The Division of Labor in Society

“Is it our duty to seek to become a rounded, complete creature, a whole sufficient unto itself or, on the contrary, to only be a part of the whole, the organ of an organism?”

This is the fundamental question Durkheim seeks to answer throughout The Division of Labor. It is a moral question because it asks about the duty and purpose of human existence. In the Conclusion, Durkheim argues it is society that imparts morality; in other words, people are duty bound to live as part of a whole.

“Since law reproduces the main forms of social solidarity, we have only to classify the different types of law in order to be able to investigate which types of social solidarity correspond to them.”

Durkheim sees the legal system as a reflection of societal organization. A society that relies on punitive law is bound by mechanical solidarity because it encourages similarity in people rather than diversity. A society that has an extensive civil law, on the other hand, is bound by organic solidarity and encourages individuality and specialization.

“The bond of social solidarity to which repressive law corresponds is one the breaking of which constitutes the crime.”

This explains Durkheim’s theory on the relationship between mechanical solidarity and penal law. The more a society is tied together by sharing a collective consciousness, the more its solidarity is mechanical, because any deviation from the collective is considered threatening to social cohesion. Penal law is a regulating force that serves the purpose of retaliating against threatening offenses.