Summary in the Video
Explanation in the video
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Introduction
This video series is structured around four major works by Émile Durkheim.
- The Division of Labor in Society (1893)
- The Rules of Sociological Method (1895)
- Suicide: A Study in Sociology (1897)
- The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912)
First, here is the overall structure of Durkheim’s The Division of Labor in Society.
This article focuses specifically on Non-contractual elements in contracts.
The remaining topics will be discussed in the next video.
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- Chronology
- What are the bonds that connect people to one another?
- What is division of labor and what are its functions?
- Why does division of labor produce social solidarity?
- [Column] What is sociology?
- The difference between mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity
- The difference between segmentary society and organized society
- Collective conscience and collective representations
- [Column] What is sociological theory?
- Examination of solidarity: repressive law and restitutive law
- Non-contractual elements in contracts
- A society without crime is unhealthy
- [Column] Durkheim’s critique of Tönnies
- Is individualism detrimental to solidarity?
- Coercive division of labor and anomic division of labor
- Intermediate groups as a measure against the adverse effects of modernization
(2-1) Crime in Durkheim
POINTCrime：Crime is a term that means an act that violates the collectively shared values and norms of a society.
Durkheim’s theory of crime is compelling because it deliberately suspends common sense and develops an unexpected analytical perspective. For example, in a well-known statement, he argues that “we do not condemn an act because it is a crime; rather, it is a crime because we condemn it.”
In more technical terms, this means that crime cannot be defined in terms of the intrinsic properties of an act. In other words, it is not possible to argue that acts such as killing a person or stealing property are crimes because they possess inherently, universally, and absolutely criminal qualities independent of society.
This perspective is closely related to the notion of context as discussed by Jacques Derrida and Gregory Bateson.
For example, in the context of war, killing another person may not contradict the collective conscience of a society. Of course, there can also be individuals who believe that “even in wartime, such acts are blameworthy,” and there may be societies in which such views are predominant on average. Likewise, acts that we would not consider criminal at all may be treated as crimes within a monastery (for instance, eating meat).
In short, which acts are condemned varies depending on a particular historical period and society, and accordingly, what is regarded as crime also changes.
Durkheim also argues that crime can be defined only as “all acts that are punished.” In this sense, crime is a retrospective or consequential category. An act is considered a crime because it is condemned, and whether it is condemned depends on the collective conscience of a given society, making it inherently relative.
In other words, crime is determined by the collective conscience in a relative manner, rather than by any universal, objective, or absolute standard that transcends a particular collective conscience.
As a further crucial point, Durkheim argues that crime cannot be defined in terms of its harmfulness to society. What matters is whether an act is condemned by the members of a society, that is, whether it provokes collective indignation.
For example, Durkheim suggests that killing a single individual does not necessarily constitute a significant harm to society as a whole (although this may depend on who is killed). In The Division of Labor in Society, he even states, “What does it matter that society loses one individual? What is it to an organism to lose a single cell?”
Durkheim considers phenomena such as bankruptcy or sudden fluctuations in the stock market to be more harmful to society than acts like homicide. If economic deterioration weakens social solidarity and leads to situations in which people may starve to death, then, in terms of “harmfulness to society,” such phenomena can be regarded as more serious than individual acts of killing.
That said, it may be difficult to imagine specific situations in which a single individual directly brings about such large-scale consequences, especially without detailed knowledge of economic processes.
For example, even if a corporate executive deliberately engages in accounting fraud or financial deception, the prison sentence may amount to only a few years. Insider trading may be another example.
Political slush fund scandals may also fall into this category. While generating distrust in the economy or political system may be more dangerous than homicide in terms of its societal impact, the legal penalties imposed are nevertheless overwhelmingly lighter than those for homicide.
Of course, there may have been societies in which the “degree of harmfulness” is directly reflected in the severity of crime, and such societies may still exist somewhere today. In any case, the definition of crime varies according to the collective conscience of a given society.
In fact, I personally feel far greater indignation at the brutal group lynching of a member of the same society than at insider trading.
Durkheim’s remark, “What does it matter that society loses one individual?”, appears to me to resonate with Max Weber’s statement, in which he bitterly tells a young man, “At a time when the nation is utterly exhausted, what is the point of saving only one’s own soul?”
I sense a common orientation in both toward prioritizing the whole over the individual, as well as a morally and ethically rigorous stance. At the same time, however, it also evokes a line of thought often attributed to fictional antagonists, namely that “rather than becoming a hero who saves a single individual, it is more important to sacrifice one person if doing so preserves the health of society.”
As a child, I believed that the claims of the “heroes of justice” were correct; however, one eventually comes to recognize that antagonists also possess their own sense of justice, and thus the difficulty of grounding value judgments becomes apparent.
In the case of Jürgen Habermas, the orientation would likely be toward seeking a point of compromise through deliberation.
For Niklas Luhmann, it might lead to the view that human judgment itself is not fully reliable, and that it is preferable to rely on the rationality of social systems. In Durkheim’s case, one might expect that new ideals emerge through what he calls collective effervescence.
In any case, it seems indispensable to cultivate in individuals the capacity to be conscious of society and to reflect upon it. It is for this reason that sociology is required.
(2-2) “The existence of crime is a sign of a healthy society”
One of Durkheim’s most intriguing ideas is the claim that the existence of crime is itself an indication of a healthy society.
In The Rules of Sociological Method, he argues that “crime is a factor in public health and constitutes an integral part of all healthy societies.”
We ordinarily assume, as a matter of common sense, that “the less crime there is, the better.”
However, Durkheim argues that if the crime rate falls too far below its normal level, this should not be welcomed but rather taken as a cause for concern; he even characterizes it as a form of “social disorganization.” What, then, does this mean?
According to Durkheim, “the existence of criminal acts is a normal condition,” and “there is no society in which crime does not exist.” As noted earlier, acts that would not ordinarily be regarded as criminal may nevertheless be defined as crimes within a monastery.
In any society, crime consists of acts that are collectively condemned, and the specific types of such acts vary from one society to another. Moreover, the fact that members of a society are able to condemn certain acts collectively also signifies the society’s level of social integration (that is, its cohesion or solidarity).
For example, when a homicide is reported in the news, we may feel anger as if it concerned us personally (while at the same time often remaining indifferent to poverty in distant countries).
There is a tendency not to dismiss such events as entirely unrelated to oneself.
POINTPunishment：Punishment is a term that means a passionate or emotional reaction carried out by society in response to a criminal act.
Durkheim defines punishment in this way and explains its function as “maintaining the full vitality of the collective conscience and ensuring that social cohesion remains intact.” In short, punishment serves to reinforce, sustain, and reaffirm social integration.
When I imagine a society in which no one feels anger toward acts such as homicide, I find it somewhat unsettling. For this reason, media that disseminate such information to the broader public (such as newspapers and online news platforms) play an important role.
At the same time, it is essential that such media operate with as much impartiality and fairness as possible, minimizing bias.
Of course, this does not mean that Durkheim defends or endorses crime. Rather, he points out that crime has functions that cannot be grasped through common-sense perspectives alone.
When a certain phenomenon is “condemned,” it indicates that there exist criteria within that society for distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate behavior. This, in turn, provides an opportunity for members of the society to recognize that order, rather than chaos, prevails. In Niklas Luhmann’s terms, this can be understood as the existence of a “code.”
This line of thinking is close to what the sociologist Robert K. Merton later called “latent functions.” In other words, people do not condemn acts with the explicit intention of maintaining social integration; rather, even without such intentions, their actions may nevertheless have the consequence of positively contributing to social cohesion.
Even if individuals’ inner motives are, for example, “I am afraid of being harmed, so I want dangerous people to be excluded,” “I simply dislike them,” or “I am irritated and want to lash out,” such reactions may still function to reinforce social integration as an unintended outcome.
(2-3) Revision in “The Two Laws of Penal Evolution”
Later, in the 1901 paper The Two Laws of Penal Evolution, Durkheim revised the theory of crime presented in The Division of Labor in Society.
In The Division of Labor in Society, he had explained that the older or simpler a society is, the more dominant are repressive laws (with heavier punishments), whereas as society becomes more complex and developed, restitutive laws become more dominant (with lighter punishments).
In The Two Laws of Penal Evolution, in addition to the broad categories of social type (complex/simple, higher/lower, division of labor/non-division of labor, etc.), Durkheim introduced the factor of “the nature of governmental authority.”
Specifically, he added the principle that “the more absolute the central authority, the harsher the punishments tend to be.” An important point is that Durkheim considered the absolutism of central authority to be only weakly correlated with the type of society. In other words, regardless of whether a society is high or low, or whether it has a division of labor or not, central authority can still possess an absolute character.
In fact, Germany during World War II and contemporary China are societies in which the division of labor is highly developed, yet the central authority possesses an absolute character. Therefore, it can be inferred that punishments in such contexts are severe.
Of course, there remains the question of how one could empirically demonstrate, according to a clear standard, that punishments in Germany or China are indeed severe.
For example, in countries often regarded as having harsh punishments, such as China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, the government wields strong authority. In China, the number of executions is sometimes estimated to be the highest in the world, while in Saudi Arabia and Iran, public executions and floggings occur.
The sociologist Eisho Omura points out, “Japan’s crime rate is extremely low, but should this be considered an abnormal phenomenon?” If crime has positive functions, one must also consider the concrete problem of how to make a net calculation of its effects in the Mertonian sense.
References
Recommended Readings
Emile Durkheim「The Division of Labor in Society｣
Emile Durkheim「｢The Division of Labor in Society｣
DK Publishing, Sarah Tomley「The Sociology Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained (DK Big Ideas) (English Edition)」
About the Japanese version of this article
This article is a translation of an article written in [https://souzouhou.com/2024/11/27/durkheim-4-1/]. For detailed references, please refer to this link.
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