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Assignment Cover SheetUNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAMUndergraduate DivisionSchool of Government & Society (College of Social Sciences)

STUDENT ID No. (srn): 1117509

PROGRAMME OF STUDY: Sociology

YEAR OF STUDY: 2

MODULE TITLE: Modern Social Theory

MODULE BANNER CODE:

CLASS TEACHERS NAME: Justin Cruickshank

SUBMISSION DATE: 13/1/2012

ASSIGNMENT TITLE: Are Durkheim’s proposals for intergrating individuals andgroups potentially authoritarian?

(Please Note -Module information required above can be found in your Module Handbook )

Penalties:

University policy requires that a penalty be imposed of 5 marks to be deducted from the actual mark

achieved for each working day the assignment is late until 0 is reached. There is a strict deadline of

11:59pm on day of submission. A further 5 marks will be deducted for every 11:59pm deadline

that is missed. Any written assessment that exceeds the stated word limit by more than 10% will

receive a 5 mark deduction.

Extensions & Plagiarism Information:

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Are Durkheim’s proposals for integrating individuals and groups potentially

authoritarian?

This paper will outline how whilst there are a number of ways to explain how

Durkheim’s attempts to links individuals and groups were potentially authoritarian,

his whole perspective was fundamentally flawed by a normative assumption which

not only undermines his methods, but imposes a pernicious view of society which

carries with it authoritarian – even totalitarian – connotations.

This paper will initially outline the ways in which Durkheim conceptualised

democracy, the state and how he saw to integrate individuals to groups. It will

briefly detail Durkheim’s argument for why this would be necessary, then move

onto a number of criticisms, explaining some flaws in his thinking and

demonstrating how according to influential twentieth century thinking explains the

sort of liberty or freedom which Durkheim was advocating was in fact positive

liberty, which as we shall see, is potentially tyrannical. Finally it will expose a

fundamental flaw of his method, namely his positivist approach was critically

flawed, and utilising the Berlinian notion of positive liberty to categorically answer

the question posed that yes, Durkheim’s attempts to link individuals to groups are

indeed potentially authoritarian.

The key manner in which Durkheim sought to integrate individuals and groups was

essentially a neo-corporatist endeavour; in order to solve the distributional

problems of wealth in a more orderly and equitable manner, Durkheim saw the

development of secondary groups, or as he often referred to them, occupational

associations (Fenton 1984, Giddens, 1972, Giddens, 1978, Poggi, 2000). While we

will see how Durkheim’s offerings in practice, could have an authoritarian flavour, it

is important to stress that he appeared committed to creating a more equitable

social order, and felt not only was economic regulation necessary, but moral

regulation was essential (Fenton, 1984, Poggi, 2000). For Durkheim the state “must

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play a moral as well as an economic role, and the alleviation of the malaise of the

modern world must be sought in measures which are general moral rather than

economic” (Giddens, 1972:99). The emphasis on the moral is key to understanding

how Durkheim’s intentions for integration and as we shall see, carried with them

authoritarian undercurrents. Additionally, economic regulation by the state would

be undertaken to safeguard, control and complement the market whilst

simultaneously reducing its damaging effects in order to protect the interests of all

– employers, employees and consumers (Poggi, 2000). This regulation would be

achieved by empowering “expressly constituted public bodies” (Poggi, 2000), which

Durkheim expressed the secondary groups or corporation would be “called upon to

become the basis or one of the essential bases of political organisation” (Durkheim

quoted in Poggi, 2000:137).

Before outlining how the secondary groups would serve to integrate indivuals, it is

necessary to touch on Durkheim’s conception of democracy. Durkheim saw

democracy not in the traditional sense (see Poggi,2000:128 ) but rather as a

system by which “society can achieve a consciousness of itself in its purest form”

(Durkheim, 1957:89); he felt that the higher the levels of critical spirit interplay with

public affairs, the more democratic the nation - in contrast to the unquestioning and

traditional customs of less democratic societies (Durkheim, 1957, Durkheim, 1986).

For Durkheim then, what determines a state’s democratic credentials is a two way

process of communication and deliberation between state and public sphere

(Poggi,2000:129). Secondary groupings would help this process of communication

by elucidating the common interest of all its members and provide a more cogent

dialogue between state and society (Giddens, 1971, Poggi, 2000). In better

understanding why Durkheim saw the necessity for these groups or corporations,

we must quickly touch on a trend he saw occurring as society develops, and how

this view envisaged new ways to associate individuals to form greater solidarity in

society.

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Durkheim saw that as society developed from the mechanical solidarity of the past,

to the organically solidary advanced industrial societies, the primary tendency in

increasingly complex society is “towards the progressive emancipation of the

individual from the subordination to the conscience collective” (Giddens, 1971:101).

What he meant here is that as society develops, the uniformity of individuals –

caused by shared religious practice and the similarity of occupational tasks in the

mechanical division of labour – would erode as they became increasingly divided

occupationally with the emergence of organic solidarity (for a good explanation of

Durkheimian division of labour and social solidarity, see Morrison, 2006). This was

problematic for Durkheim, the shared collective conscience, consolidated through

religious practice and “inspired moral feelings of charity towards one’s neighbour”

(Fish, 2005:96) of mechanical solidarity were desirable and were lost with organic

solidarity emerging.

As democratic, organically solidary society develops, the erosion of the collective

conscience occurs. This was linked to the emerging secular morality emphasising

the rights and dignity of the individual typical of the liberal and humanist thinkers

as well as political economists such as Adam Smith (Giddens, 1972). However,

these new ideas of moral individualism “lack[ed] the binding power exerted by the

more encompassing type of traditional moral order over social conduct” (Giddens,

1978:61), leading him to conclude that because moral individualism could not

directly moralize the myriad of occupational tasks. New bodies which contained

specialised codes of practice would need to be formed. These would be specific to

the forms of activity involved and would not only pursue economic or work-related

interests, but would promote professional ethics which specified the rights and

responsibilities of its members (Poggi, :136, Giddens, 1978:61). In addition to the

moral functions of these groups, they would interpose themselves between state

and individual, preserving the states distance from society enabling greater

consciousness, but also to “help remedy the tendency of modern conditions to

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atomise individuals and/or sharpen their egoism, providing society with a visibly

configured structure” (Poggi, 2000:134). Lastly, he foresaw these groups acting as

‘electoral colleges’ – taking the place of the direct franchise, acting as an

component of the mediation between individual and state, allowing the state

greater realisation of the needs of society (Giddens, 1978).

Before continuing onto the place of morality in the Durkheimian society, it is

important to illustrate some issues with the corporatist alternative he offered.

Firstly, these electoral colleges could be seen to act as an impediment to freedom,

and therefore carries shades of the authoritarian. If groups based on occupation

were to act as voting agents in the interests of all its members, it does not follow

that it would represent the entirety of its membership, and therefore would have a

constraining influence on at least some individuals lives. Moreover, while he makes

clear that a channel of communication would exist between state and societies

members, there is a more worrying element to this, as can be seen in this excerpt:

When the State takes thought and makes a decision, we must not say that it

is the society that thinks and decides for it. It is not simply an instrument for

canalizing and concentrating. It is, in a certain sense, the organising centre of

the secondary groups themselves. (Durkheim, 1957:49)

This suggests the state would in fact shape and influence public opinion rather than

simply listen to it. Whilst this in itself is not necessarily a limitation upon freedom,

there is a clear sense since the state will go beyond reflecting and concentrating

societies wills, it could involve coercing the interests of individuals away from

private interests to a public interest which could be argued, carries shades of

Rousseau’s general will, which will be discussed further below.

Secondly, by formalising groupings that individuals would affiliate themselves

based upon occupation limits their ability to determination – his failure to cater for

the modern individuals multiple associations, that these are not static but will

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change over ones lifetime and represent a plurality of identity he makes absolutely

no concessions for (Poggi, 2000). This could in practice be incredibly constraining

on ones ability to self determine. Lastly, he did not clearly articulate how these

secondary groupings would alter the or usurp political parties and crucially – how

the political parties of democratic states express social cleavages and contrasting

interests and how his prescription would potentially alter the balance with the

development of these associations (Poggi, 2000).

It is important now to look closer at Durkheim’s concern about moral degeneration

brought about by this move from religious homogeneity to a secular individualism,

and the need to revive this in some way. Some form of collective conscience as

seen in mechanical solidarity was necessary in modern societies, in order to reduce

the pathologies and high levels of anomie Durkheim (1952) saw in society

developing (Fenton, 1984). This was so, because the move to forced, individualised

labour tasks in societies expressing organic solidarity were more atomised, and

when linked to the secular rise of moral individualism, left individuals with far

weaker social ties and commonalities with each other and society itself (Fenton,

1984, Fish, 2005, Giddens, 1971, Morrison, 2004). This led Durkheim to reason that

a revival of elements of religion would be necessary in a new form of collective

conscience, which he termed the cult of the individual (Fish, 2005). The cult of the

individual, with its emphasis on the value of dignity and rights of individuals would

replace the traditional, religious beliefs; “which could not adjust themselves in the

face of growing individual autonomy and increasing occupational specialisation and

differentiation in modern societies” (Fish,2005:70).

His emphasis that both political economy and socialist programmes for social order

were flawed, because of a lack of moral regulation (Giddens, 1972, 1978) is telling,

and is indicative of a belief that in the milieu of society, some form moral

conscience was necessary to emerge from the decaying religious morality of

mechanically solidary societies. For Durkheim, it was essential that in order for6

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moral regulation to be successful, it was necessary the the cult of the individual

retained an implicit irrational religious element, or as Fish (2005:96) articulates:

“the idea of individuality could only become a basis for social cohesion if rational

and self interested understandings of it were subordinated to those non-rational

sympathies that lay at its core”. The reason that this was necessary was bound up

in the virtues of charity developed through theological practice and belief in

mechanical solidary societies. This ‘charity for one’s neighbor’, could not be

retrieved within the secular cult, however, an emotionally upheld moral principle of

justice could replace it and would be necessary to sustain the moral order (Fish,

2005). Indeed, as Fenton asserts Durkheim’s ‘quest’ was for a civic religion;

founded upon the principle that all social structures “were in some sense, moral

structures” (1984:83), that all forms of regulation were essentially moral in some

way, and that contained in any moral action was an elemental and irrational

religious sentiment.

There is a concerning element in his thinking here; it could be argued that he

overestimates the necessary degree for consensus in modern society, and

concluding civic religion is the means to greater consensus, according to Fenton

(1984) he can be seen as conservative in his thinking. Indeed, by emphasising so

greatly on a collective consensus in society, Durkheim could be seen to place

primacy on order, rather than freedom. Fenton goes yet further arguing there to be

a ‘precarious’ ideological quality about the belief that consensus about social and

political principles emerges in modern democracies, and is responsible for a

necessary minimum of political stability (Fenton, 1984). From here there is a clear

path to authoritarianism, as if consensus is more important than individual freedom,

coercion could be utilised to achieve this end. As Mannheim put it “the problem . . .

of a planned society mainly consists in avoiding bureaucratic absolutism” (quoted in

Mazower, 1999:207).

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While Durkheim arrived at his collective moral conscience from society as a

separate entity to the individual, Rousseau saw his general will as a composite of all

individual’s particular wills (Morrison, 2006:159). So while both explanations for

their collective imperative came from opposite ends of the scale (Durkheim –

structural, Rousseau – agential) both arguably contained in practice, essentially the

same end –that is to subordinate or coerce the individual free will to a higher

common interest or will – that of societies, or groupings in society. Therefore it is

argued here, that the tyrannical criticism of Rousseau that Talmon postulates, that

this – subordination of free will to collective will – would constitute the imposition of

an “inflexible pattern of behaviour” (Boucher, 2009:267) in order to, in Durkheim’s

case, eradicate the social pathologies he believed afflicted the advanced industrial

societies of his time. Consequently, it is posited here then, that Durkheim’s

attempts to integrate individuals into groups in this way could fall guilty to the

same potential for authoritarianism – even tyranny – that Rousseau was accused of.

This conflation of Rousseau and Durkheim’s thinking leads us toward the notion

positive liberty, which is evident in Rousseau’s general will (Boucher, 2009), and

therefore arguably, that of Durkheim’s attempts to link individuals and groups.

The recurring theme of potentials for coercion, that have been alluded to during the

analysis, are key to explaining why this paper asserts Durkheim’s attempts to

integrate individuals and groups are potentially authoritarian – even tyrannical. In

order to justify this position, Berlin’s conceptual dichotomy of liberty will be

employed and Hayek’s embrace of negative liberty, to demonstrate a contemporary

western paradigm which determines Durkheim’s attempts potentially tyrannical.

Berlin’s negative liberty – the notion that individuals are free only if they are

unconstrained by the external interference of others (2002) – which is advocated in

this paper, offers a more realistic and less dangerous way to order society. Berlin

was concerned about the danger of coercion; “to coerce man is to deprive him of

his freedom” (Berlin, 2002:168). He saw it as a perilous route to travel, as from

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even the most paternalistic and noble of intentions, its consequences are

disastrous. The alternative form of freedom or liberty – Berlin used the terms

interchangeably – positive liberty, was seen as dangerous by Berlin because it had

an idealistic quality which would lead to coercion and oppression. This could be

seen in the Jacobin revolution in France, and the communist revolution in Russia,

which were born of ideals rooted in positive liberty and despite their appeals for

freedom from oppression, through unintended consequences had led to oppression,

violence and tyranny (Curtis, 2007)

Now, adopting a more extreme disciple of the qualities of negative liberty, we shall

see how Von Hayek’s hugely influential neo-liberal perspective, utilising it in order

to further disseminate authoritarian dangers of Durkheim’s approach. Durkheim

argues that “[the] agencies making up the state are ill equipped to ascertain and

evaluate” (Poggi, 2000:133) the myriad of unpredictable developments and market

circumstances. Durkheim’s rather convenient conviction – that secondary groups

would be better equipped to make these evaluations is hard to justify, he at least

acknowledges that the volatility of markets made regulation difficult, yet it does not

follow that other bodies would be more suitable for regulatory responsibility. As

Hayek argued, negative liberty and the free market would create a spontaneous

socio-economic equilibrium most favourable to social order and stability (Ellison,

2008). In building upon the ‘invisible hand’ notion of self regulating free markets

put forth by Smith two centuries pervious (El-Ojeili, and Hayden, 2006), Hayek

forcefully argued that the infinite complexity of markets meant informational

market failure would inevitably arise through regulatory intervention and would

only lead to coercion (Ellison, 2008), which as we have seen with Berlin’s (2003)

belief and echoed in von Hayek’s, would inevitably lead away from freedom

towards tyranny (Curtis, 2007).

Finally, we see how flaws in Durkheim’s methodology, betrays an implicit value

judgement about how society ‘ought’ to be. His uncovering of social facts were not9

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of any particular value as objective phenomenon and only serve to reassert more

forcefully the notion that Durkheim, in a rather understated way, prescribed a

normative view on society based upon his own moral assumptions Dubeski (2001).

The emphasis on moral control is of particular interest to us here, as this conception

of morality was a foundation stone of Durkheim’s entire understanding of society; it

was not a product of his unearthing of objective ‘social facts’, but was rather a

fallacious assumption which he attempted to justify through pseudo-scientific

rationalisations, undertaken to “provide a convincing basis for his moral

assumptions” (Dubeski, 2001).

This position, based upon a set of normative value judgements can be seen with

Fenton’s convenient elucidation of this Durkheimian presupposition:

“Individual men and women never have lived ‘free’ of moral regulation; it is

inconceivable that they ever will, or that social life can ever be understood as

if they were; their freedom from regulation would indeed be no freedom at

all. To imagine such a condition is to imagine anarchy in society, empty

despair of the individual.” 1984:86

This normative assumption, which Durkheim makes is the core underpinning of his

method; his moral principle led him to see sociology as a projection of ‘what must

or should be’ (Fenton, 1984) and this idealism led him in a direction Berlin (2002)

would recognise as positive liberty. Further, Dubeski (2001) argues convincingly,

that Durkheim “was the advocate of altruism even more than he was an originator

of social science”, postulating that, altruism is the most core foundation for

“totalitarianism, state terror, and rigid social conformity”, and that Durkheim’s

methods based on this fallacious outlook would have quite dangerous potential

tendencies in practice. In drawing on popular fiction, one could see how such a

society might look: in Orwell’s (1954) 1984; and how, were one to act like Winston

Smith, whose only act of rebellion in an authoritarian society (which, according to

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Dubeski’s notions on altruism, contained Durkheimian echoes), is to live for himself,

we see how one might be treated.

We have seen that Durkheim’s methodology, which ostensibly is positivist in its

quest for value neutrality betrays an inability of Durkheim, despite his appeals in

Suicide’s preface, to eschew personal bias to unearth objective facts independent

of the individual (1952), ironically created a value-loaded subjective explanation

which is easy to reject. In effect, his own failure to obey his own appeals for value

neutrality, led him into a methodologically fallacious black hole. Finally before

concluding, a minor footnote of criticism can be labelled at Durkheim’s use of

metaphor – as Berlin (2002:179) asserted in a manner which seems almost

directed at Durkheim himself, “the perils of using organic metaphors to justify

coercion of some men by others in order to raise them to a ‘higher’ freedom have

often been pointed out” – (Berlin,2002:179). In any case Dubeski (2001) adds to

this pointing out:

this paper suggests that a closer examination be made of the relations

between normative and methodological assumptions before one resorts to

biological analogies and organic metaphors as means to persuade others of

the worth of one’s paradigm. In those cases where the theorist errs on the

side of organicism and over ascribes organic qualities to society, it is likely

that the theorist confused normative and existence-related considerations,

and has allowed value-judgments to creep into the concept formation and to

affect the perceived validity of the linkages in the chain of reasoning.

Dubeski, 2001

In conclusion, this paper has shown how Durhkeim’s attempt to integrate

individuals by secondary groupings or corporations, which would mediate and alter

the conscience of respective members, would be potentially authoritarian when

perceived from a viewpoint advocating negative liberty. In addition, It has been

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shown how because of implicit normative assumptions, Durkheim is led down a

methodological dead end which undermines the validity of his social facts and

provides further evidence for at the very least, a kernel of positive liberty in his

prescriptive doctrine, leaving a treacherous path toward authoritarianism and

tyranny.

Bibliography

Berlin, I. (2002) Two Concepts of Liberty in Hardy, H. (ed) Liberty Oxford

University Press: Oxford

Boucher, D. (2009) Rousseau in Boucher, D. And Kelly, P. Political Thinkers (2nd

edition) Oxford University Press: Oxford

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Durkheim, E. (1952) Suicide. Routledge: London.

Durkheim, E. (1957) Professional Ethics and Civic Morals Routledge: London

Dubeski, N. (2001) Durkheim’s altruism as the source of his social holism: A

discussion of the viability of a social basis for moral principles Electronic Journal of Sociology available [from

http://www.sociology.org/content/vol005.003/dubeski.html] (accessed 18/1/2012)

Giddens, A. (1971) Capitalism and Modern Social Theory Cambridge University

Press: Cambridge

Giddens, A. (1978) Durhkeim Fontana Press: London

El-Ojeili, C and Hayden, P. (2006) Critical theories of globalization PalgraveMacmillan: Basingstoke

Ellison, N. (2008) Neo-Liberalism in Alcock, P. et al The Students Companion to

Social Policy (3rd edition) Blackwell: Oxford

Fenton, S. (1984) Durkheim and Modern Sociology Cambridge University Press:

Cambridge

Fish, J. (2005) Defending the Durkheimian Tradition Ashgate: Aldershot

Mazower, M. (1999) Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century Penguin: London

Morrison, K. (2006) Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Formations of Modern Social Thought

(2nd edition) Sage: London

Orwell, G. (1954) 1984 Penguin: London

Poggi, G. (2000) Durkheim Oxford University Press: Oxford

The Trap, part three. (2007) We will Force you to be Free. Directed by Adam Curtis. London. BBC. [live broadcast] available online from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH8w-MBGZ9o

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