Durkheim's Division of Labor and Social Structure Explained

From Feudal Societies to Modern Capitalism

There was once a time when the societies of the world — feudal societies — were nothing more than rigidly ruled classes. For every individual within each class, a daily routine was set and there was little change in people's lives. There was monotony in their work, and their labor did little more for them than keeping them alive. In those societies, there was scarcely any chance for self-actualization.

After that era came another, marked by drastic change. The concepts of industrialization and capitalism were introduced to societies all over the world. Some societies accepted them while others did not, and even condemned them. Those that accepted these changes became what are known as modern, or capitalist, societies.

Capitalist and modern societies are very complex in structure. Many theorists have tried to explain or simplify these complexities. Among the greatest of them are Karl Marx, the founder of conflict theory, and Émile Durkheim, a promoter of functionalism — two social theorists who challenged prevailing understandings of social structure in their works.

Durkheim and Marx on the Division of Labor

Émile Durkheim, known as a functionalist, focused on the idea that everything serves a function in society, and his main concern was to discover what that function was. Karl Marx, a conflict theorist, stressed that society is a complex system characterized by inequality and conflicts that generate social change. Both Durkheim and Marx were concerned with the characteristics of groups and structures rather than with individuals.

For Durkheim and Marx, the "division of labor" carried two very different meanings. As Durkheim wrote: "Social harmony comes essentially from the division of labor. It is characterized by a cooperation which is automatically produced through the pursuit by each individual of his own interests. It suffices that each individual consecrate himself to a special function in order, by the force of events, to make himself solidary with others."

From Durkheim's point of view, the division of labor means the separation and specialization of work among people. As industry and technology developed continuously and population increased, individuals in society had to become more specialized in order for society to survive. Labor had never before been as specialized as it became in modern society, and the trend was toward even further specialization. Marx, by contrast, believed that the workplace estranges workers from their own lives — from love, affection, and personal fulfillment — because in a capitalist society workers own none of the means of production they use in their work. These are owned by the capitalists, to whom workers must sell their "labor power" — their abilities and talents — in return for a wage. Marx also uses the term alienation to describe how a worker is, in effect, enslaved to the workplace, since the working day is not a fixed number of hours but varies according to the capitalist's demands.

While Marx asserted that alienation and dehumanization are associated with the division of labor, Durkheim focused on the positive side of the division of labor and tried to analyze its impact on the way people interact with one another. Durkheim's basic argument is that there are two types of social solidarity: mechanical solidarity, which characterizes traditional societies with a limited division of labor, and organic solidarity, which characterizes societies with a highly developed division of labor. Durkheim acknowledged that in both types of societies, individuals "interact in accordance with their obligations to others and to society as a whole. In doing so, each person also receives some recognition of his or her own rights and contributions within the collectivity. Social morality in this sense is strictly necessary for solidarity between people to occur; without morality, societies cannot exist."

Mechanical and Organic Solidarity

Furthermore, Durkheim was concerned with the social implications of increased specialization. As specialization increases, people become more separated from one another — values and interests diverge, norms vary, and different subcultures (both work-related and socially related) emerge. At work, people perform different tasks using different skills and abilities, and individuals come to appreciate and value different things. Durkheim did not, however, see the division of labor as a negative feature of society or as the downfall of social order.

The division of labor is a concept used in many ways across different contexts by theorists. In Durkheim's view, division of labor refers to the different types of work performed by individuals — the activities and tasks that differ among people as they exercise their labor in producing useful goods and services for themselves or others. The concept means that different workers regularly perform different tasks; if all people did the same work, there would be no division of labor and, of course, no real development of society.

Durkheim also stressed that, in reality, the division of labor gave rise to a distinct type of social order — organic solidarity. The division of labor is associated with social solidarity, and organic solidarity represents a social structure built on the interdependence of people in society. Because in a modern society people perform distinct activities through separate and specialized tasks, they come to rely on others for their survival. For example, if farmers stop working, everyone starves because no food is produced. If carpenters quit working, others will have no shelter. If sanitation workers do not show up, streets become dumps and disease spreads through the population. Durkheim wanted to demonstrate through his theory that without one another in a highly specialized society, no one can survive. This interdependence is the reason why the division of labor does not destroy social order.