This essay will discuss what part of the division of labour that Durkheim believe performs in the transition from mechanica to organic solidarity. Firstly, I will be outlining Durkheims view on social facts.

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This essay will discuss what part of the division of labour that Durkheim believe performs in the transition from mechanica to organic solidarity. Firstly, I will be outlining Durkheims view on social facts. For Durkheim saw the domain of sociology as the study of social facts and not individuals. He believed that societies had their own realities which could not simply be reduced to the actions and motives of individuals, and that individuals were moulded and constrained by their social environments. I will also discuss how the transition occurred from mechanical to organic solidarity. In The Division of Labour, Emil Durkheim, one of the founders of sociology, described social solidarity as the moral bonds that underlie social order. He theorized that different levels of labor's division lead to different forms of social solidarity, and that these different types of bonds lead to different societies. He argued that the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural societies was accompanied by a transition from "mechanic" to "organic" solidarity

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) believed that the best way of understanding society is by understanding the sources and functions of social solidarity. Solidarity is a composite abstraction of the beliefs and sentiments which are shared by members of a particular society, and it is these shared values and moral beliefs that Durkheim calls the collective conscience (Holborn: 2004). In their absence there would be no fundamental moral issues, social order or social solidarity. In other words, there would be no society, since it is the collective conscience that forms social solidarity, which is the very existence of society. Durkheim describes two types of solidarity – mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity. Within each type of society the collective conscience operates in a different fashion. The distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity reveals how Durkheim saw the collective conscience as a social fact (Holborn et al: 2004).

Durkheim defined social facts as things external to, and coercive of the actor. These are created from collective forces and do not emanate from the individual (Cuff et al: 1990). To Durkheim social facts include such phenomena as the belief systems, customs and institutions of society. These types of conduct are not only external to the individual, but are endowed with coercive power, by which they impose themselves and are independent of his individual will (Holborn et al: 2004). Even though these obligations, values, attitudes and beliefs may seem to be individual and a matter of personal conscience. Durkheim argues that these social facts exist at the level of society as a whole, arising from social relationships. These social facts simply exist as a result of social interactions which has developed over a long period of time. In other words, they are learned by individuals through socialization, but the individual has nothing to do with establishing these. For these values and obligations are generally held by individuals across society and change will occur very slowly over time, regardless of the particular individuals who are present in this society (Cuff et al: 1990). So for Durkheim, society is not a collection of individuals, each acting independently in terms of his or her mental state, but rather members of society are directed by collective beliefs, values and laws, by social facts that have an existence of their own. For Durkheim states in his own words (cited in Holborn et al, 1991: p809) that the ‘collective ways of acting or thinking have a reality outside the individuals’. Therefore, social facts make individuals act and behave in particular ways. ‘From this point of view it is not the consciousness of the individual that directs behaviour, but common beliefs and sentiments that transcend the individual and shape his or her consciousness’ (Holborn et al, 1990: p870).

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Early societies, with very little division of labour is what Durkheim calls mechanical solidarity. In this type of society people are very similar to each other and this is mainly due to the fact that each person comes carries out similar types of tasks. In other words, people share the type of work they carry out (Cuff et al: 1990). These societies share the same sentiments and beliefs based on common tasks and common life situations. Durkheim describes the extreme of mechanical solidarity in the following way:

The solidarity that derives from similarities is at it’s maximum when ...

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