures of society ensured that individuals were integrated into the social fold properly, promoting social solidarity. In the 18th and 19th centuries, however, a large growth in population was coupled with a large demographic shift, which was aided by technological innovation such as the railroad, the steamship, and various manufacturing techniques. Without the previous restrictions on mobility or production capabilities, cities grew greatly in size, production of goods centralized, and the economic and social equilibrium that existed in the medieval period was ruptured.
The ever-greater mobility of goods and people extended the reach of economic, political, and social institutions. As a result the guild system disappeared and regional trading interdependence gave way to international interdependence.
Large-scale institutions in politics, education, shipping, manufacturing, arts, banking and so forth that were free from regional limitations developed in cities and extended their influence to greater portions of society. In essence, Durkheim is describing the birth of the modern industrial state.
The concentration of the population and the centralization of the means of production created an enormous shift in the way of life for large parts of European society.
It also changed the way that people related to one another. The way of life that corresponded to medieval society no longer corresponded to the way of life in the modern industrial world. It was impossible for new generations to live in the same ways as their predecessors and European society witnessed a weakening of all its previous traditions, particularly its religious traditions.
Yet how is one to understand this statement? What does this mean for European society? On the one hand the old gods are dead. Because of the massive transformations taking place, European society became profoundly destructured. The institutions animating medieval life disappeared. As a result, individuals were having a hard time finding meaningful attachments to social groups and society as a whole lost its former unity and cohesiveness.
Not only this, but the transformations that led to modernity also rendered former beliefs and practices irrelevant. The big things of the past, the political, economic, social, and especially religious institutions, no longer inspired the enthusiasm they once did.
With former ways of life no longer relevant and society no longer cohesive, the collective force so vital for the life of a society was no longer generated. This would have an important impact on the religion of medieval society, Christianity.
Because society no longer had the means to create the collective force that exists behind God, belief in God weakened substantially. Christian society was no longer sufficiently present to the individual for faith in God to be maintained; the individual no longer felt, literally, the presence of God in their lives.
With the lack of faith in God also came a rejection of other elements of Christian doctrine, such as Christian morality and Christian metaphysics, which were beginning to be replaced respectively by modern notions of justice and modern science. In sum, the social milieu that supported Christianity disappeared, leaving Christian faith, values, and thinking without any social foundations to give them life.
That Christianity faded away in European society is not a problem in itself, for it merely reflects a natural course of development a society may take. For Durkheim, the changes in European society were taking place too quickly and no new institutions had been able to form in the absence of the old ones. European society had not yet been able to create a religion to replace Christianity. Instead what Durkheim saw in Europe was a society in a state of disaggregation characterized by a lack of cohesion, unity, and solidarity.
Individuals in such a society have no bonds between them and interact in a way similar to molecules of water, without any central force that is able to organize them and give them shape.
European society had become nothing but a pile of sand that the slightest wind would succeed at dispersing. To begin, such a society is incapable of generating social forces that act on the individual.
It is unable to create an authority that exerts pressure on individuals to act and think in a similar manner. Without these forces acting on the individual from the outside, individuals are dispersed from their commitment to society and left to their own. Duties are no longer accepted carte blanche and moral rules no longer seem binding.
As such, individuals increasingly are detached from group obligation and act out of self-interest. These are the two conditions that Durkheim believes characterize the moral situation of modern European society: rampant individualism and weak morality. A second problem stemming from the fact that society is no longer present to individuals is a higher suicide rate, specifically with two types of suicide that Durkheim identifies in Suicide. The first is egoistic suicide, in which an individual no longer see a purpose to life and sees life as meaningless.
These feelings arise because the bonds integrating the individual to society have weakened or been broken. This problem involves society because society is an important source of meaning and direction for individuals, giving them goals to pursue and norms to guide them. Consequently the individual is perpetually unhappy. Both types of suicide result from a weakness of social solidarity and an inability for society to adequately integrate its individuals.
A final consequence is that society has no central measure for truth and no authoritative way of organizing or understanding the world. In such a state, there arises the potential for conflict between individuals or groups who have different ways of understanding the world.
This same underlying disorganization was preventing European society from generating the collective force necessary for the creation of new institutions and a new sacred object. The death of the gods is a symptom of a sickened society, one that has lost its internal structure and descended into an-archy, or a society with no authority and no definitive principles, moral or otherwise, to build itself on.
In spite of such a glum analysis, Durkheim did have hope for the future. According to the later Durkheim, religion is part of the human condition and as long as humans are grouped in collective life they will inevitably form a religion of some sort.
Europe could thus be characterized as in a state of transition; out of the ashes of Christianity, a new religion would eventually emerge. This new religion would form around the sacred object of the human person as it is represented in the individual, the only element common to all in a society that is becoming more and more diverse and individualized.
What is its conception of individual? The cult of the individual begins, like all religions according to Durkheim, with collective effervescence, the first moments of which can be found in the democratic revolutions taking place in Europe and elsewhere at the end of the 18th and during the 19th centuries.
Durkheim identifies the French Revolution as an example of such a release of collective energy. The concept of individual that these democratic revolutions were embracing follows strongly the line of thinking established during the Enlightenment; it is based on a general idea of human dignity and does not lead to a narcissistic, egotistical worship of the self. The cult of the individual thus presupposes an autonomous individual endowed with rationality, born both free and equal to all other individuals in these respects.
With this sacred object at its core, the cult of the individual also contains moral ideals to pursue. These moral ideals that define society include the ideals of equality, freedom, and justice. With society becoming more diverse, the respect, tolerance, and promotion of individual differences become important social virtues.
It is by protecting the rights of the individual in this way, somewhat paradoxically, that society is best preserved. Modern democracy, which encodes, institutionalizes, and protects the rights of the individual, is the form of government whereby Western societies best express their collective belief in the dignity of the individual.
Rationality is also of primary importance to this religion. The cult of the individual has as a first dogma the autonomy of reason and as a first right free inquiry. Authority can and must be rationally grounded in order for the critically rational individual to have respect for social institutions. In line with the importance of rationality, modern science provides the cosmology for the cult of the individual.
Scientific truths have come to be accepted by society as a whole and Durkheim even says that modern society has faith in science in a way similar to how past societies had faith in Christianity cosmology; despite that most individuals do not participate in or fully understand the scientific experiments taking place, the general population trusts scientific findings and accepts them as true. Modern science has an advantage, however, in that, unlike other religious cosmologies, it avoids dogmatizing about reality and permits individuals to challenge scientific theories through rational inquiry, fitting with the doctrine of the cult of the individual perfectly.
However, with the large growth in population and the individualization of society, it becomes very easy for society to lose hold of individuals or for the state to become out of touch with the population it serves. What is more, if society becomes too atomized the state risks becoming domineering. As a way of preventing the creation of a wholly individualistic society, Durkheim advocates the existence of intermediary groups, such as religious institutions, labor unions, families, regional groupings, and different types of other civil society groups.
These groups would serve a double purpose. On the one hand they would be intimate enough to provide sufficient social bonds for the individual, which would serve to integrate the individual into the society and develop their moral conscience. On the other hand, they would represent the demands of individuals to the government and check state power, thereby ensuring that the state does not become domineering.
At the same time, Durkheim understands that these secondary groups run the risk of dominating the individual and cutting them off from the wider society. In such a situation society would risk fragmenting into distinct groupings, leading to social conflict.
Hence, Durkheim also recognizes the need for the state to exercise its authority over secondary groups as a way of liberating the individual and having them participate in the higher society and moral order that the state represents.
Ultimately this dialectic between the state and the secondary group ensures the proper functioning of a democratic society, namely by ensuring that individuals are properly socialized and that neither the state nor the secondary groups become repressive towards the individual. Through this new religion of the cult of the individual, to which he gave his full support, Durkheim predicted that European society would once again find the unity and cohesion it was lacking; once again it would have a sacred object.
This document could be regarded as one of the central holy texts of the cult of the individual, helping frame contemporary international moral discourse. Durkheim is one of the first thinkers in the Western tradition, along with other 19 th century thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Charles Peirce , and Karl Marx, to reject the Cartesian model of the self, which stipulates a transcendental, purely rational ego existing wholly independent of outside influence.
In opposition to the Cartesian model, Durkheim views the self as integrated in a web of social, and thus historical, relations that greatly influence their actions, interpretations of the world, and even their abilities for logical thought. What is more, social forces can be assimilated by the individual to the point where they operate on an automatic, instinctual level, in which the individual is unaware of the effect society has on their tastes, moral inclinations, or even their perception of reality.
In consequence, if an individual wants to know themselves, they must understand the society of which they are a part, and how this society has a direct impact on their existence. In these ways, Durkheim anticipated by at least fifty years the post-modern deconstruction of the self as a socio-historically determined entity. Partly because of this conception of the individual, and partly because of his methodology and theoretical stances, Durkheim has been routinely criticized on several points.
Critics argue that he is a deterministic thinker and that his view of society is so constraining towards the individual that it erases any possibility for individual autonomy and freedom. Others argue that his sociology is too holistic and that it leaves no place for the individual or for subjective interpretations of social phenomena.
Critics have gone so far as to accuse Durkheim of being anti-individual due in part to his consistent claims that the individual is derived from society. To begin, one should recall that social facts, while sui generis products of society, exist only as far as individuals incorporate them.
On this point Durkheim makes clear on several occasions that individuals incorporate and appropriate elements of society, such as religious beliefs, morality, or language, in their own manner. Thus, each individual expresses society in their own way. It should also be remembered that social facts are the result of a fusion of individual minds. As such there is a delicate interplay between the individual and society whereby the individual not only maintains their individuality, but is also able to enrich the field of social forces by contributing to it their own personal thoughts and feelings.
In another sense, critics claiming that Durkheim is anti-individual overlook his analysis of modern society. This grants individuals an increasing amount of freedom to develop their personality. At least in Western society, the development of and respect for individualism has grown to such an extent that it has become the object of a cult; the individual is a sacred object and the protection of individual liberties and human dignity has been codified into moral principles.
Granted that this individualism is itself a product of collective life, modern society, if anything, encourages individual autonomy, diversity, and freedom of thought as shared social norms. In fact, Durkheim argues that to adhere to a group is the only thing that makes an individual human, since everything that we attribute as being special to humanity language, the ability for rational thought, the ability for moral action, and so forth is a product of social life.
Far from being anti-individual, Durkheim never lost sight of the individual, and the relation of the individual to society is a guiding question throughout his work. Paul Carls Email: paul. Biography a. Intellectual Development and Influences Durkheim was not the first thinker to attempt to make sociology a science. The Sociological Method: Society and the Study of Social Facts According to Durkheim, all elements of society, including morality and religion, are part of the natural world and can be studied scientifically.
The Categories Language is not the only facet of logical thought that society engenders; society also plays a large role in creating the categories of thought, such as time, space, number, causality, personality and so forth. In the latter, some sectors of business and business executives were insufficiently regulated by society, and seem to have viewed themselves above such regulation.
The corporate excesses and crimes that resulted are an example of anomie. Irregular forms such as crime are not treated as part of the breakdown, rather these are treated by Durkheim as differentiation Division , p.
Durkheim compares these with cancer, rather than with normal organs. The real problem is a lack of regulation or a weakened common morality that can occur in modern society.
For example, in the economic sphere, there are no rules which fix the number of economic enterprises Division , p. This might be an overall form of irrationality, in Weber's sense. There can be ruptures in equilibrium, capital labour relations may become indeterminate. In the scientific field there may be greater separation of different sciences. If the division of labour does not produce solidarity in all these cases, it is because the relations of the organs are not regulated, because they are in a state of anomy.
For the individual this means there are not sufficient moral constraints and individuals do not have a clear concept of what is proper and acceptable. Ritzer, p. See Appendix quote Relations, being rare, are not repeated enough to be determined He discusses the degrading nature of the division of labour on the worker, the possibility of monotonous routine, and the machine like actions of the worker.
However, Durkheim does not consider these to be the normal form, but one which results when the worker does not have a sufficient vision of the whole process of production. The division of labour presumes that the worker, far from being hemmed in by his task, does not lose sight of his collaborators, that he acts upon them, and reacts to them.
He is, then, not a machine who repeats his movements without knowing their meaning, but he knows that they tend, in some way, towards an end that he conceives more or less distinctly. Forced division of labour. The forced division of labour is where the division of labour is not allowed to develop spontaneously, and where some act to protect themselves and their positions. These could be traditional forms, which are external to the division of labour, or they could be castes, Weber's status groups, or Marx's classes.
Any factors that prevent individuals from achieving positions which would be consistent with their natural abilities indicates a force division of labour. Ritzer notes p. Any interference with the operation of the division of labour that results in the position being filled by those who are not most apt for the position would be forced division of labour.
Forced Division of Labour. We may say that the division of labour produces solidarity only if it is spontaneous and in proportion as it is spontaneous. In short, labor is divided spontaneously only if society is constituted in such a way that social inequalities exactly express natural inequalities.
It consists, not in a state of anarchy which would permit men freely to satisfy all their good or bad tendencies, but in a subtle organization in which each social value, being neither overestimated nor underestimated by anything foreign to it, would be judged at its worth.
Examples of the forced division of labour include societies with slavery or a caste system, where some individuals are prevented from participating normally in the division of labour.
Interferences with equality of opportunity, such as discrimination in hiring or in obtaining educational opportunities, are examples of forced division of labour.
Class and wealth also interfere with such equal opportunity, but Durkheim views this as abnormal and not the normal tendency. Society is forced to reduce this disparity as far as possible by assisting in various ways those who find themselves in a disadvantageous position and by aiding them to overcome it.
Role of state and occupational groups. Having said that Durkheim was generally very optimistic concerning the development of the division of labour in developing an organic solidarity, Durkheim was also concerned with the state of modern society. The development of the division of labour did have the tendency to split people, and the organic solidarity might not be sufficient to hold society together. One solution for regulation that Durkheim discusses is the state.
In some senses, Durkheim was a socialist, although not of the same type as Marx. While the principles of morality had to be present in society, the state could embody these in structures, fulfilling functions such as justice, education, health, social services, etc. The appropriate values of individualism, responsibility, fair play, and mutual obligation can be affirmed through the policies instituted by the state in all these fields. The second major hope that Durkheim held was for what he called occupational groups.
The state could not be expected to play the integrative role that might be needed, because it was too remote. As a solution, Durkheim thought that occupational or professional groups could provide the means of integration required.
These would be formed by people in an industry, representing all the people in this sector. Their role would be somewhat different from Weber's parties, in that they would not be concerned with exercising power, and achieving their own ends. What we especially see in the occupational group is a moral power capable of containing individual egos, of maintaining a spirited sentiment of common solidarity in the consciousness of all the workers, of preventing the law of the strongest from being brutally applied to industrial and commercial relations.
That moral system In summary, Durkheim argued that there were various means by which individual and society could be connected.
Among these are education, social programs through the state, occuptional groups, and laws. Together these could assist in regulating individuals and integrating individuals with society. Cuff, E. Sharrock and D. Francis, Perspectives in Sociology , third edition, London, Routledge, HM66 P36 Referred to in notes as Division.
HD 51 D Referred to in notes as Rules. HM 24 D Referred to in notes as Suicide. HV D HM19 G Grabb, Edward G. HT G Hadden, Richard W. HM24 R Sydie, R. HM51 S97 Horwood, HM22 F8 D Zeitlin, Irving M. HM19 Z4 Last edited January 18, Return to Sociology Introduction Adams and Sydie begin their discussion of early sociology with a presentation of the sociological work of conservative writers pp.
Emile Durkheim 1. General approach Durkheim adopted an evolutionary approach in that he considered society to have developed from a traditional to modern society through the development and expansion of the division of labour. Division of Labor in Society In The Division of Labor in Society Durkheim attempts to determine what is the basis of social solidarity in society and how this has changed over time. Mechanical solidarity Early societies tended to be small scale, localized in villages or rural areas, with a limited division of labour or only a simple division of labour by age and sex.
Referring to repressive or penal forms of punishment in early society, Durkheim notes that it may extend to: the innocent, his wife, his children, his neighbours, etc. Organic solidarity With the development of the division of labour, the collective consciousness begins to decline. There is a functional interdependence in the division of labour.
Durkheim speaks of the centripetal and centrifugal forces, and draws an organic analogy: Individuality is something which the society possesses. In the structure of societies with organic solidarity quote 8 : Quote 8. Three ways in which this happens are: i. Quote 8: Social Structure 2nd part In the same city, different occupations can co-exist without being obliged mutually to destroy one another, for they pursue different objects. Quote 9: Division of Labour. Abnormal forms of the division of labour At the end of The Division of Labor in Society , however, Durkheim does note that there can be problems in society.
See Appendix quote Anomie. Quote Forced Division of Labour. Role of state and occupational groups Having said that Durkheim was generally very optimistic concerning the development of the division of labour in developing an organic solidarity, Durkheim was also concerned with the state of modern society.
We draw on his contributions to help make sense of what holds us together, and also, quite importantly, to help us understand the things that divide us, and how we deal or don't deal with those divisions. Durkheim referred to how we bind together around a shared culture as "solidarity. So, how is this theory of solidarity, crafted in the late 19th century, relevant today? One subfield in which it remains salient is the Sociology of Consumption. Other sociologists rely on Durkheim's formulation of the collective conscious to study how certain beliefs and behaviors persist over time, and how they connect to things like politics and public policy.
The collective conscious—a cultural phenomenon premised on shared values and beliefs—helps explain why many politicians are elected based on the values they claim to espouse, rather than on the basis of their actual track record as legislators.
Today, Durkheim's work is also useful to sociologists who rely on his concept of anomie to study the way violence often crops up—whether to the self or others—in the midst of societal change.
This concept refers to how societal change, or the perception of it, can cause one to feel disconnected from society given changes in norms, values, and expectations, and how this can cause both psychic and material chaos.
There are more ways that Durkheim's body of work remains important, relevant, and useful to sociologists today. You can learn more about that by studying him and by asking sociologists how they rely on his contributions.
Gregory, Frantz A. Brennan, Jason.
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