Durkheim's Abnormal Division of Labor Theory

Durkheim’s Abnormal Division of Labor Theory

Durkheim argues that the division of labor does not represent the disappearance of social morality so much as a new kind of social morality. Durkheim’s thesis of The Division of Labor is that modern society is not held together by similarities between people who do basically similar things. Instead it is the division of labor itself that pulls people together by forcing them to be dependent on each other. Durkheim used the idea of pathology to criticize three types of the “abnormal” forms the division of labor takes in modern society, which are: Anomic division of labor, the forced division of labor, and the poorly coordinated division of labor.

The anomic division of labor- refers to the lack of regulation in a society that celebrates isolated individuality and refrains from telling people what they should do. According to Durkheim this can cause a person to become isolated from others, which creates anomie and can be very damaging because the person feels a lack of moral direction, which is highly destructive for the individual and society as individual roles become purposeless and meaningless.

For example: When a law office has certain rules that are to be followed such as if you type a document or letter to send to a client you are suppose to make a copy of it and file it into the clients file, instead of putting it in a file basket “to be filed”. But failure to enforce this rule causes problems when an attorney is meeting with his client and looks in his file to refer back to a letter or document he had previously sent the client, but since the employee failed to file the document, and the attorney failed to enforced the regulations, he doesn’t have what he needs in the file.

The forced division of labor- refers to the fact that outdated norms and expectations can force individuals, groups, and classes into certain labor positions for which they are suited for by their natural talents or their abilities. The