Durkheim and Spencer Complexity and Social Order

Abstract
Both Emile Durkheim and Herbert Spencer proposed an evolutionary sociology, whereby societies become increasingly complex and naturally exhibit changes in their social orders. Essentially functionalist in their respective approaches, Durkheim and Spencer also show how the division of labor functions to create social solidarity in complex societies. However, Durkheim and Spencer differ in their evolutionary analysis. Durkheim is far more optimistic than his predecessor, believing that the division of labor does not necessarily lead to pathological individualism. Moreover, Durkheim believes in an organic model of social order. Spencer, on the other hand, proposes a more utilitarian function of both cooperation and social order. Whereas Spencer believed in mutual cooperation for rational, self-seeking ends, Durkheim believed in interdependence for its own sake, as societies take on a life of their own.
Introduction
Concurrent with the social science zeitgeist of the nineteenth century, Emile Durkheim and Herbert Spencer studied the evolution of human societies from an evolutionary standpoint. While both Durkheim and Spencer occasionally referred to the biological underpinnings of human nature and thus, society as collective human nature, both also shifted attention towards overarching social structures. Yet neither Durkheim nor Spencer was concerned with formal social structures or institutions such as government or organized religion, or even kinship. Rather, Durkheim and Spencer looked towards the burgeoning field of economics to describe the ways societies evolve from being simple, relatively small, and kinship-based towards being more based on the economic expediency of exchange and the production of material goods. As technologies evolve and societies become even more economically productive, the role of institutions like government or religion become far less important or necessary. Having lost their function in promoting social order, political and social institutions give way to the overarching institutions that enable social stability and order.
On Division of Labor
Both Durkheim and Spencer viewed the division of labor as a natural outcropping of increasingly complex societies. Likewise, both Durkheim and Spencer viewed the division of labor in societies from an evolutionary perspective: as societies evolve, growing larger, more industrialized, and more complex, division of labor becomes “the supreme law of human societies and the condition of their progress,” (Jones, 1986, p. 1). Spencer likewise viewed “the history of social evolution as a process of increasing size, division of labor, differentiation, and mutual cooperation,” (LaPorte, 2015, p. 312). Division of labor is necessarily in complex societies, for the same reason it is necessary for the production of complex goods or technologies. Individuals who specialize can contribute to the production of a whole: that whole can be a product or society at large.
Durkheim was more optimistic than Spencer in his assessment of human nature and the role division of labor plays in the society. For Durkheim, “the division of labor does produce a kind of solidarity, and that the division of labor is highly developed in advanced societies,” (Jones, 1986, p. 1). Spencer did not necessarily view the division of labor as enhancing solidarity in any way. If solidarity results from division of labor, then it is because division of labor has utility: it functions as a means to make the society run more efficiently (La Porte, 2015). Durkheim also understood that the division of labor may enhance the predisposition of human beings towards individualism, which can become excessive, as with the development of anomie (Lizardo, 2009). However, Durkheim remains an optimist, claiming that in spite of the dualistic nature of human beings, individuality and solidarity have grown stronger together (Pope & Johnson, 1983).
On Social Solidarity
Although both Durkheim and Spencer recognized that complex societies evolve their own, more abstract and informal, means of maintaining order and solidarity beyond the need for formal institutions, their views on social solidarity differed. To a degree, both Durkheim and Spencer believed that division of labor leads to solidarity, and solidarity leads to greater integration, and greater integration can create stability (Jones, 1986, p. 1). Moreover, Durkheim believed in two types of social solidarity or social integration: the type that is mechanistic, and the type that is organic (Shortell, n.d.). Mechanistic social solidarity relies on the enforcement of rules via punitive measures, which is the most common type of social mechanisms in more simple societies that still depend on collective belief systems, collective consciousness, and formal structures. Organic social solidarity, on the other hand, emerges from increasingly complex societies. As societies evolve into more complex organisms, organic solidarity entails “principles of exchange and restitution, rather than punishment,” to enforce norms, laws, and cohesion (Shortell, n.d.). Essentially, Durkheim believed that societies are organic entities. Their institutions arise organically as a process of natural selection, with different parts that functioned to ensure the smooth and orderly operation and evolution of society,” (Sociology of Emile Durkheim,” 2003). However, Spencer did conceptualize several types of human “superorganisms,” the overarching structures in the society that can be also understood via their functions including resource production, regulation or power, and distribution of power and resources (Turner & Abrutyn, 2016, p. 7). These are the informal social institutions that both Spencer and Durkheim agreed upon in their respective analyses.
Spencer’s view of why human beings agree to perpetuate social solidarity was totally different from Durkheim’s optimistic view. For Spencer, society is not organic, and nor is it analogous to an organism. Rather, society is comprised of individuals who are primarily self-seeking and egoistic. Their decision to cooperate is based on mutual interest and need. There is no overarching ethic, but nor is there a punitive system to enforce norms, rules, and laws. Spencer’s society is an “agglomeration of sentient individuals who are pursuing their own needs, wants, and interests,” (Corning, 1982, p. 360). For Durkheim, the society takes on a life of its own, and maintains itself through interdependence. Durkheim’s model of social solidarity and society does not have any moral imperative but it is organically inclined towards its own self-preservation.
Spencer’s Utilitarianism
One of the reasons why Durkheim diverged from Spencer’s theory of social solidarity is that the latter was more utilitarian. Spencer believed society has a “utilitarian instrumentality,” and is based on human biology and economic need (Corning, 1982, p. 360). Durkheim was not utilitarian and believed more in an organic evolution of interdependence, whereby individuals who are highly specialized in their role in society want to work together to share resources and achieve common goals. Referring to the norms and values that hold together simpler societies under the rubric of shared worldviews and belief systems, Durkheim contradicted Spencer’s purely utilitarian view. Durkheim did recognize, however, that the more complex the society, the less norms and values created social order and the more economic interdependence served that function.
Spencer did recognize the function of mutual cooperation and simple structures like kinship groups as the potential for promoting the “greatest social cohesion” and cooperative power (Corning, 1982, p. 360). Yet even in kinship groups and small societies, people are acting out of their economic or safety needs. Mutual dependence is utilitarian and so is social solidarity, contrary to what Durkheim proposed. For Spencer, human beings in a society enter into “contractual relationships,” which could just as well be conceived of as transactional relationships too (LaPorte, 2015, p. 312).
On Increasing Complexity
Both Spencer and Durkheim had evolutionary perspectives on society and sociology, but had different visions for how increasing complexity worked and how complex systems evolved. Durkheim and Spencer both attributed social evolution to biological mechanisms, reflecting Darwinian models of natural selection (Turner &Abrutyn, 2016). Both also attributed some of society’s increasing complexity to market forces and economic expediency. Spencer “combined a market and utilitarian theory of society with a theory of progress,” (LaPorte, 2015, p. 312). Durkheim and Spencer both acknowledged that division of labor as a natural feature of the capitalist enterprise was a means by which to attenuate increasing social complexity. From the evolutionary perspective, the vision of labor evolved almost in the same way as a species would evolve a new type of appendage or fur coloring to adapt to its environment.
Spencer’s utilitarianism guided his belief on how division of labor and social solidarity functioned, and why those evolutionary structures existed in the first place. For Spencer, as societies evolve technologically and industrialize, the society becomes more complex even as “political authority becomes less significant,” (LaPorte, 2015, p. 312). Durkheim also understood that social codes, more than political authority, formed the glue of societies. Complex societies become more about mutual cooperation, as the impetus for interdependence becomes more evident. Durkheim would, for instance, understand how globalization enhanced mutuality among disparate and potentially discordant groups in a diverse economy. Durkheim also discounted the role of formal institutions in promoting order, focusing instead on informal institutions like the division of labor and the interdependence that promotes social cohesion throughout complex societies. Spencer framed order as a transactional agreement to mutually cooperate, but ultimately both sociologists saw that increased complexity and division of labor were inevitable and could lead to harmonious outcomes.
Durkheim espoused interdependence far more than Spencer did, though. Interdependence is akin to a social contract perspective, but not one that is as transactional as Spencer’s view on mutual cooperation contracts. For instance, Durkheim proposed a “functional interdependence,” which evolves out of necessity as individuals become so highly specialized that they need what others specialize in to fulfill their basic needs (“Sociology of Emile Durkheim,” 2003, p. 1). As societies grow, they exhibit greater specialization and division of labor. Increased specialization is not in itself problematic, for either Durkheim or for Spencer. However, in an organically complex, large and industrialized society, interdependence becomes necessary to maintain solidarity (Shortell, n.d.).
Conclusion
Early sociological theories proposed by Emile Durkheim and Herbert Spencer borrowed from evolutionary biology and economics. Both Durkheim and Spencer focused much of their work on the analysis of how societies become more complex, and what features those increasingly complex societies exhibit in order to maintain social order. Using the economics framework, both Durkheim and Spencer understood division of labor to be an evolutionary social structure, one that facilitated the preservation of social order. Individuals could balance their dual nature of being motivated by individual needs but also by the recognition that the collective, the society, was critical to meeting their goals. This Spencerian utilitarian perspective was altered somewhat by Durkheim but not in any deep or significant way. Both Durkheim and Spencer showed how division of labor and social contracts foster cohesion and solidarity, albeit from different perspectives.




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