“What according to Emile Durkheim is the nature of relationship between the individual and society? Explain this with the help of his analysis of division of labour in society.” (2006)
For Émile Durkheim, society is not a sum of individuals but a moral reality sui generis that precedes and shapes them. The individual, however, is not simply crushed by it: individuality itself is a social product, and it grows as society becomes more complex. The Division of Labour in Society (1893) is his demonstration of this paradox.
Society prior to the individual
- Against Herbert Spencer and the utilitarians, who saw society as a contract among self-interested individuals, Durkheim showed the non-contractual element in contract: every contract assumes prior rules, trust and enforcement that no party creates.
- The human being is homo duplex (“The Dualism of Human Nature”, 1914). One side is the organic self of appetites; the other is the social self of moral rules, language and ideals, which society implants.
The argument of the Division of Labour
The book’s opening question sets the problem: how can the individual become more autonomous and yet depend more closely on society?
- Mechanical solidarity: in small, segmental societies with little specialisation, members are alike. The collective conscience is voluminous, intense and religious, and it covers almost the whole of individual consciousness. The individual barely exists as a separate moral unit, and deviance meets repressive law.
- Growing density: as population volume and dynamic or moral density rise, competition intensifies. Specialisation allows people to coexist rather than eliminate one another.
- Organic solidarity: specialised individuals now depend on one another as organs do. The collective conscience becomes weaker, more abstract and secular, leaving room for personal judgement, and restitutive law regulates relations between differentiated parts.
Autonomy and dependence therefore rise together. The more a person specialises, the less self-sufficient they are.
The cult of the individual
What remains common in modern society is reverence for the person. In “Individualism and the Intellectuals” (1898), written during the Dreyfus affair, Durkheim called this the cult of the individual: a collective, almost religious faith in human dignity. Individualism is thus a social creation, not a pre-social human nature.
When the relationship goes wrong
- Anomic division of labour: rapid economic change without regulation, as in industrial crises, leaves desires unlimited.
- Forced division of labour: inherited inequality assigns roles regardless of talent, so interdependence does not produce solidarity.
- His remedy (preface, 1902) was occupational groups restoring moral regulation.
Indian illustration
- Platform delivery work shows the dual movement. Workers are nominally “independent partners” yet wholly dependent on algorithms. The Code on Social Security, 2020, in force since 21 November 2025, defines gig and platform work for the first time and requires aggregators to contribute 1–2% of turnover to worker welfare. Society is re-regulating an anomic sphere.
- The Supreme Court’s recognition of privacy as a fundamental right in K. S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017) expresses the cult of the individual in constitutional law.
Limits
- Karl Marx would read “forced” division of labour as capitalism’s normal condition, not an aberration.
- Steven Lukes noted the tension between Durkheim’s claim of social determination and his moral defence of autonomy.
Conclusion
Durkheim’s answer is neither individualist nor collectivist. The individual is made by society, and modern society in turn sustains individuality through interdependence, rights and regulation. That makes his framework a live guide to the gig economy’s moral vacuum.