As a witness to the birth of industrial society, Durkheim asks himself the question of how men unite in a society which is becoming more and more individual. In his book, The Division of Labor in Society , Durkheim defines the evolution of solidarity as follows: the traditional societies of the past were based on a mechanical solidarity involving collective behavior and weakly differentiated production activities. This solidarity was based on proximity, resemblance and the sharing of a history and values common to human communities.
But this solidarity must give way to a solidarity that has become organic to establish itself in our modern societies. This solidarity is defined by interdependence and complementarity (that is to say that the company manufactures a system of specialized parts, all of which are necessary for the functioning of the company - for example without the farmer there is no of baker or supermarket, without the supermarket or the baker, the food of the farmer does not reach the population which needs it, etc.) which modern society imposes on human beings. This was set up with the division of social labor produced by the high population density of the country and the advance of technology. The division of labor occurs because with the division of social labor, individuals no longer look alike, no longer living in the same place and all having different jobs. The division of social labor seems to create for Durkheim a bond of interdependence, a social function, between human beings. Paradoxically, society is saved by what endangers it, the diversity of the population.
Additional summaries of Emile Durkheim:
Emile Durkheim - The Rules of Sociological MethodEmile Durkheim - Suicide
"The Genesis of the Notion of the Totemic Principle or Mana" – summary and review" - part 1 -2 -3
What is a Social Fact?
Division of Labor in Society
Elementary Forms of Religious Life (another summary of The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life)
Moral Education
Types of Suicide according to Emile Durkheim
Anomie according to Durkheim
Definition of social facts
On Morality and Society
Durkheim's definition of religion
