Introduction to the Science of Sociology

by Robert Ezra Park; E. W. Burgess

Short as this analysis is, it suffices to show that this complex is not identical with that which rests on sentiments of sympathy which have their source in mere likeness. Unquestionably there can be the sense of solidarity between others and ourselves only so far as we conceive others united with ourselves. When the union results from a perception of likeness, it is a cohesion. The two representations become consolidated because, being undistinguished totally or in part, they are mingled and are no more than one, and are consolidated only in the measure in which they are mingled. On the contrary, in the case of the division of labor, each is outside the other, and they are united only because they are distinct. It is not possible that sentiments should be the same in the two cases, nor the social relations which are derived from them the same.

We are then led to ask ourselves if the division of labor does not play the same rôle in more extended groups; if, in the contemporaneous societies where it has had a development with which we are familiar, it does not function in such a way as to integrate the social body and to assure its unity. It is quite legitimate to assume that the facts which we have observed reproduce themselves there, but on a larger scale. The great political societies, like smaller ones, we may assume maintain themselves in equilibrium, thanks to the specialization of their tasks. The division of labor is here, again, if not the only, at least the principal, source of the social solidarity. Comte had already reached this point of view. Of all the sociologists, so far as we know, he is the first who has pointed out in the division of labor anything other than a purely economic phenomenon. He has seen there "the most essential condition of the social life," provided that one conceives it "in all its rational extent, that is to say, that one applies the conception to the ensemble of all our diverse operations whatsoever, instead of limiting it, as we so often do, to the simple material usages." Considered under this aspect, he says:

It immediately leads us to regard not only individuals and classes but also, in many respects, the different peoples as constantly participating, in their own characteristic ways and in their own proper degree, in an immense and common work whose inevitable development gradually unites the actual co-operators in a series with their predecessors and at the same time in a series with their successors. It is, then, the continuous redivison of our diverse human labors which mainly constitutes social solidarity and which becomes the elementary cause of the extension and increasing complexity of the social organism.

If this hypothesis is demonstrated, division of labor plays a rôle much more important than that which has ordinarily been attributed to it. It is not to be regarded as a mere luxury, desirable perhaps, but not indispensable to society; it is rather a condition of its very existence. It is this, or at least it is mainly this, that assures the solidarity of social groups; it determines the essential traits of their constitution. It follows—even though we are not yet prepared to give a final solution to the problem, we can nevertheless foresee from this point—that, if such is really the function of the division of labor, it may be expected to have a moral character, because the needs of order, of harmony, of social solidarity generally, are what we understand by moral needs.

Social life is derived from a double source: (a) from a similarity of minds, and (b) from the division of labor. The individual is socialized in the first case, because, not having his own individuality, he is confused, along with his fellows, in the bosom of the same collective type; in the second case, because, even though he possesses a physiognomy and a temperament which distinguish him from others, he is dependent upon these in the same measure in which he is distinguished from them. Society results from this union.

Like-mindedness gives birth to judicial regulations which, under the menace of measures of repression, impose upon everybody uniform beliefs and practices. The more pronounced this like-mindedness, the more completely the social is confused with the religious life, the more nearly economic institutions approach communism.

The division of labor, on the other hand, gives birth to regulations and laws which determine the nature and the relations of the divided functions, but the violation of which entails only punitive measures not of an expiatory character.

Every code of laws is accompanied by a body of regulations purely moral. Where the penal law is voluminous, moral consensus is very extended; that is to say, a multitude of collective activities is under the guardianship of public opinion. Where the right of reparation is well developed, there each profession maintains a code of professional ethics. In a group of workers there invariably exists a body of opinion, diffused throughout the limits of the group, which, although not fortified with legal sanctions, still enforces its decrees. There are manners and customs, recognized by all the members of a profession, which no one of them could infringe without incurring the blame of society. Certainly this code of morals is distinguished from the preceding by differences analogous to those which separate the two corresponding kinds of laws. It is, in fact, a code localized in a limited region of society. Furthermore, the repressive character of the sanctions which are attached to it is sensibly less accentuated. Professional faults arouse a much feebler response than offenses against the mores of the larger society.

Nevertheless, the customs and code of a profession are imperative. They oblige the individual to act in accordance with ends which to him are not his own, to make concessions, to consent to compromises, to take account of interests superior to his own. The consequence is that, even where the society rests most completely upon the division of labor, it does not disintegrate into a dust of atoms, between which there can exist only external and temporary contacts. Every function which one individual exercises is invariably dependent upon functions exercised by others and forms with them a system of interdependent parts. It follows that, from the nature of the task one chooses, corresponding duties follow. Because we fill this or that domestic or social function, we are imprisoned in a net of obligations from which we do not have the right to free ourselves. There is especially one organ toward which our state of dependencies is ever increasing—the state. The points at which we are in contact with it are multiplying. So are the occasions in which it takes upon itself to recall us to a sense of the common solidarity.

There are then two great currents in the social life, collectivism and individualism, corresponding to which we discover two types of structure not less different. Of these currents, that which has its origin in like-mindedness is at first alone and without rival. At this moment it is identified with the very life of the society; little by little it finds its separate channels and diminishes, whilst the second becomes ever larger. In the same way, the segmentary structure of society is more and more overlaid by the other, but without ever disappearing completely.