Main Currents in Sociological Thought: Volume 2

Durkheim, Pareto, Weber

Raymond Aron

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367254490
• eBook ISBN: 9780429836718
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This is the second of Raymond Aron's classic two-volume survey of the sociological tradition – arguably the definitive work of its kind. Aron explores the work of three figures who profoundly shaped sociology as it entered the twentieth century: Émile Durkheim, who continued Auguste Comte's quest for a science of society and a scientific validation of morality; Vilfredo Pareto, the Italian "neo-Machiavellian" who emphasized the oligarchic or elitist character of all societies; and the German sociologist Max Weber, who reflected critically on the prospects for human freedom in an age marked by bureaucratization and rationalization.

Aron presents rich portraits of these three thinkers, drawing out the enduring insights that remain in their work. At the same time he reflects critically on Durkheim's project for a science of society, Pareto's critique of humanitarianism, and Weber's tragic pessimism. Above all the book is remarkable for demonstrating Aron's lifelong indebtedness to and divergence from the thought of Max Weber, the sociologist par excellence, in Aron's view.

This Routledge Classics edition includes an introduction by Daniel J. Mahoney and Brian C. Anderson.

1

Émile Durkheim

I. De la division du travail social

De la division du travail social, Durkheim’s doctoral thesis, is his first major book; it is also the one in which the influence of Auguste Comte is most obvious. The theme of Durkheimian thought, and consequently the theme of this first book, is the relation between individuals and the collectivity. The problem might be stated thus: How can a multiplicity of individuals make up a society? How can individuals achieve what is the condition of social existence, namely, a consensus?

Durkheim’s answer to this central question is to set up a distinction between two forms of solidarity and organic solidarity, respectively.

Mechanical solidarity is, to use Durkheim’s language, a solidarity of resemblance. The major characteristic of a society in which mechanical solidarity prevails is that the individuals differ from one another as little as possible. The individuals, the members of the same collectivity, resemble each other because they feel the same emotions, cherish the same values, and hold the same things sacred. The society is coherent because the individuals are not yet differentiated.

The opposite form of solidarity, so-called organic solidarity, is one in which consensus, or the coherent unity of the collectivity, results from or is expressed by differentiation. The individuals are no longer similar, but different; and in a certain sense, which we shall examine more thoroughly, it is precisely because the individuals are different that consensus is achieved.

Why does Durkheim call solidarity based on, or resulting from, differentiation of the individuals, organic? The reason for this terminology is probably as follows. The parts of a living organism do not resemble each other; the organs of a living creature each perform a function, and it is precisely because each organ has its own function, because the heart and the lungs are altogether different from the brain, that they are equally indispensable to life.

In Durkheim’s thought, the two forms of solidarity correspond to two extreme forms of social organization. The societies which in Durkheim’s day were called primitive and which today are more likely to be called archaic (or societies without writing—incidentally, the change in terminology reflects a different attitude toward these societies) are characterized by the predominance of mechanical solidarity. The individuals of a clan are, so to speak, interchangeable. It follows from this—and this idea is essential to Durkheim’s conception—that the individual does not come first, historically; the individual, the awareness of oneself as an individual, is born of historical development itself. In primitive societies each man is the same as the others; in the consciousness of each, feelings common to all, collective feelings, predominate in number and intensity.

The opposition between these two forms of solidarity is combined with the opposition between segmental societies and societies characterized by modern division of labor. One might say that a society with mechanical solidarity is also a segmental society; but actually the definition of these two notions is not exactly the same, and the point is worth dwelling on for a moment.

In Durkheim’s terminology, a segment designates a social group into which the individuals are tightly incorporated. But a segment is also a group locally situated, relatively isolated from others, which leads its own life. The segment is characterized by a mechanical solidarity, a solidarity of resemblance; but it is also characterized by separation from the outside world. The segment is self-sufficient, it has little communication with what is outside. By definition, so to speak, segmental organization is contradictory to those general phenomena of differentiation designated by the term organic solidarity. But, according to Durkheim, in certain societies which may have very advanced forms of economic division of labor, segmental structure may still persist in part.

The idea is expressed in a curious passage in the book we are analyzing:

It may very well happen that in a particular society a certain division of labor—and especially economic division of labor—may be highly developed, while the segmental type may still be rather pronounced. This certainly seems to be the case in England. Major industry, big business, appears to be as highly developed there as on the continent, while the honeycomb system is still very much in evidence, as witness both the autonomy of local life and the authority retained by tradition. [The symptomatic value of this last fact will be determined in the following chapter.]

The fact is that division of labor, being a derived and secondary phenomenon, as we have seen, occurs at the surface of social life, and this is especially true of economic division of labor. It is skin deep. Now, in every organism, superficial phenomena, by their very location, are much more accessible to the influence of external causes, even when the internal causes on which they depend are not generally modified. It suffices, therefore, that some circumstance or other arouse in a people a more intense need for material well-being, for economic division of labor to develop without any appreciable change in social structure. The spirit of imitation, contact with a more refined civilization, may produce this result. Thus it is that understanding, being the highest and therefore the most superficial part of consciousness, may be rather easily modified by external influences like education, without affecting the deepest layers of psychic life. In this way intelligences are created which are quite sufficient to insure success, but which are without deep roots. Moreover, this type of talent is not transmitted by heredity.

This example proves that we must not decide a given society’s position on the social ladder by the state of its civilization, especially its economic civilization; for the latter may be merely an imitation, a copy, and may overlie a social structure of an inferior kind. True, the case is exceptional; nevertheless it does occur.

Durkheim writes that England, although characterized by a highly developed modern industry and consequently an economic division of labor, has retained the segmental type, the honeycomb system, to a greater extent than some other societies in which, however, economic division of labor is less advanced. Where does Durkheim see the proof of this survival of segmental structure? In the continuance of local autonomies and in the force of tradition. The notion of segmental structure is not, therefore, identified with solidarity of resemblance. It implies the relative isolation, the self-sufficiency of the various elements, which are comparable to the rings of an earthworm. Thus one can imagine an entire society, spread out over a large space, which would be nothing more than a juxtaposition of segments, all alike, all autarchic. One can conceive of the juxtaposition of a large number of clans, or tribes, or regionally autonomous groups, perhaps even subject to a central authority, without the unity of resemblance of the segment being disturbed, without that differentiation of functions characteristic of organic solidarity operating on the level of the entire society.

In any case, remember that the division of labor which Durkheim is trying to understand and define is not to be confused with the one envisaged by economists. Differentiation of occupations and multiplication of industrial activities are an expression, as it were, of the social differentiation which Durkheim regards as taking priority. The origin of social differentiation is the disintegration of mechanical solidarity and of segmental structure.

These are the fundamental themes of the book. With these in mind, let us try to focus on some of the ideas which follow from this analysis and which constitute Durkheim’s general theory. First of all, let us see what definition of the collective consciousness Durkheim gives at this period, because hence the concept of collective consciousness is of first importance.

Collective consciousness, as defined in this book, is simply “the body of beliefs and sentiments common to the average of the members of a society.” Durkheim adds that the system of these beliefs and sentiments has a life of its own. The collective consciousness, whose existence depends on the sentiments and beliefs present in individual consciousness, is nevertheless separable, at least analytically, from individual consciousness; it evolves according to its own laws, it is not merely the expression or effect of individual consciousness.

The collective consciousness varies in extent and force from one society to another. In societies where mechanical solidarity predominates, the collective consciousness embraces the greater part of individual consciousness. The same idea may be expressed thus: in archaic societies, the fraction of individual existences governed by common sentiments is nearly coextensive with the total existence.

In societies of which differentiation of individuals is a characteristic, everyone is free to believe, to desire, and to act according to his own preferences in a large number of circumstances. In societies with mechanical solidarity, on the other hand, the greater part of existence is governed by social imperatives and interdicts. At this period in Durkheim’s thought, the adjective social means merely that these prohibitions and imperatives are imposed on the average, the majority of the members of the group; that they originate with the group, and not with the individual, and that the individual submits to these imperatives and prohibitions as to a higher power.

The force of this collective consciousness coincides with its extent. In primitive societies, not only does the collective consciousness embrace the greater part of individual existence, but the sentiments experienced in common have an extreme violence which is manifested in the severity of the punishments inflicted on those who violate the prohibitions. The stronger the collective consciousness, the livelier the indignation against the crime, that is, against the violation of the social imperative. Finally, the collective consciousness is also particularized. Each of the acts of social existence, especially religious rites, is characterized by an extreme precision. It is the details of what must be done and what must be thought which are imposed by the collective consciousness.

On the other hand, Durkheim believes he sees in organic solidarity a reduction of the sphere of existence embraced by the collective consciousness, a weakening of collective reactions against violation of prohibitions, and above all a greater margin for the individual interpretation of social imperatives.

Let us take a simple illustration. What justice demands in a primitive society will be determined by collective sentiments with an extreme precision. What justice demands in societies where division of labor is advanced is formulated by the collective consciousness only in an abstract and, so to speak, universal manner. In the first instance, justice means that a given individual receives a given thing; in the second, what justice demands is that “each receive his due.” But of what does this “due” consist? Of many possible things, no one of which is in any absolute sense free from doubt or unequivocally fixed.

From this sort of analysis Durkheim derived an idea which he maintained all his life, an idea which is, as it were, at the center of his whole sociology, namely, that the individual is born of society, and not society of individuals.

Stated this way, the formula has a paradoxical sound, and often Durkheim himself expresses the idea just as paradoxically as I have done. But for the moment I am trying to understand Durkheim, not to criticize him. Reconstructing Durkheim’s thought, I would say that the primacy of society over the individual has at least two meanings which at bottom are in no way paradoxical.

The first meaning is the one I indicated above: the historical precedence of societies in which the individuals resemble one another, and are so to speak lost in the whole, over societies whose members have acquired both awareness of their individuality and the capacity to express it.

Collectivist societies, societies in which everyone resembles everyone else, come first in time. From this historical priority there arises a logical priority in the explanation of social phenomena. Many economists will explain the division of labor by the advantage that individuals discover in dividing the tasks among themselves so as to increase the output of the collectivity. But this explanation in terms of the rationality of individual conduct strikes Durkheim as a reversal of the true order. To say that men divided the work among themselves, and assigned everyone his own job, in order to increase the efficacy of the collective output is to assume that individuals are different from one another and aware of their difference before social differentiation. If Durkheim’s historical vision is true, this awareness of individuality could not exist before organic solidarity, before division of labor. Therefore, the rational pursuit of an increased output cannot explain social differentiation, since this pursuit presupposes that very social differentiation which it should explain.¹

We have here, I think, the outline of what is to be one of Durkheim’s central ideas throughout his career—the idea with which he defines sociology—namely, the priority of the whole over the parts, or again, the irreducibility of the social entity to the sum of its elements, the explanation of the elements by the entity and not of the entity by the elements.

In his study of the division of labor, Durkheim discovered two essential ideas: the historical priority of societies in which individual consciousness is entirely external to itself, and the necessity of explaining individual phenomena by the state of the collectivity, and not the state of the collectivity by individual phenomena.

Once again, the phenomenon Durkheim is trying to explain, the division of labor, differs from what the economists understand by the same concept. The division of labor Durkheim is talking about is a structure of the society as a whole, of which technical or economic division of labor is merely an expression.

Having stated these fundamental ideas, I shall now turn to the second stage of the analysis, namely how to study the division of labor which we have defined. Durkheim’s answer to this question of method is as follows. To study a social phenomenon scientifically, one must study it objectively, that is, from the outside; one must find the method by which states of awareness not directly apprehensible may be recognized and understood. These symptoms or expressions of the phenomena of consciousness are, in De la division du travail social, found in legal phenomena. In a tentative and perhaps rather oversimplified manner, Durkheim distinguishes two kinds of law, each of which is characteristic of one of the types of solidarity: repressive law, which punishes misdeeds or crimes, and restitutive or cooperative law, whose essence is not to punish breaches of social rules but to restore things to order when a misdeed has been committed or to organize cooperation among the individuals.

Repressive law is, as it were, the index of the collective consciousness in societies with mechanical solidarity, since by the very fact that it multiplies punishments it reveals the force of common sentiments, their extent, and their particularization. The more widespread, strong, and particularized the collective conscience, the more crimes there will be, crime being defined simply as the violation of an imperative or prohibition.

Let us pause over this point for a moment. This definition of crime is typically sociological, in Durkheim’s sense of the word. A crime, in the sociological sense of the term, is simply an act prohibited by the collective consciousness. That this act seems innocent in the eyes of observers situated several centuries after the event, or belonging to a different society, is of no importance. In a sociological study, crime can only be defined from the outside and in terms of the state of the collective consciousness of the society in question. This is the prototype of the objective, and therefore of the relativist, definition of crime. Sociologically, to call someone a criminal does not imply that we consider him guilty in relation to God or to our own conception of justice. The criminal is simply the man in a society who has refused to obey the laws of the city. In this sense, it was probably just to regard Socrates as a criminal.

Of course, if one carries this idea to its conclusion, it becomes either commonplace or shocking; but Durkheim himself did not do so. The sociological definition of crime leads logically to a complete relativism which is easy to conceive in the abstract but which no one believes in, perhaps not even those who profess it.

In any case, having outlined a theory of crime, Durkheim also offers us a theory of punishment. He dismisses with a certain contempt the classic interpretations whereby the purpose of punishment is to prevent the repetition of the guilty act. According to him, the purpose and meaning of punishment is not to frighten—deter, as we say today. The purpose of punishment is to satisfy the common consciousness. The act committed by one of the members of the collectivity has offended the collective consciousness, which demands reparation, and the punishment of the guilty is the reparation offered to the feelings of all.

Durkheim considers this theory of punishment more satisfactory than the rationalist interpretation of punishment as deterrence. It is probable that in sociological terms he is right to a great extent. But we must not overlook the fact that if this is so, if punishment is above all a reparation offered to the collective consciousness, the prestige of justice and the authority of punishments are not enhanced. At this point Pareto’s cynicism would certainly intervene: he would say that Durkheim is right, that many punishments are merely a kind of vengeance exercised by the collective consciousness at the expense of undisciplined individuals. But, he would add, we must not say so, for how are we to maintain respect f...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction to the Routledge Classics Edition
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Émile Durkheim
• 2 Vilfredo Pareto
• 3 Max Weber
• Conclusion
• Bibliographies
• Index