Herbert Spencer and Emile Durkheim: Comparison

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Herbert Spencer was a world-renowned philosopher who made considerable contributions in sociology. In his early years, Herbert received informal education in history, English and mathematics among a score of other important lessons. As a young boy, Spencer spent most of his days in and out of hospital suffering from a nervous breakdown. Even in this condition, Spencer spent a considerable amount of his time writing books and in his workstation where he worked as a civil engineer. At one time, he was the editor of a major newspaper. In his living days, he wrote numerous works on sociology and psychology.

However, his contentious ideas made him to be outshined by other theorists who were in the same field. Even before Charles Darwin came up with the theory of evolution, Spencer had already come up with his own theory on the same subject. As Spencer got older, he lost the optimism he had possessed regarding the future of humanity. (Douglas 1973, p.409)

On the other hand, Emile Durkheim was born in 1858 in a deeply religious family. His father and grandparents before him had been Jewish religious teachers. While still a young boy, Durkheim decided not to follow the family tradition of serving as a priest. Instead, he chose to lead a secular life. As a young boy, Durkheim chose not to pursue priesthood, as it was the custom in his family. However, this did not mean that he severed links with his immediate family or denounced the Jewish faith. Many of the people he worked with in his career as a socialist were of Jewish descent. His career was mostly concerned with how people could uphold honesty and consistency in a society that no longer valued things like religion and their ethnic setting. (Lindenfeld1973, p.48)

Even before Charles Darwin theories on evolution were made public, Herbert Spencer had made a considerable contribution on the subject. Unknown to many people, it was Spencer who coined the famous quote of Survival for the fittest. According to Spencer, only the strong and fit people in the society are supposed to live. On the other hand, those who are weak and unfit in the society should be left to die. According to Spencer, the might and rich in the society should be given preference over the poor and the weak.

This translated means that only the rich are supposed to rule the land. According to Spencer, that was not only the way nature ruled but also it was morally correct. In fact, Spencer and others who believed in his policies claimed that it was ethically wrong to assist those who were weak in the society. This was seen as an attempt to aid the procreation and the survival of people who were unfit to inhabit this earth. In the modern society, Spencer’s theory is widely accepted since the rich rule over the poor. Although the society is seen to make efforts to protect the poor, this is not the case since the rich are still favoured over the poor. (Henslin 1996, p.350)

Although Durkheim did not have a clear theory on how societies were supposed to be governed, his ideas on the matter were evidently opposite from those proposed by Spencer. While Spencer proposed that all the poor were to be repressed, Durkheim held the view that every member of the society was supposed to be accorded respect. Although he agreed that wrongdoers in the society were supposed to be punished, he did not agree with Spencer that this punishment was supposed to be meted on the poor and defenseless in the society. Durkheim observed that any wrong doer in the society was supposed to be punished according to the gravity of his mistakes.

The nature of punishment that he proposed was one that would ensure that the wrongdoer suffered some kind of a loss despite his stature in the society. The other means of correction that Durkheim proposed was a method on how the wrongdoer would be restituted back in to the society. He proposed that once the offender had been forced to pay for his crime, he was supposed to be brought back in to the society. This was in opposition to Spencer’s claim that those who were weak and poor in the society were outcasts. According to Durkheim, an outcast was supposed to be someone who had erred in the society but even then, there was supposed to be a law restituting the offender back in to the society. (Lockwood 1992, p.105)

One area that both Spencer and Durkheim agreed on was on the issue of punishing crimes. Durkheim claimed that those people who were punished by repressive laws consisted of only a small fraction of the society. According to Durkheim, those punished by this law were mainly those in the lower sphere of life. He stated that the bonds that are formed because of people’s conscience are lower than those that come from division of labour. This means that we are tied on our societies not by co-operation but by shared beliefs. In essence, what is meant by this is that the lower and the upper sections of the society have not been in harmony.

Durkheim felt that the unions made by the poor people in the society were lower compared to the bonds formed by the rich in the society. This knowledge was close to the views expressed by Spencer when he said that the poor and weak in the society could not do anything meaningful. According to Durkheim, the lower society as he called the poor could be done away with without affecting its economy. This was the same claim propagated by Spencer when he said that the poor were of no consequence to the society. Durkheim reinforced this claim when he claimed that a society is weakened by evolving from a weaker to a higher class. This was the same position that had been held by Spencer before him. (Hughes1958, p.422)

Another area where Durkheim and Spencer’s theories differ on how they view the modern society is in the division of labour. In 1776, a world-renowned scholar by the name of Adam Smith claimed that division of labour contributed greatly to production. According to smith, division of labour did not come as a direct result of human insight but rather by people’s ability to trade one item for another. This ability to trade was only available to the human race and with time, it gave rise to division of labour. Many years later, Durkheim observed that economists viewed division of labour as the key ingredient for their progress.

By concentrating more on production and investment, the modern society was able to advance toward specialization of professions. According to Durkheim, this interdependence went past the economic sector to other administrative arms of the society. These included political, executive and legal arms of the society. Unlike the inventors of this law, Durkheim claimed that this division of labour extended past human beings to other living organisms. According to Durkheim, this division of labour was a general occurrence among all living things. (Lindenfeld1973, p.50)

Following Durkheim’s view on the division of labour, the issue was bound to raise some ethical questions. Just as all natural laws elicit morality questions, people were bound to ask questions like if we were supposed to give way or defy this law.

According to Durkheim, the modern society viewed the answer to these questions to be undecided. In short, the questions brought about an ethical conflict. According to Durkheim, division of labour was supposed to play a greater role than enhancing civilization. In the absence of this, Durkheim argued that it would be hard to view division of labour as a moral fact. According to Durkheim, if the rate of crime and suicide were used as the measure for morality, then people were bound to conclude that immorality increased as the economy grew. It would then follow that civilization as a direct result of the division of labour also brought about moral decay. (Hughes1958, p.425)

Further, Durkheim argues that in an event that the division of labour serves no other role than to enhance civilization, then its existence would not be justified. This is because civilization on its own has no inherent value.

On the contrary, its value comes from its association with specific needs. However, according to Durkheim the division of labour brings about these needs. It then follows that if specialization existed only to satisfy these needs, its sole purpose would be to terminate needs that it had helped to create. According to Durkheim, this did not make sense because it only explained why we have to bear with the division of labour but failed to explain why we consistently try to create the division of labour. Durkheim argues that for this to be understood we have to presume that the division of labour satisfies needs that it did not help in producing. (Henslin 1996, p.350)

On his part, Spencer had different opinions compared to those held by Durkheim on the division of labour. Like Durkheim, Spencer agreed that division of labour brought about a form of solidarity in industrial societies. However, while Spencer clearly understood the cause of solidarity in higher societies, the same issue remained a mystery to Durkheim. Spencer believed that since industrial unity came about naturally, then the state or any other force for that matter was not required to regulate it. This was in opposition to Durkheim who had argued that the state needed to regulate industrial solidarity for its effectiveness.

Durkheim had further argued that if the state failed to regulate these associations, then there would be no secure justice for the different parties involved in the matter. While Spencer was correct in pointing out that the number of societal interactions were on the increase, he ignored to take note of the number of relations that came because of non-societal interactions. This might have come due to his bigoted view of the poor in the society. (Giddens1972, p.100)

By looking at the whole argument, it is clear that Spencer did not understand the role that was played by the division of labour in bringing about civilization. Despite the economic benefits, division of labour in the modern society was to Spencer a question of morality. However, Durkheim held an opposite view to that held by Spencer. While Spencer scoffed at the division of labour brought about by association with the lower societies, Durkheim argued that this bond shaped the moral character of any society. According to Durkheim, the modern man was incapable of surviving on his own and he therefore needed the support of his counterparts. This was in opposition to Spencer’s claims who viewed the rich and strong as able to survive on their own. (Gianfranco 2000, chp1)

On the issue of barter trade in the modern society, Spencer argues that it is like a binding contract. This he claims obliterates the role of the central government in business dealings. According to Spencer, freedom increases as agreements become universal. This contract needs to be done without any outside pressure for it to be effective. On his part, Durkheim contrasts this by claiming that there should be a form of social intervention for barter to be effective. He claims that the modern society should impose complex laws effectiveness in trade. According to Durkheim, social intervention has the daunting role of ensuring that the social relationships between people are regulated. (Douglas 1973, p.409)

Durkheim agreed with Spencer on the claim that division of society causes relationships to multiply. However, unlike Spencer, Durkheim disagreed that relationships arising from the division of the society were on the rise. He claimed that matters that were deemed to be private in the past had now become public. He gives a good example of this as marriage and adoption, which even though private has received endorsement from the authorities. What Durkheim claimed was that as domestic matters multiplied, they tended to become more private. This was a view that was strongly opposed by Spencer who claimed that peoples curiosity was arose if a matter seemed to be unpopular. (Eitzen, & Maxine1997, p.85)

Another area where the two theorists are in opposition is on the area of information exchange. According to Spencer, this is something that should not be regulated by any authority in a state. This is a view that Durkheim strongly opposes. He argues that the society must have within its structure a body that can regulate incentives as the need arises. He further claims that the larger the society, then the bigger the role the state has to play in regulating these stimuli. According to Spencer, this is unnecessary since the exchange of information should take place freely. (Dahrendorf 1959, p.75)

On the issue of specialization, Spencer claims that labour is shaped in a great way by the environment that people are subjected. A good example of this is the likelihood of the people living in the seashore becoming fishermen. According to Spencer, the internal differences in a society is what increases specialization within societies. Durkheim on his part claims that this diversity alone is not enough to bring about division of labour. (Cotterrell 1999, p.260)

Another stark difference between the two scholars is on how the state is supposed to operate. According to Durkheim, it is important for any state to look out after the welfare of its members. A state is supposed to be led by conscience in the governance of its people. This means that the state is not supposed to leave its citizens unprotected in the society. According to Durkheim, the state is also responsible in ensuring that the rights of individuals are upheld in the society.

On the contrary, Spencer claims that the state is supposed to rule by an iron hand. He does not believe that individuals and especially the poor have any rights in the community. He advocates for a form of government that is tyrannical and one that does not allow its people to have a say in matters of development. His perfect type of government is one that colonises its people. (Bellah 1973, p.230)

In a claim that seemed to match Spencer’s school of thought, Durkheim argues that the states that protect the poor have become rare in the modern society. He claims that ones personality and importance in the society are the key things that can accord one protection from the state. Durkheim quotes the disappearance of religion as a strong indicator that the idea of collective thought has disappeared from the society. This is the same belief that had been held by Spencer before him. However, by looking at the claims by both scholars, it is evident that those presented by Spencer were extreme even in areas that they all had a common ground. (Althusser1969, p.30)

The differences between how Herbert Spencer and Emile Durkheim view the modern society is evident. Their claims present contrasting opinions on how the modern society is supposed to operate. Although there are areas that the two agree in, those similarities are minimal. This is because most of the claims presented by Durkheim were trying to oppose what Spencer had claimed earlier. By looking at the two sides of the arguments, it is clear that those presented by Durkheim are more morally acceptable than those presented by Spencer are. However, their claims present a good sociological view of how the modern society should operate.

Reference List

Althusser, L, 1969, For Marx, London: Allen Lane, pp. 25-48.

Bellah, R.N, 1973, Emile Durkheim: On Morality and Society, Selected Writings, Ed Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, pp. 210-244.

Cotterrell, R, 1999, Emile Durkheim: Law in a Moral Domain, Ed, Stanford University Press, pp. 236-276.

Dahrendorf, R, 1959, Class and class conflict in industrial society, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford university press, pp. 69-78.

Douglas, J, 1973, The Social Meanings of Suicide, Princeton University Press, pp. 400-412.

Eitzen, S.D, & Maxine, B.Z, 1997, Social Problems, 11th Ed, Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon, pp.78-88.

Gianfranco, P, 2000, Durkheim, Oxford: Oxford University Press, Chap. 1.

Giddens, A, 1972, Emile Durkheim: Selected Writings, Ed, London: Cambridge University Press, pp. 89-101.

Henslin, J. M, 1996, Essentials of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach, Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon, pp. 310-369.

Hughes, H.S, 1958, Consciousness and society; the Reorientation of European social thought, 1890-1930, New York: random House, pp. 410-433.

Lindenfeld, F, 1973, Radical perspectives on social problems: Readings in Critical sociology, 2nd Ed, New York: Macmillan, pp. 45-58.

Lockwood, D, 1992, Solidarity and Schism: “The Problem of Disorder” in Durkheimian and Marxist Sociology, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 101-110.

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Herbert Spencer and Emile Durkheim: Comparison

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