“Emile Durkheim had argued that the function of division of labour in society is that of the promotion of social solidarity. Elaborate the statement and analyze the distinction between two forms of solidarity discussed by him.” (2000)
Economists such as Adam Smith praised the division of labour for raising productivity. Émile Durkheim, in The Division of Labour in Society (1893), argued that its real function is moral: it creates a new bond of solidarity in societies where likeness no longer holds people together.
Elaborating the statement
- Function, not efficiency: the benefits of specialisation are secondary. Just as a marriage of different temperaments binds partners through complementarity, specialisation makes individuals need one another.
- Cause: as population volume and dynamic (moral) density increase, competition for scarce resources would become ruinous. Specialisation lets people coexist by occupying different niches, an argument Durkheim borrowed from Charles Darwin.
- Measuring solidarity: solidarity is a moral phenomenon that cannot be observed directly, so Durkheim used law as its external index. The proportion of repressive to restitutive law reveals which kind of solidarity prevails.
Distinguishing the two forms
| Criterion | Mechanical solidarity | Organic solidarity |
|---|---|---|
| Basis | Likeness of members | Difference and interdependence |
| Social structure | Segmental: clans and villages, self-sufficient | Organised: specialised, interdependent organs |
| Division of labour | Minimal: by age and sex | Advanced and occupational |
| Collective conscience | Large in volume, intense, rigid, religious | Weaker, abstract, secular, open to reflection |
| Individual | Absorbed in the group | Individuality and personal judgement expand |
| Law | Repressive: penal, expresses collective outrage | Restitutive: civil, commercial, administrative; restores the prior state |
| Crime | An offence against sacred sentiments | A disturbance of specific relations |
| Typical sanction | Punishment, vengeance, expulsion | Compensation, contract enforcement |
Analysis of the distinction
- Law as index: punishment in simple societies is not a means of deterrence but the group’s reaffirmation of its conscience, whereas restitutive law deals with relations the wider society does not feel as sacred.
- Not total replacement: repressive law does not vanish; it shrinks relative to restitutive law. India shows both. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (in force from 1 July 2024) makes mob lynching on grounds such as caste, community or language punishable with death or life imprisonment. That is a repressive response to collective passions. The expansion of consumer tribunals under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, the Mediation Act, 2023 and community service as a new BNS punishment reflects the restitutive side.
- Indian contrast: the jajmani village combined occupational specialisation with sacred hierarchy. That suggests the two forms can coexist, which complicates Durkheim’s evolutionary sequence.
- Abnormal forms: the anomic (unregulated markets and class conflict) and forced (inherited inequality) division of labour produce conflict instead of solidarity. Organic solidarity is therefore a potential, not an automatic outcome.
Critical assessment
- Bronisław Malinowski (Crime and Custom in Savage Society, 1926) found reciprocity-based, restitutive obligation among Trobriand islanders.
- Richard D. Schwartz and James C. Miller (1964) found that mediation and damages appear before police in legal evolution, which reverses Durkheim’s sequence.
- Karl Marx saw the capitalist division of labour as a source of alienation and class conflict, not harmony.
Conclusion
Durkheim’s thesis moved the analysis of the division of labour from economics to moral sociology. The ethnographic evidence on simple societies weakens his typology, and the forced division of labour is more common than he supposed. His central claim, that interdependence must be morally regulated to become solidarity, remains a sharp test for societies organised around markets.