modified:: 2023-10-18, 2321
up:: Division of Labour
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Anomic Division of Labour

Overview

A lack of norms, where Restitutive Laws & social customs are missing, leading to conflict between functions of Organised Society.

• During Durkheim's Societal Shift:
  • Collective Consciousness weakens too fast, see #Quotes#Too Fast.
  • Differing functions have different moral ideals, see #Quotes#Diverse Moral Ideals.
    • i.e., medical university has poor ethics, needs ethics board to regulate. Or capitalists pre-regulation.
• Functions haven't had time to adapt to each other -> No social customs & Restitutive Laws of the new social order -> Conflict between functions.
  • #Quotes#Fresh Struggle occurs if social customs & Restitutive Laws don't take hold.
  • Different moral ideals & specialisation into functions mean poor communication.
    • J-H: The specialisation part has some connection to an aspect of Marx's Consumer Fetishism (obscuring the social relationships of labour).
  • Functions conflict for their own interests instead of collaborating efficiently.
    • Lack of reciprocity & fair trade.
      • J-H: Like Marx's exploitation.
• Functions seek peace & cooperation -> Creation of social customs & Restitutive Laws to do so -> Organic Solidarity.
  • Repeated interaction needed for functions to adapt, see #Quotes#Frequent Interaction.
    • Realise their mutual interdepedence & understand each other's needs.
      • Class conflict is a symptom of anomie to be remedied.
      • i.e., companies & unions realising the Tripartite Agreement with government's help.
        • If worker demands too high wages, business dies & jobs lost. If business pays too little, worker is unproductive.
  • Restitutive Laws are the materialisation of interdependence after sufficient communication to resolve disputes.
  • See #Quotes#Resolution for what Durkheim says we should do.

Examples

• Marx's Class Conflict & Estranged Labour
  • Estranged Labour is by Durkheim because relationships between capital & labour have been in legal state of indeterminacy;
    • Laws on hiring of services occupies too small place in legal codes in spite of the complexity of employer-employee relations.
    • Should be remedied by Restitutive Laws but not yet sufficient time & interactions for mutual interdependence to be understood & harmony sought.
• Hollywood Strikes
  • extremely complex example cause AI is now involved as a function of society.
  • the pie for humans in a changing industry shrinks, will there be an outcome all parties find equitable?
• How repeated union strikes led to the Tripartite Agreement.

Quotes

Diverse Moral Ideals

"The yardstick for our perfection is no longer to be found in…, but in the sum total of services rendered, and in our ability to continue to render them. Thus the moral ideal, from being the sole one, simple and impersonal, has become increasingly diversified." (Durkheim, 1893, pg 4)

"This is why, noticing that these similarities are very blurred where the functions are very specialised, he saw in this process of disappearance… a threat to social cohesion, due to excessive specialisation." (Durkheim, 1893, pg 301)

Fresh Struggle

"The manner in which they should co-operate… must be predetermined. Otherwise, a fresh struggle would be required each time in order to bring them into a state of equilibrium with one another…" (Durkheim, 1893, pg 301)

Frequent Interaction

"the conditions for this equilibrium can only be found by a process of trial and error…" (Durkheim, 1893, pg 301)

"…there exists a certain allocation of rights and duties that is established by usage and that ends up by becoming obligatory." (Durkheim, 1893, pg 302)

"…a state of anomie is impossible wherever organs solidly linked to one another are in sufficient contact… being adjacent to one another, they are easily alerted in every situation to the enedd for one another and consequently they experience a keen, continuous feeling of their mutual dependence." (Durkheim, 1893, pg 304)

Too Fast

"Thus the morality corresponding to [mechanical] society has lost influence, but without its successor developing quickly enough to occupy the space left vacant in our consciousness." (Durkheim, 1893, pg 339)

"On the other hand, the functions that have been disrupted in this period of trial have had no time to adjust to one another." (Durkheim, 1893, pg 339)

"certain elements of this morality have been irretrievably undermined, and the morality we require is only in the process of taking shape." (Durkheim, 1893, pg 340)

Resolution

"Above all, it has not been organised so as to satisfy the need for justice that has been aroused even more passionately in our hearts." (Durkheim, 1893, pg 339)

"find ways of harmonious co-operation between those organs that still clash discordantly together. We need to introduce into their relationships a greater justice by diminishing those external inequalities that are the source of our ills." (Durkheim, 1893, pg 340)

See Also