Durkheim V Marx: Society V Individual

As a cause and as a symptom of social hierarchies, division of labor is an integral part of the structuring of society. Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim both give very different interpretations to the effects causing, evolving, and caused by this division of labor. On one hand, Marx typically vilifies the process, finding it in large part responsible for the oppression of one group by another. On the other hand, Durkheim treats it as a unifying social force, one necessarily maintained for the betterment of all. With such contrasting viewpoints, it is difficult to decide whether this process is necessarily good or bad. In effect, the argument is how far must individual needs be sacrificed for the benefit of society, or how much society must be diminished for optimal individual equity. However, as with many things in life, Marx and Durkheim are actually just looking at opposite ends of the same spectrum and as such, they are neither right, nor wrong, and their interpretations are not nearly so irreconcilable as they would appear.

Marx believes that division of labor is a natural process, one that arises near spontaneously. Marx believes that as a nation develops its labor inevitably also becomes more divided. “How far the productive forces of a nation are developed is shown most manifestly by the degree to which division of labor has been carried. Each new productive force…causes a further development of the division of labor” (Tucker, 150). This division is what he finds to be problematic because it separates man from doing what he truly desires to do. In a highly specialized society, every individual must contribute to a facet of the society’s collective production; however, this input may be very minimal (depending on the degree of specialization). To whit, “As soon as the distribution of labor comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity” (160). Every man has his place and he is forced into it by the demands of society. However,

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