Method for Determining the Function of Division of Labor

By: Renanate Avergonzado

2.1 The Method for Determining Function. Emile Durkheim refers to the term

function as a system of vital movements. These movements comprised of relationship

and the corresponding needs of the organism. Thus, function of the division of labor is

“to seek for the need which it supplies”. This term function is logically coherent term for

the purpose it was utilized by Durkheim. The function of the Division of labor is necessary

condition for the development of the society because it combines both the productive

power and the ability of the workman. It is the even considered as the “source of

civilization”. It shall be noted that the division of labor must be understood as a dividing

of labor, as a continuing process rather than just as a crystallized structure. (Miller,

1996:73).

The question was raised, whether civilization is a moral fact? Rousseau’s

contention was that civilization is a moral fact. Using suicide as an illustration, Durkheim

concluded that as the growth of civilization increases, cases of suicide also increased. But

this conclusion is remote from the thought that civilization is a moral fact. Rather, it is

safer to conclude that civilization has indirect influence to morality. In the same scenario,

industrial activities existed in response to needs, but these needs are not necessarily

moral. Even in aesthetics, the pursuit of the art is not moral in itself. Even though art

may be animated by moral ideas, its pursuit is not obligatory.

It appears that science, as an element of civilization, in certain conditions presents

a moral character. It is in science that compels societies to a duty for the development

of individual intelligence and to eliminate ignorance. The obligation to follow science is

too strong that it orders societies to live under existent conditions, out of conscience

maybe. But putting science in the field of moral, human acts, science is also open to

initiative. Basically, there is nothing in civilization that can present a criterion that morally

binds individual or the society. In this regard, it can be concluded that division of labor,

as an element of society, is indifferent to morality. Moreover, division of labor does not

fill any other role, it does not have moral character and it is even difficult to see its reasons

for existence. However, taken by itself, what makes it valuable is its correspondence to

certain needs.

On another hand, Durkheim likened the function of Division of Labor to friendship.

Where friendship is a small association formed wherein each one plays a role conformable

to his character. It follows that in division of labor, “there is a true exchange of services”.

Therefore, division of labor is determined as apportionment of functions. It is as If, when

a friend gives advice, the other one follows. Division of labor therefore “creates in two

or more persons a feeling of solidarity.

In another way of presenting it, solidarity is depicted in a consummation of

sexual duty. Man and woman are isolated from each other but they are of the same

concrete universal, which they reform when they unite”. In this case, the sexual

“division of labor is the source of conjugal solidarity”. Extending the example to marital

situation, it was concluded that there is a weak conjugal solidarity to couples whose

sexual roles are less differentiated. As marriage progresses through time, marital roles

are more differentiated and sexual labor is more divided. Before, even women joined
men to war, but in modernity, women role is more differentiated and specialized. Yet

amidst this, man and woman of today are homogeneous yet roles are differentiated. It is

in these developments that Durkheim concluded that the effect of division of labor is “not

the increase of output of functions but rather it renders solidarity”. Furthermore, the

economic utility of the division of labor may passes far beyond purely economic interests,

but to the establishment of a unique social and moral order. In this order, individuals are

linked to one another in one solid effort.

It is clear now that division of labor is a product of social relations. This relation is

not in terms of exchange but of two being incomplete and mutually dependent with each

other, and this dependence is translated outwardly. Division of labor creates an image of

two outwardly different being which is linked only because they are distinct. The function

of division of labor is not just to improve the society out of solidarity, but rather “it serves

as the condition for society’s existence”.

After knowing that division of labor produces solidarity, the next task then is to

determine on what degree the produced solidarity contributes to the general integration

of society. Social solidarity is not a mere state of potentiality but it is visible and is

manifested in “law”. Social relations where it exists tends inevitably to “assume a definite

form and to organize itself, and law is nothing else than this very organization. This means

that types of social solidarity is reflected in laws. And it is that law reproduces the principal

forms of social solidarity. In classifying the types of social solidarity, it must necessarily

correspond to the types of law since “law reproduces the principal forms of social

solidarity”.
 In this regards, it shall be known that law can be defined as a “rule of sanctioned

conduct”. There are two kinds of sanction in violation to law: repressive and restitutive.

Repressive sanction is a penal law. It is a sanction in which an offender is to suffer and

to be deprive of his fortune, honor, life, liberty and things he enjoy. On the other hand,

restitutive sanction does not really imply suffering to the offender, rather it only

reestablishment of troubled relation to their normal state. It consists only of “the return

of things as they were”. This sanction is embodied in civil law, commercial law, and

procedural law, administrative law and constitutional law. In general view, these two

types of sanctions corresponds to the two types of social solidarity: Mechanical and

Organic.