The Radical Durkheim [2 ed.] 1551301695, 9781551301693

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The

RADICAL

DURKHEIM 2ND EDITION

FRANK PEARCE

CANADIAN SCHOLARS' PRESS INC.

2001

The Radical Durkheim 2nd Edition· by Frank Pearce First published in 2001 by Canadian Scholars' Press Inc. 180 Bloor Street West, Suite 1202 Toronto, Ontario MSS 2V6

Dedicated to Rory and Blake

Copyright O 2001 Frank Pearce and Canadian Scholars' Press. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be photocopied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without the written permission of Canadian Scholars' Press, except.for brief passages quoted for review purposes. Every reasonable effort has been made to identify copyright holders. CSP! would be pleased to have any errors or omissions brought to its attention. CSP! acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada throi1gh the Book Publishing Industry Development Programme for our publishing activities.

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data Pearce, Frank The radical Durkheim 2nd ed. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-55130-169-S 1.

Durkheim, Emj.le, 1858-1917. 2. Sociology-France-History. I. Title.

HM479.D87P42 2001

301'.092

C2001-93013 l-6

Managing Editor: Ruth Bradley-St-Cyr Marketing Manager: Susan Cuk Production Editor: Chris Doda Cover design: Jean Louie 02

03

04

05

06

6

5

4

3

2

Printed and bound in Canada by Mothersill Printing

Displacement is the opposite of ·citation, of the theoretical authority which is always falsified by the mere fact of becoming a citation; a fragment torn out of its context, its movement, and finally its epoch as a general reference and as a precise choice which it was within this reference, exactly recognized or erroneous. Displacement is the fluid language of anti-ideology. It appears within communication which knows that it cannot pretend to hold any guarantee in itself and definitively. It is, at its highest point, the language which cannot be confirmed by any ancient or supra­ critical reference. On the contrary, it is its own coherence, within itself and with practicable facts, which can confirm the ancient grain of truth which it brings out. Displacement has not grounded its cause on anything external to its own truth as present critique. (Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle)

Contents

Preface lo the Second Edition Preface to the First Edition

Xlll

xxi

1 Introduction Introduction The political evaluation of Durkheim Durkheim and science Rereading theory Conclusion: The radical Durkheim

2 Durkheim's epistemology and sociology Durkheim and epistemology Durkheim's sociological concepts Crime and punishment Durkheim, agelicism and viralism Durkheim and post-structuralism Durkheim and the concept of charisma Politics and charisma Conclusion

3 Durkheim and politics Introduction Durkheim's social evolutionism Durkheim, authoritarian liberalism and conservativism Durkheim and socialism Durkheim and technocratic socialism Durkheim, Marxism and communists Durkheim's radical s◊cialist vision Conclusion

4 Durkheim and the division of labour Introduction Solidarity and social order

1 2 3 4 8 13 13 19

22 24 26 29 33 38 42 42 43 47 49 50 51 55 57 60 60 60

The genesis

the

of

genesis of

The

Societal rivalry

of labour

division

primitive and

the

orders

social

of

division

lab\357\277\275ur

of the

forms

168

69

Conclusion

176

9 The state) 75

and

Durkheim Introduction Durkheim's

systematic theory of law

Durkheim and

anthropology

contemporary

law and

Repressive The soul,

the

personality

Social life

and

social

class

law

order in complex

and

societies

The rule

law in socialist

of law

183

societies

187

socialism

and

Capitalism, socialism and the

88

A Critique ofjudicial

88

Crime

89

Crime: Some modest

law

criminal

193

ideology

195

in socialist societies socialist

99

10 A

101

Sacred

ofthe

Sociology

Collective

103

and Creative 205

Effervescence

205

Introduction

109

The

112

The

Conclusion

114

Fatalism

118

on Building upon Durkheim's writings The Left Sacred and the Right Sacred Le College de sociologie

Introduction

118

the

and A

Fatalism:

Fatalism

'The forced

orders

displaced

and slavery division

and condensed concept and 'forced

of labour'

solidarity'

Conclusion

A

of Durkheim

riformulation

)s

134

Suicide

134

Introduction

135

Fatalism and anomie Causes

and

Egoism and

146

altruism

ADurkheimian

Rationalities, Conclusion

perspective

on the

personalities and

8 Durkheim and Marx: A

social

'large

orders

group'

151 152

155 dialogue

159

159

Introduction

Organic

142

occasions

solidarity

159

of

effervescence

the

of religion

executioner and the Ontario

206 207

life

religion

214

Coalition

230

218 220 223

Against Poverty

123

129

sociology

forms of religious

elementary

Creative

120 126

of a

development

The sociology

118

critics

suppressed,

198

proposals

105

Suicide

189

93

societies

and the responsible subject obligations and the law Durkheim, sovereignty ofDurkheim's theorization of law Critiques and the command of law Sovereignty theory

Rational-legal

179

179

state and

The

88

relation

thejuridical

161

critique

Introduction

83

Conclusion

7

Socialism

division

of labour

6

Marxism: ADurkheimian

66

71

Colonialism, class and conflict Durkheim and the pathological

5

62

11

Conclusion

238

Conclusion

241

Bibliography

243

Index

267

Preface to the Second Edition

The first edition of this book was intended to rescue Durkheim from both his detractors and some of those who enthusiastically appropri­ ated elements of his thought for conservative ends. By providing a careful exegesis, rigorous critique and creative reformulation of his work and by articulating the concepts generated with a Marxism that had been similarly treated, above all by Louis Althusser, I hoped to develop a new and radical Durkheimianism. That others have followed a somewhat similar path - here, I am thinking of Georges Bataille, Roger Caillois, and Mike Gane - shows, I believe, that treating Durkheim in this manner can indeed be productive. In the first preface I suggested that 'the reader finds his own symptoms in the text alongside the manifest concerns of the writer, and seeks answers to his own questions, which may be different from those posed by the writer'. Much of the earlier part of the book attended to the complexity of texts and focused on the question of how the subject produced as an effect of the play of textual discourses is able to identify and separate these. There is then an attempt to artic­ ulate some of these with a 'slimmed down' Marxism. The main emphasis was on discourses and their effects. I have no desire to distance myself from this position but, here, I would like to emphasise more the varying capacities of the reading subject. We have all had the experience of reading the same author a number of times and finding that we keep changing our minds about how well they write, how intriguing are their concerns, how complexly they think, how stimulating, provocative or banal their ideas. Moreover, it is by no means true that this is either first a process of excited involvement ·and then detached disillusion, or conversely, initially one of tepid interest and increasing engagement. In my own case, I am continually retur.ning to the work of Michel Foucault and often find that I relate to it in new ways, with different feelings and new judgements. How I experience reading a particula:r work depends upon an interdiscourse. At any time I am 'already positioned by other texts and by the relations between discourses, discursive practices', by my xiii

Radical

The

XIV

Durkheim

Preface to the

in interpersonal

imbrication

and institutional and by my relations, commitments. But it also depends up on my intel\302\255 lectual and sensibilities. All of these are directly related to capacities the ways in which I and others (and social relations and discourses) I have in the past acted on me and how have and up consciously and how I have been transformed unconsciously reacted to all ofthese

and

ethical

in

the

have

fa

political

process.

Each of us

has

cilitated

or blocked

the achievement

each of us has what

has

had

unfolded

at

different

before

confr

times

us. We

also

onted

particular

different vary

how

ofparticular

worlds , which desires

and

capacities to deal with and to what extent we

to and the degree to which we attempt experiences them. What we 'find' at some particular time when we it: there read a text is related to who we are at the moment we read is which a personal biographical element plays a key role in determining who we are wh en we read or when we experience quite situat\357\277\275ons and this depends imbrications and our umque upon both our current and our relation to both. past I would like to share with the reader some of my own aspects intellectual and political biography as it affects my changing personal relation to the work of Durkheim. I initially studied Sociology at the of Leeds and the two major influ ences on my understand\302\255 University of social theory were Justine Grossman, an exiled American ing and Political and Alan Dawe , a Marxist, who taught Social Theory, radical who taught both The History of Sociological Weberian, and Thought Contemporary Sociological Theory. Both were also my tutors. Both read theory rigorously and Alan Dawe in particular sensi\302\255 tised me to the fa ct that sociology's object is not 'social behaviour' but 'social action' and that when analysing human action we must always re cognise that its meaning is a puzzle and that we cannot simply assume that we know what it means. Of course, now, I would suggest that the meaning of meanings also often escape social actors them\302\255 and that, fu rther, sociology has other distinct selves, , such as 'objects' social relations, which are irreducible to subjective or intersubjective relations. Yet, I still subscribe to the view that part of the sociological obje ct is this social meaning and that it is usually relatively opaque. At that time , along with Anthony Woodiwiss and others , I was involved in the Socialist Direct Action and Solidarity. Both groups were that is to that their understanding of libertarian, groups say socialist politics was that it involved a prefigurative liberatory practice. in a needed to be identified in their specificity, fo ught Oppressions de mocratic sroots manner both outside and inside participatory gras the movement. Struggles involving class , race, minority groups such as Romany all supported. travellers, gender, sexual orientation; were our

thematise

learn

fr om

At the

time

Second

Edition

XV

in what carefully but engaged fe w years later, I became with left Weberian sociology and dissatisfied disillusioned increasingly with in the Solidarity's post-Marxist theory (grounded writings of Claude Lefort, Cornelius Castoriadis, Jean-Francois Lyotard, all members of Solidarity's sister Socialisme ou barbarie), and organisation I

read

Durkheim

Althusser called 'a

by its

fa

ilure

dogmatic

to develop

a

reasonably reading'

. A

structure de\357\277\275ocratic

_

and,

t unrelatedly,

n\357\277\275

its

a strategic to a greater inability to develop theory ofpractice. I shifted involvement in the politics of higher education and, theoretically, to - the what Marxism' might loosely be called, a 'phenomenological Herbert Marcuse , Lucien Goldman, Lukacs, early Marx, George Istvan Meszaros were influences. major My book, Crimes of the Crime and Deviance, in which I argued that capital\302\255 Poweiful: Ma rxism} ist economic relations tended to subordinate the complexity of social life to its one dimensional effect on the potential logic with a crippling in this under\302\255 of human life, was creativity and diversity grounded with At this time I tended to agree the judgement of standing. Durkheim fo und in Paul Nizan's The Watchdogs: and th e Philosophers Established Order and I was fo nd of citing a passage from The Division qf Labor wh ere Durkheim, writing about societies characterised by mec hanical solidarity, endorsed the view that 'one who has seen an aboriginal American has seen all ab original Americans' and that the fr om the resemblanc e' ofthe 'negroid' peoples 'derives 'great physical fr absence of all psychic and om the state of of individuality, inferiority . However intellectual culture in general' there was already a tension within of Durkheim because one of my then my understanding students , Andy Roberts , had shown me the complex implications of the concept of the conscience collective. He demonstrated that some of the utterances used as evidence of George III's madness well might have been treated as perfectly rational when an earlier conscience collec\302\255 tive included as a valorised concept 'The Divine Right ofKings'. Even earliest on were infle cted this my writings sexuality by understanding in my 1981 article 'The 'placing' of male although it was clearest in the British . homosexuals Press' Much defeat at what is now North changed in my life. Political London crisis and the incontestable and University, personal somewhat shattering evidence of my own unconscious processes revealed led me to reject by, ofall things, a Laingian psychoanalysis, the academy and seek self-development by travelling overland to in India and to Afri ca. On my return, 'self- development' continued club in inner London. This was the context of running a.tough youth of fire : how can one realise the most benevolent a baptism ofp\357\277\275litical when who are nghtly projects they involve working class people

distrustful of

Priface

Durkheim

Radical

The

X:Vl

I was, I remained a nals? However left-wing world. I was only locked into it fo r two years, and ulti\302\255 I understood alrnost as little as I understood Asia and Africa . mately At and this despite from a class the sam\357\277\275 coming working background. I was involved in psychoanalytic group read psychoanalytic work, the film theory texts, particularly those of the Lacanians , and studied

then

professio

in their

tourist

in

developing

Scree n.

to academe structuralist and poststructuralist I returned

and

Althusser,

Marx and

?oth

Foucault

as I

in became

the

his corpus, I identified

with

within many

texts,

specific

, and

posed'

others,

years

above

I immersed

all Hindess

myselfin

and Hirst,

transformed my relation to the latter I now sought to his work and then to identify its more and more confident working

. This inevitably

discourse

_

mcoherenCies. Slowly,

ten

thought,

Durkheim. In lecturing

dominant

the \357\277\275solate

the next

. For

on

existence

ones 'that

including

of

more

than one discourse

answered questions never

off another. began to play one discourse Politically, like I fe lt there was a need to demonstrate both the possibil\302\255

ofsocialism but also, through confronting issues raised Althusser and to and confront the needs of Durkheim, by try honestly social ordering and its likely constraints on what was fe asible in large I was now consciously scale societies. While remaining a Marxist, anti-utopian and, as can be seen in chapter 9 of this book, explicitly ity

and viability

self-critical. as the details emerged ab out the 1984 Bhopal ?f outrage m central India lead me back to the question of corporate in investigating other abuses ofcorporate power. However, what happened and why it happ ened I was keen not to use these tragic events merely as an illustration of my already fo rmulated understand\302\255 it to a case study and, as well as my intel\302\255 ing nor did I wish to reduce I became involved in the Bhopal lectual Action engagement, Group . I Tombs on these issues and then as well as began to work with Steve ofthe disaster. We broadened our fo cus exploring the specifics Bhopal to general questions ofregulation and also to the nature of the inter\302\255 with national chemical a industry as a whole . This meant engaging

A.

sense

gas d1saster crime and

wide

range of

economy,

politics,

literatures

and

in

managerial theory, political sociology. In practice it also meant realist Gramsci's epistemology,

economics,

ofcourse,

fo cusing particularly on Bhaskar's understanding of Hegemony and a wide range of Foucauldian texts . Our 1998 book, To xic Capitalism: Corporate Crime and the Chemical fruit was a of this work. major Industry I concentrated more on Foucault but now tied this Subsequently, in with his relationship to Georges Bataille and Surrealism. Marxian ofhuman political economy, and Nietzschean explorations subjectiv-

to

the Second

Edition

X:Vll

influ\302\255 major sources fo r both but Bataille was also explicitly with Roger Durkheimian sociology. In 1937Bataille, along Caillois and Michel Leiris fo unded the Parisian College de sociologie where fo on the on religion by cusing writings by Durkheim, Mauss,

ity were enced by

worked at developing their own radical of Hollier's edited Sociology' . My discovery volume on The College de sociologie, suddenly tied together a wh ole - I was blessed fr om the series ofmy interests way in which those 'iron which shake the dice-box hands of necessity of chance play their I say blessed because a major The Dawn). concern game' (Nietzsche, of the College de sociologie was to develop a Sacred Sociology by on religion. drawing upon Durkheim's writings in Benares that I would Then, had I not been told by a Brahmin lead a movement of spiritual renewal? I never discovered what this he wished to charge me a significant might mean, in part, because fo r board and lodging if I stayed with him as he took me on . amount the of spiritual enlightenment, whereas I needed path my money to but visit other and Africa, also because I was and remain parts oflndia an atheist. the way that the members of the College de Interestingly, in took Durkheim's workwas not conven\302\255 sociologie up religious any tional sense . Nor, indeed, was Acep hale, the contemporaneous sacri\302\255 ficial secret society, led by Bataille. More than one of its members volunteered to be sacrificed no sacrificer could be fo und although because as Blanchot out in The Unavowable , perhaps points Co mmun ity, the sacrificer was to sacrifice himself too. But since each member of the group was also a sacrificer of the (each was the source sacrificial desire) presumably each of them too should have been both sacrificer and victim. If the logic was fo llowed through who would have been left to tell the tale or be a member of the new sacralised of course, the intellectual fo cus of the community? Ultimately, members of the College de sociologie was less on organised religion in politics and social than on the role ofthe non-rationaland irrational Hubert

Durkh

and

eimian

Hertz,

they

'Sacred

as a whole . I began to work on writings with the College de ofthose associated and became particularly interested in the concern of both sociologie in the 'left sacred' and the 'right sacred' Bataille and Caillois and in the effervescences. The first concern led sociogonic power of collective me to pay particular attention to Caillois's essay on 'The Sociology of the Executioner'. Given that it opens with a discussion of the torture and execution of the would-be regicide , Damiens , this led quite of Foucault's Discipline and Punish. I naturally to a reconsideFation life

began trying to richness

and

think

inadequacies

the problems posed by both the of Foucualt's text but also more generally

through

Radical Durkheim

Th e

XVlll

to the

Priface

Second

XIX

Edition

.

about justice,

punishment and on Penal

Conference

tional

experienced emergence

I was

expenditure

'criminal

fa

ti ed

in to

Not long after, I

Ontario Provincial

was at

his

of

analysis

in To

Coalition

the

been

has

and

Georges

non-productive

of Durkheim's

concept of

demonstration

outside the

support

informed

services

by a moral

ronto's Queen's

Mike Harris. This

continuous

and

dismantling

Ontario

the poor of

fo r

economy that

Park,

( OCAP)

Poverty

Against

of Premier

against the vicious

protest

2000

theJune

Government

Conservative

them

no\357\277\275-necessary

development

Legislature

Ontario

the

state

his

after,

how

2000, I

in May

ronto

as a way of prioritising at a conference on

systems'

with

scinated

To

Interna\302\255

effe rvescence.

collective

by

and

contingent justice

social harms . Soon

with

dealing Bataille

how

acutely

of

Abolition in

the

I attended

When

order.

organised

against the was

ofthe which

a commitment

involved

a public

previous had

been

to give

this public protest, collective efferves\302\255 with of, and in interaction generated. copresence others coll ectively committed to social justice and radical social of change, I personally experienced something of a transformation self. In my case it was linked with finding again what Antonio Gramsci describes as 'pessimism of the intelligence and of optimism the will'. This experience was an effect of collective undoubtedly but it was also with my personal openness to effe linked rvescence, some kind of transformation at that time . Changes in my personal but so were some other more intellec\302\255 circumstances were important but there tual encounters. Some of these I have already mentioned some

During

protection.

In the

was

cence

was an other important late

Norm

Feltis,

The

one.

a member

showed the key conjuncture . Thus political

which

previous

of OCAP, of

significance

and

ethical

February, I had heard the deliver

a stimulating

OCAP

concerns,

paper fo r this political

and intellectual

me to be open to a transformative creative effervescence moved me back to a in so fa r as it helps open us place where I can support utopian thinking to possibilities that only historical chance has fo re closed and also in so fa r as it helps imagine different of seizing on the unfolding ways ofthe and fu ture. opportunities present This provides of a context as to why, when I turned to something r I an additional ter fo this decided to book, writing chap explore fu rther Durkheim's sociology but in the light of this of religion tradition of radical Durkheimianism. Bataille and Caillois had shown how his discourse on the sacred can be used to develop conceptions of collectivities and social organisations that show how their constitution is subtended moments of volatility, ambiguity and by often recurring engagements

experience.

helped

Collective,

constitute

of 'collective

and hence ofpotentially radical with the concerned then, they were violence and the sacred. Thus I discuss sociology of fe stivals, Durkheim's a brief sociology of religion, provide critique, me ditate in on what remains ofinterest, suture this with the concepts generated with key the earlier part of the book and finally, articulate these and Bataille. Hence there is a brief historical arguments of Caillois section on 'The Sociology of the Executioner' and another more section on 'Creative Effe rvescence and the Ontario contempo rary Coalition ', an event which I argue was in part both Against Poverty will find fe stival and 'moral protest' . I hop e the readers of this edition this a timely and stimulating supplement to what was written before . The current edition of this book has grown out of another ten with Social Theory. Since most ofthose I thanked that years struggle in the first edition have remained influential fo r me, here I wish to I need to do reiterate my thanks to them all. In two cases, however, more than this. I continue to owe a great deal to my fr iendship and intellectual relationship with Anthony Woodiwiss, and most recently with him on work on Michel Foucault. this includes collaboration With Mike Gane I am currently editing a sp ecial edition ofEconomy and Society on the 'College de sociologie ', and as always, his deep social has proved invaluable fo r both this knowledge of French theory I have come to project and fo r my other work. Since the first edition know Ivan Varga well and to appreciate his erudition, particularly on with the Sociology Paul Datta worked me as a ofReligion. graduate student but through so many stimulating discussions on Durkheim, Foucault and our intellectual relationhip has long moved Bataille, such a hierarchical relationship. Then beyond my work in recent ecstasy,

Not

discontinuities.

has

years

Tombs,

fr om engaging benefitted Bob Shenton, Brian Palmer,

Sixel, Jack sons agonistic

effe rvescence',

surprisingly

Rory

Wayne,

Danica

and Blake

relations

Dupont have

and it is

Tara

I

learnt dedicate

Steve

Milbrandt,

Beckmann,

and Frances

certainly

to them

with Andrea

Newman.

the value this book.

Friedrick Finally

my

of loving,

to the First

Preface

Edition

I want to look at some of the writings of Durkheim, not but to their rather to show how his more point shortcomings, fr uitful can be developed to extend our understanding of arguments social and political . In the opening the change chapter I discuss one ifwe are to problem ofreading theory creatively- an important learn to recognize and unravel the different discourses and chains of In

this

book

to

in any piece of the oretical and ..meaning that lie embedded writing learn to put theory to go od use, rather than simply or accepting that rejecting it. My main aim is to reveal and retheorize the concepts inform Durkheim's to generate and work, and out ofthis exploration theoretical develop new and, I believe, analyses. This important indeed is determined and informed rereading, any rereading, by the concerns of the reader. theoretical and political concerns My I therefore affect both the way I read and the kinds of reformulation . This seeks to undertake is the nature of intertextuality, or what : the Dominick LaCapra has called the transferential relationship conscious and, at times, unconscious between a writer and a dialogue reader, where the reader finds his own symp toms in the text alongside the manifest concerns of the writer, and seeks answers to his own fr om those posed by the writer. questions , which may be different Writer and reader leave their marks , or traces, on one another, and this is when the reader commits his thought to process reproduced thus the fo r textual richness and writing, opening way greater with other readers. dialogue First Why should we return to Durkheim's work yet again? to the almost universal consensus sociolo\302\255 because, contrary amongst in Durkheim's texts neither the dominant discourses nor those gists, fr agments can be construed as present only as partially suppressed

conservative

inherently

with an whilst

as a committed

Marxism

is

discourses it needs

the the

oeuvre

is complex,

multi\302\255

anti-Utopian logic and it Then, to put it simply, social scientist I believe that

ruthlessly

socialist

most aid

a

fr uitfulness.

potential

extraordinary

is because

. His

or'positivistic

often characterized by

fa c eted,

and

fr uitful

ofDurkheim's

of

all

socialist

concepts

and

sociological

to rid itself ofboth XXI

x:lfii

The Radfrai Durkheim

Pr�face to the First Edition

its Utopianism and its anthropocentrism. Marxism's claim is that it has the necessary tools to analyse the nature and bases of class societies, to specify feasible alternative non-exploitative social orders and to identify the agents and mechanisms by which there will be movement from one co the other. The contemporary crisis of Marxism shows how problematic these claims are. However, this crisis has not, as only too many self styled 'post-Marxists' seem to imagine, signified the exhaustion of Marxism, but rather provided the task and opportunity of ruthlessly pruning Marxism of its errors and incoherences and of inhibiting its overextension. Thanks to the critical theoretical work of Althusser and others in the structuralist tradition there is now a much slimmed down version of Marxism, within which some key concepts, such as the relations of production, have been retained and others, such as ideology, have been displaced. In this new system of concepts inevitably there are Jacunae, which can only be remedied by a selective borrowing from kindred traditions such as a retheorized Durkheimism. To be more accurate, fruitful theory can be developed by a transferential and countertransferential relationship between the slimmed down versions of both traditions. The goal of this book, then, is both to engage in an immanent critique of Durkheim's oeuvre and then through a dialogue with a non-humanistic Marxism, to retain, develop and modify certain of his conceptualizations. This reconstituted Durkheimism will in turn be used to critique certain aspects of Marxism. The early chapters involve a somewhat structuralist and realist interrogation of Durkheim's work followed by a reconstitution of certain of his concepts and a reformu­ lation of his arguments. Since a major concern of the book is to develop a more adequate picture of the parameters within which a feasible socialist society could operate, there is continual reference to the manif est and latent socialist elements of Durkheim's thought. In Chapters 3-7 Durkheim's work is interrogated and reworked i n rela­ tionship to these concerns. Thus attention is particularly paid to The Rules of Sociological ,Hethod, The DiJJision of Labour in Society, Suicide., and The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, although many other texts are also utilized. In Chapter 8 this reconstituted Durkheimism is used in turn to interrogate Marxism. Whilst Marx was scathing about Utopian socialism 'he was by no means immune to its dangers and this was particularly true of his image of communism and of its relationship to socialism. Durkheim helps provide a critique of Marx's concept of communism, and forces socialists to be somewhat less sanguine about the presence and role of the state and law in socialist societies. In Chapter 9 it is shown that, whilst there are significant discontinuities

between capitalist and. socialist societies, there are also continuities in relationship to their forms of order and their likely sources of disorder. This could help socialists produce less moralistic critiques of capitalism and develop more realistic, hence modest but also realiz­ able, political programmes. This interrogative dialogue between a reconstituted Durkheimism and a slimmed down Marxism, which is summarized in the concluding chapter, has, then, both a theoretical and practical import. Reading/rereading theory is never a disinter­ ested act and it may therefore be limited by the designation of only certain problems as worthy of exploration; yet for all that it can produce unexpected conclusions - the conclusions of this work were only in part anticipated - and this provides both some of its excitement and, by suggesting that it is not merely a rationalizing activity some warrant of its authenticity. This book has grown out of more than twenty years' struggle with sociological theory and particularly with the works of Marx, Weber and Durkheim. Needless to say I have read and reread their major texts many times and, if such rereadings have been different, it is because I have also been involved in trying to understand and evaluate other more contemporary schools of thought. My own preferences are relatively clear, but it seems to me axiomatic that no one theoreti­ cal discourse monopolizes knowledge and equally that any serious school of thought always produces some valuable insights. I also believe that it is only if one is rigorous in exegesis and criticism that one treats such schools with respect. I would underline the need to respect the integrity both of other theorists as people themselves struggling with difficult problems and of the discourses that they produce in the course of that work. I hope I have succeeded in relating to the work of Durkheim (and others) in that spirit. !fl have it is in large part due to the help of a number of people over many years. This book is based upon a PhD thesis successfully submitted at the University of Essex. l am grateful to Ian Craib who was the most collegial of supervisors and whose pointed questions and timely silences gave me the space to discover what it was that I was doing. I thank Ted Bencon and Mike Gane, the internal and external examiners, for making my PhD viva a rich and creative experience. Mike Gane's comments on different drafts of this book have undoubt­ edly helped to make the arguments clearer and I hope more rigorous. Paul Hirst, James Dickinson, Michael Bodemann and Julia Casterton have also commented on earlier draf ts of this book. The whole enter­ prise would have been f;ir more difficult without the invaluable help of John Knockles, librarian at Wolverhampton Polytechnic. Andy Roberts first showed me the absurdity of the conventional dismissals

XXlll

F..

M

���.,;{•;

'

XXlV

Tlze Radical Durkheim

of Durkheim as a positivist and a reactionary, not least by his own creative use of the concept of the conscience collective. Jerry Palmer has been an invaluable guide through the vagaries of literary theory. My vigorous-discussions with Jock Young have been and remain a source of grea.t intellectual stimulation. The same is true of my many dialogues with both John Lea and Roger Matthews. For many years Tony Woodiwiss has shared with me his understanding of the socio­ logical classics, structuralism and post-structuralism and much else besides. These discussions and his own work have been a continuous inspiration. To all of these I owe my heartfelt thanks. Finally I am particularly grateful to Elaine. In the context of our bringing up Rory and Blake, our two wonderful, if sometimes infuriating, children she has not only tolerated my distracted air but has encouraged it. By sharing with me her knowledge of French political theory she has forced me to acknowledge the power of 'humanism' even if I have put it 'to work' in a different discourse. Needless to say neither she nor anyone else is responsible for any errors or weaknesses in what I have finally written.

;,;,,

'

""""

(,

�"

1

Introduction

Introduction Why, if at aH, should we return yet again to Durkheim? Since his theories have been explored with a superabundance of exegeses and commentaries, of critiques, corrections and comparisons, is it possible in reading his work to discover anything new? Perhaps more importantly, why should contemporary radicals, particularly socialists and Marxists, bother to read such a positivistic, conservative thinker? And yet recently at least three radical commentators - Gane (1983a,b, 1984), Hirst (1975, 1986, 1987) and Therborn (1980) - have praised many of his arguments and conceptualizations and made significant and innovative use of them. This suggests that his work been inadequately analysed, that the full range of his concepts has not been grasped. The major argument of this book is that, with few exceptions, Durkheim's concepts have been accepted or rejected in a somewhat dogmatic and unimaginative way and that too little attention has been paid to the possibility of developing them fruitfully. The corpus of his work needs to be carefully examined and then retheorized - a task that needs theorizing itself. Neither Durkheim himself nor his disciples have exhausted the potential of his concepts, either for exploring general issues - the nature of 'social order' and how the human subject is socially constituted, for example - or for confronting and, in part, resolving Marxism's current crisis. Economism and anthropocentrism still undermine Marxism's attempts to theorize the bases of social order and social change, i.e. to address the meaning of 'mode of production' and 'social formation'; the nature of the state; the role of class relations in constituting social groupings; the place of ideology; the variety and forms of oppression and resistance; how to identify the diverse agents of progressive social change and specify the kinds of strategies needed to _unify them around a socialist programme. There remains no less of a problem about the nature of a socialist social order and which 'social problems' could, or could not, be

1

2 or

eliminated

displaced\302\267

realization.

.

.

self-e:1dent

simple,

science

political

.

. .u!tellect\357\277\275al

ta sk.

cial presuppositionless. Whll?t withm .cntical s\357\277\275 the recognition of the importance of the epis .temologtcal, and moral assumptions that lurk Withi\357\277\275allegedly

analyses has a

sociological the problem

objective remains

'flawed' work. In

use

and

assessment

fo r

of the

recent

years

of theoretical

literary theory

and

and l\357\277\275ng

cultural

useful

stance

appropnate

the

discourses has studies

histo\357\277\275y,

towards

take

to

of the

problem

there

interpretation, been

as well

usefully

as the

social

and . An 'post-structuralis\357\277\275' sc\357\277\275ools is of such work that the of the important implication SJ?ecific\357\277\275ti\357\277\275n withm xt political and epistemological assumptiOns inadequate te. \357\277\275 m does not simply discredit it; it still may be an a?vance . I\357\277\275s sciences

the 'structuralist'

by

and it may be possible to so that It IS reformu\357\277\275ate I\357\277\275 and productive . This chapter will address bnefly I s this question of 'reading' . discuss the First, briefly . .ha\357\277\275l s work. conventional modes of viewmg Durkheim

specific more

The One

the

field, coherent

evaluation

political fo r

reason

the

hostile

generally

of Durkheim

underdev\357\277\275lopment

relationship

either ignored Sociologists Williams (1964) described

.between

of

3

Introduction

is never

activity

raised

its

by

theory is not a

Reading

Durkheim

Radical

The

Durkheimian

theory and

\357\277\275e complex \357\277\2750turethe

p

pr

sence of a

pp.

and

number

contextualizes one \357\277\275f

of

different

Durkheim's

:.

have (1975) since they

wo\357\277\275k produce?

?Y.

dtscourses wlthm 3 and particularly arguments,

pohttcal

a

these

the

1t. if

quite how 'adventurist' much nineteenth-century one recognizes \302\267 \342\200\242 s socialism then even Dur kh\302\267 e1m was, re Volutionary \302\267 \302\267 negative and Marxism cannot stmp 1bd co mments about syndicalism y e rea. In fa conservative. ct, many of t h e speCI\"fi1c practlca 1 inherently did not diffe r that much Durkheim demands supported \357\277\275\357\277\275litical fr om those of The Manifesto of the Communist Party (Marx and His is si milar to that of religion of Engels, 1948\357\277\275. Ma\357\277\275x, analys\357\277\275s . in hts Feuerbachian phase, m part, at least and, overlaps wtth Althusser's theory of ideologY. 1982) . Indeed French (Strawbridge, nee-structuralists fr om Levi-Strauss to Althusser and, through whatever he might to usually have claimed, Foucault are indebted both Durkheim and Marx. Durkheim's sense of the power unique and and creative of the 'social ', of the indispensable irreduceability can be developed and nature of the 'ideological community', a rigorous a with version of Marxism to produce synthesized more complex understanding of the social realm.

is

Marxism.

so\357\277\275iol\357\277\275gy

87-8) . Hunt (1978) and Lukes adequate position than most of in Durkhein:' ambiguities

cap \302\267talism (1973,

Marxism -engaging m what Appleman in the context as 'the great of history .

Durkheim

and

science

is somewhat Durkheim's work often contradictory, confused, then it as an dismis\357\277\275ed . I?eology.1 and assertive so it is not surprising that there have prescriptive Some like the more humanistic of Amencan sociOlogists, have been very different evaluations and uses made of it. Some of those used works of Marx \357\277\275he selectively, borrowing fr om his early ea nd to Durkheim have to syst ematiz sympathetic \357\277\275ttempted. . _ . _ to give more substance to their less writings technocr\357\277\275tic his work in order to make It more sCientific, 1. e . . obJeCtive clarify a 'alternative' Yet others have neo-Webenan sociology. developed and empirical. Alpert (1939, 1965) , fo r example, has clatmed that missi of his work, thereby of its s interpretation .ng \357\277\275\357\277\275\357\277\275y can then be shown of both law and religion \357\277\275rengt\357\277\275s Durkheim's analysis s . s and it more vulnerable to their cntiCisms rendering .oci\357\277\275logy to be sound . Selvin (1965) and Merton (1965) have endorsed much Marxism has been matched s n towards hostility by Marxism v o_v and methodology but believed of his theory it needs to be 2 1s a attitude to sociology . Many Marxists have argued that there fo rmalized and subject to more control. empirical adequate . fu ndamental between the two discourses So me opposition . Parsons congratulated Durkheim fo r also being preoccupied with , Nizan and Llobera, and radical Marxists, fo r example soi?e 'the problem of the of the social bu t then system', integration _ out ' such as Zeitlin and Coser, have sociologists' smgled has and claimed to show how 'it been both to necessary posstble Durkheim's work fo r criticism - because of 'its inherent the stage at which he left them' 1960, _P\302\267 (Parsons, beyond go conservatism'. Sorel (1895a), however, whilst critical of his work, earlier position in his The Structure Actwn 118) . Parsons' of Social n early recognized its potential and, more recently, Taylor, . . walt? was much more complex. Durkheim's thought, he argued, passed and Young have claimed that his concept of anomie and his _ .\357\277\275es1re and each confronted important through fo ur phases although to abolish inherited wealth made Durkheim a radtcal critic of - indeed none of them provided a satisfactory solution problems

evasion' -

or

parodied

it and

4

The

'in escaping fr om (Parsons,

ultimately

of of

neither

action

social

the

1977b;

classical Savage,

Durkheim amongst a

the

somewhat

Introduction

p.

own

Parsons'

445),

synthe$ized

adequately

the

others.

different

the

solved

Berger

synthesis

and Luckman

of elements of

defeated

(1967) produced the

thought

and Durkheim, although this time stirring the young Marx - but a Weber his analysis cocktail minus of power, a a no theory of exploitation and, of most interest here, with an undynamic, indeed Durkheim lifeless sense of the social (Lichtman, 1971; Geras, 1971; Filmer et al, 1972). Such theorists and do not adequately uncom\302\255 respect the complexity, integrity fo rtable of theoretical discourses are implications they willing to raid and borrow fr om dismantle them them to give them, authority and flesh to what they already believe or to generate Yet other commentators have syncretic syntheses. questioned his substan\302\255 Durkheim's scientific pretensions. For Douglas (1967) is irrelevant since his methodology is inappropriate tive work fo r and his theory is unscientific the analysis of human behaviour, it is tautological. lack because For Nisbet (1963), Durkheim's of his is a r i.e. since the search fo conservatism, objectivity, strength an absolutely objective is an illusion. social science Thus on the one hand there are many critics who wish to render him up or by eliminating Durkheim more 'scientific', by tidying distortions due to the intrusion of value so that his work fits bias, the a bed of procrustean hypothetico-deductive positivistic science. On the other hand there are those who the reject and relevance of science fo r the analysis of human behaviour advocate instead one or other fo rm of idealism. Much recent has that fa demonstrated these are lse alternatives not least writing because the positivist model does not even fit the natural sciences and Durkheim's 1975; Bhaskar 1978); fu rthermore (Keat Urry, is not a simple variant 'scientific rationalism' of positivism. Of or dismissing it, both major interest is that, whether correcting a dogmatic to Durkheim's work positions share approach discourse. jt by some already constituted theoretical judging

into their Marx with

theory

The characteristics and

were

explored

by

limitations of

Althusser

in his

such

an

to theory

approach

discussion of

the

two

different

will

Marx

r\357\277\275ad class

whi\357\277\275h

5

ical

t\357\277\275e ea\357\277\275her

(or ram1ficatwn)

little therefore yield a 'symptomatic

of

by

of

their

stat\357\277\275l.s

and

an

1ts study

In contrast to this he one can identify 'the

which in an

combination answer

correct

'the

of

which

and oversights of

the

discourse

later

interest.

of

of sightings

existence

reduc\357\277\275d

reading'

the problem \"p oses a problem, r fo search to one examples

to

the

In a

economy.

political

_

1s

text

readmg

advo cates combined

of

Weber

Rereading

ways in dogmatic anticipation

Hindess,

1961;

that- had

problems

'clean

theory

elements

valid

sociological theories (Wrong,

1981) nor

shot

of positivism' he

toils

1949,

idealism'

into

over

Durkheim

Radical

author

\".' This helps to a question

and . . . that was never posed' (Althusser Balibar, 1970, pp. the presence of more than one discourse 19-22) and to recognize them out and to discover if they in a text, to separate or displace each other thereby truncating suppress complement, s development. other' The symptomatic reading will be each

effe ctive in so fa r as it divulges the undivulged event in the text it reads, as and in the same moment relates it to a different text, present a necessary absence in the first ...the second text is articulated

\302\267

with

lapses

in the

first.

(Althusser

In practice of texts, having

Althusser one

nothing

of

which

to say

distinguishes

can indeed

- although it

and

Balibar

1970, p. 28)

between two different kinds be assessed dogmatically, as be internally consistent to may

that it only ever poses questions that it has already - whereas the other is not so much ideological as pre\302\255 4 fr om a position scientific. The latter are read symptomatically in an This helps constituted scientific discourse. already grounded its useful parts and to discover to identify (of symptoms and to assess whether these incoherence) merely indicate inade\302\255 Hirst's or a point at which discourses intersect. Durkh eim, quacies is a Bernard and Ep istemology such of He Durkheim. (1975) reading stresses the power of Durkheim's critique of social contract his anti\302\255 theories, applauds his consistent anti-humanist stance, and his assertion of the irreduceable nature of the subjectivism him fo r misrepresenting Bernard and fo r social, but criticizes to a fo rm _of metaphysical essentialism. Thus succumbing Durkheim is congratulated fo r anticipating structuralism and fo r and what are its material fo undations? is implicitly answering sovereignty questions not put in his texts. His work is as When in- law enabled structuralism. to do wh at,The with ', who 'enabling it agrees with isorbeing useful so far anticipates different role that the r what fo whom? consequences to silence, is repressed, perhaps rest is confined or better the within with phatries, and the law, thethejuridical relationbetween deviant behaviour This state, law and foown rce is such politics, as thatfo rmulation relationship classes.ofre-emerge unbidden critic's marnageit might there are in twothe subdivisions danger Minimally and can . In the the had theme of theutilitarian in Ihering's book, then play chapter major 'each concluding work, incorporated grounded discourse. to which a different generation class from the generation belongs

the point

answered

6

The

to these

Fundamental

belief that

Introduction

Durkheim

arguments

a realm

exists

there

Radical

of

and

Althusser

is the

Hirst

that

of scientific discourses

be

can

others, demanding compatibility in so fa r as they of reading but it is overlap. The mode may be more sophisticated has argued still undoubtedly dogmatic. 5 Hindess that we must abandon distinction between science and ideology. any dogmatic to judge

used

If

are to be criticised it can no longer be to be derived fr om some empiricist but only because of an inadequacy and the relations between these

discourses

theoretical

reading this selectivity

exha ustive

7

the substance

affect

not

does

argument.

also intertextual are in that those who read them are themselves the positioned always by other texts and by _already and the fo rms of relations between discourses, discursive practices c onstituted. Social work in part thereby practices subjectivity _ _ the of and this is as true of reading mterp ellati\357\277\275\357\277\275 sub\357\277\275ects thr\357\277\275ugh as speakmg/wntmg . subjects or acting/feeling subjects subjects Texts

because they are alleged process or fr om epistemology at the level of their concepts

effect does not pre-exist the

A meaning

it

:Vhich

is

of

of the mterpellatwn of the individual as, amongs _t othe\357\277\275 determi?-atons \357\277\275n fo produced as cause of himself m the subject

meaning as

part

fa r

so

1977a,

223-7)

pp.

under the Such analyses

discourse

and

us

help

to

how

to rework

here

acknowledges

locate

it to

to

specify what is worth where it has become more

generate

retaining

incoherent

valid

arguments. of incompatibility

within and

thus

internally is an the analysis of discourses is what activity of discovery stumbling upon, or unveiling the intertextual already latent in the texts, thereby underplaying nature of reading. are often identified Reading is intertextual in that discourses of more than one of an author' s only through the examination and a serious reading will involve examining a wide texts range of an these. We must ask whether author 'wrote, said or everything is part of his work?' left behind 1986, (Foucault, p. 103) . In Durkheim's case these might include his 'marginal' writings on 'La Science fo r example his somewhat Hobbesian law, positive de la morale his en or wartime articles on Germany, Allemagne' where he pointed out that fo rmalism could contribute to an legal texts that social order (LaCapra, 1972). The unjust, aggressive an oeuvre a selection. In this book an constitute are inevitably is made to the discourses that traverse Durkheim's attempt identify and evaluate them and to show how the texts, to disarticulate is truncated of some of the more fr uitful development by the main of others that are less coherent. The\302\267 fo cus is on The presence Division

of Labour

Religious

Life,

The Rules many of has

the potential but implies that - of

discourses

coherent

been

in

Society,

Suicide,

Educa tion, Profe Method and of Sociological his other works and much Moral

consulted.

The

Since this

ssional Socialism.

book

Forms of the Elementary Ethics and Civic Morals, is made to Reference

of his other does

not

published

aim

work

to be an

rm

an

a subject;

is subject of discourse '

1982, p . 187)

(Pecheux,

a

Hindess

the

is

interdiscourse.

of

influence

in

fo rmation

discursive

production Th\357\277\275

constit_uted.

\357\277\275ntegral

concepts.

(Hindess,

of its

ractice of reading, then, is always one produced an by !he \357\277\275 r mterdiscourse. Th_us, fo example, whilst Nisbet (1963)is correct that the conservative elements of Durkheim's work fo rm 'one of of his thought', the coherent he seems blind to the fa ct systems that, as Hunt (1978) and Lukes (1975) have argued , it is only one

such

. m

system

a complexus

conservativism -

radicalism,

can com:nentator\357\277\275,

fr o

specify

of political

ho\357\277\275ever,

where

his

in such

t\357\277\275e .y themse\357\277\275ves engage

\357\277\275

socialism

All

work.

fo r not

criticized

be

-

discourses

traverse

that

thre\357\277\275

attempting

to

- to readings

be positiOned by It, by the other texts with which and fo rmations within by the other discursive is imbricated. one These relationships determine why these whi\357\277\275h texts re and affect the process by which the partiCular \357\277\275 rea\357\277\275 of discourses partiCular (and signifying chains) within presen\357\277\275e IS them and what to ultimately strategies are used . detecte\357\277\275 d a

IS to

\357\277\275ea . t\357\277\275xt IS artiCulated,

It

They

make it .

Dominick between

La\357\277\275 _apra's

the

desirable

. ..t\357\277\275e Is

other

manner that

. disc_ussion

other

to

work does

historians

but

them.

- within them.

histonan

cntical

the writings of ;

at stake

criticize

the

epistemologies, problematics present -

and

Ideologies

poht1cal

and

assess

and

poss\357\277\275b.le _ isolat\357\277\275

often

mdeed,

disentangle

to

meth?dologies, and,

elaborate,

clanfy,

systematize,

ofthe

and help

both

'transferential' historical

clarify

relationship

documents

and

this issue .

elusive objective of an exchange with an transferential displacement in a of the replicate debilitating aspects

through not blindly

8

.. .is

Transference

past.

total

the

of

difference

denied

much

by

total

as by its

past

'culture'.

'self or

own

one's

as

\302\267

an

of the

assertion

with

identification

difficulty develop an exchange with the 'other' that is both and sensitive to transferential displacement to the open In this sense it is a useful 'voice'. critical challenge of the other's fiction to believe that texts or phenomena to be interpreted may answer one back and even be convincing enough to lead one to change one's mind. 1987,

(LaCapra,

pp.

72-3)

textual analysis must not simply be negative but the 'liberated' to be to work in a new help concepts put a . Needless to say any new texts genera\357\277\275ed by manner a 'reformulation' of a deep structure will not represent of concepts Thus such a also

must

up or correction of the old texts . The original texts work expended them by the theoretical upon displaced different substan\302\255 conceptual systems with significantly producing tive Once different discourses (signifying chains) implications. been identified and their relationship to each other specified have it is possible to discard those aspects of each that are fu ndamentally and incoherent, and retain and synthesize those that are coherent with each other, supplementing this at times somewhat compatible fr agmentary conceptual system with other compatible) (equally mere

will

tidying

be

concepts

drawn

syncretic

synthesis

signifying

is

not of

the theorist, fo rcing

of

achieving a

thereby

non\302\255

a It is important to note that to utilize set of concepts is also to be constrained by its fr ee simply to pick and choose when to use

which

Rigorous

argument. or her to

him

think

reth

the

through

constrains

eorizing

general

implications

analyses.

'regional'

The

Conclusion:

Marx

-

elsewhere

om

. or

chain

logic - one which elemen.t

fr

Freud

and

not only a

certain

radical as fo

important) a certain possibility

something

A major

Durkheim

unders of

number number

of of

possible

but also (and equally analogies, a differences. They have created

something other they belonging to what

book is to

. . . made

discursivity

fo r

goal of this

and

show

than

thejr

discourse,

yet

fo unded....

have

(Foucault, 1986, p. that

Durkheim

114)

was also a

but

systematic

The signify

'.

of discursivity by a series of

'founder traversed systemacity

is to

The

9

Introduction

Durkheim

Radical

The

texts ing

will

incoherent,

to

Where and

vary

in their

discourses

coherent but and

identify

that his texts

argued

Some

others

and hierarchies

are cons tituted by t_hem. foun d to be contradiCtory

be which

completeness.

are explored chains)

It

discourses

of

analyse concepts

the lower confused

then,

are

are

coherence, relatively

.

underdeveloped

the discourses th at constitute

level of in order

and are

concepts

to

(and

produce

new coherent more theory, it is necessary to try to generate concepts at this lower level . Such concepts generate models of a and social fo rms some of which may already exist of variety A aim is that could exist. of the book to theorize others major an egalitarian of one of these in particular, elements namely socialist system. In the next chapter I start my analysis with a brief and exegesis assess ment 's epistemology and sociological of Durkheim concepts, _ and showm g how these can be reworked to produce social truly _ This is exemplified a ses of the social order. by dy\357\277\275amiCanaly_ In Chapter 3 social of th\357\277\275 of 'charisma'. expl _anation phenomenon m some detail the different discourses within I explore political Durkheim 's work. In the next the fo urth, I turn to the chapter, structure of his The Division of Labour in Society. This conceptual is shown to be fr uitfulness is incoherent but its potential an 's of Durkheim by underdeveloped e\357\277\275aboration de\357\277\275onstra\357\277\275e\357\277\275 radiCal soctahst analysis of the relationship between the 'forced and unjust advantage. In Chapter division of labour' 5, with the aid 'La Science of one of his earliest articles, positive de la morale is worked en Allemagne', his conception of law upon and reformulated . Then, in Chapter 6 and 7, Suicide is transformed fr om an analysis of a social to an exploration of some problem and irrational social and fo rms of rational orders of the social In many of the conditions of existence of rational subjectivities. earlier Marxism is drawn upon to critique and reformulate chapters of Durkheim's Durkheim's work ; in the eighth chapter some are used to (mainly to be fo und in his Socialism) arguments and in This then turn retheorize Marxism. interrogate dialogue Marx is used to produce a non-syncretic Durkheim a\357\277\275d bet:ween a a significantly fu s10 n of Durkheimism with _ r\357\277\275constltuted 9 to foretheorize modified Marxism,sovereignty it possible its material and what inareChapter undations? making the When nature law and bases of', social the is 'enabling who isorder, enabled to wh at, the with ways indo which being is socially and individual constituted the different role that the r what fo whom? consequences within phatries, and the law, ofthethe relationbetween deviant behaviour This state, fo rmulation law and fo rce is such politics, as juridical relationship classes. marnage there are two subdivisions Minimally and can . In the theme of theutilitarian in which the had book, then play chapter major 'each concluding work, incorporated grounded Ihering's to a generation belongs different class from the generation a

10

The

Radical

Durkheim

Introduction

the development of many of Durkheim's can be concepts \302\267 a realistic set of socialist will be restated used to help specify goals, in a summary fo rm. I shall thus develop a more rigorous specification socialist The of many of the fe atures of a fe asible democratic society. of a self-conscious method of reading/rereading development I believe, and to be of both theoretical theory thus will be shown, that

practical

(political)

(Althusser s

liberal-co unsympathetic

politics.

the

the

early

1960s

was

based

_

upon

fr om a research methods, made use of concepts denv:ed _ and social analysts tradition of political theory and advocated a somewhat reformist to Marxism,

nservative

- the Austro-Marxists, the 2 True some Marxists Frankfurt School, early a distinctive fo r example - attempted to develop Marxist sociology and Nisbet, and Goode, Bottomore 1978, pp. 118-48; (Bottomore to the view 1978), but only too many Marxists have subscribed t?at there is an essential conflict between Marxism and sociology, whtch perhaps explains why their own work is increasingly in the real\357\277\275s \357\277\275f This is somewhat Iromc philosophy, political economy or pol\357\277\275tics. _ since the totality of the concepts of neither Weber nor Durkheim are antithetical to those of Marxism. Weber' s Ancient inherently ]\357\277\275daism Civilisations (1967) , The Agra rian Sociology of Ancient Wt\357\277\275\357\277\275er, (197\357\277\275; and many of hts political of Economy and Society 1982) , much (1978) Marxian are remarkably compatible with writings analysis (Beetham, - it is no accident that the Frankfurt School has long been locked 1974) in an antagonistic/synthetic with his work (e.g. Habermas, relationship 3

4

and

science autonomous

in

Althusser

p. 29;

Bennett,

later

criticized

111-20; Benton, earlier position on 1971, p. 23) . (cf. Althusser, also (cf. Hirst and Woolley, 1979,

pp.

his

1982).

5 Nevertheless

interest.

sociology

1970,

Balibar,

35-51).

'theoreticist' and ideology as overly modified his position dramatically

determining, ide ologies

Anglo-American

and

cien ce

Hirst

Notes

empiricist

pp.

1 984,

11

dis tinction between it is possible to adapt Althusser's Scientific discourses, he argues , have their own and are thus open-ended, guiding, but not problematics and in the results of research. Whereas significance

ideology.

of a problem is merely the theoretical of expression a solution allows the already produced outside because instances imposed by extra-theoretical and exigencies or other ethical, political 'interests') to (by religious, manufactured to serve it both as itself in an artificial recognise problem a theoretical mirror and as a practical justification. 1970 , p . 52) (Althusser and Balibar, fo

rmulation

the conditions which process of knowledge

Now if we examme of Marx 's political fo r example many writings, an interpretation The Manifesto of of the Communist Party, we find will increasingly historical development that suggests that society into two classes, the bourgeoisie and the proleteriat, that there polarize will be an increasing homogenization and (often immiserization absolute) of the latter and that these processes are generated by the development of and inherent contradictions within capitalism, particularly the tendency of the rate ofprofit to fa ll. These political writings are thus supported by a particular interpretation of the labour theory of value. ' and social development Given the nature of economic since Marx s a problem time there is clearly about such an analysis. The problem, ideo logy (in the however, lies in the fa ct that within Marxism a political 1971). sense defined of the by Althusser above) has led to a misapplication In his introduction to Durkheim's Socialism (1962), Gouldner refuted and Engels' labour theory of value. Marx on polemical attacks Parsons' of Durkheim and recognized both Durkheim's interpretation and Reformism led them to oversimplify their own position. Utopianism radical impulses and his fa ilure to realize them by adequately But as Marx himself made clear elsewhere, in Wag e Labour and Cap ital developing appropriate concepts. Both Gidde\357\277\275s(197 1b) and -\357\277\275e\357\277\275ton fo r example, the worker suffe rs a relative not necessarily an absolute contextualize Durkheim's work and provide trenchant cntlctsms (1984) under capitalism 1977, p. 259) . Furthermore (McLellan, impoverishment of the Nisbet thesis. a consideration of the nature of capitalism would suggest that there will For Althusser sciences like Marxism only require a purification process be within it contradictory class hands, always positions (charge so that the science 'will out'. Thus Althusser claims that disingenuously fo remen, etc.), that its conditions of existence include a state whose in any '.of Marx's scientific are discovered to be texts, when answers fu nctionaries are not assignable administrative, legal, police and military unanchored in corresponding such questions will be fo und questions, to any specific class and that, if the workings of the market are not in the text. Althusser does acknowledge an exception elsewhere to this themselves to produce a healthy, skilled and adequate loyal working - 'the of the effectivity of a structure on its elements' was one concept and personnel who again are not assignable to class, state institutions that the age in which Marx lived could not provide for him. But here there is little analytic reason to any class will be required. Furthermore Althusser claims to provide the question (as if it is a coherent concept) Marx 's view that the tendency endorse of the rate of profit to fa ll is the fa iling to demonstrate the presence whilst of the answer in Marx's texts within to dominant. tendency capitalism since the counter-tendencies

12

The Radical Durkheim this (he mentions five including the possibility that technological innovation can diminish the relative value of constant capital for example) and the combative power of the work_ing dass are equally ever-present. The value of labour power 1s not a given; 1t depends up� n the aspirations of the \1/0rking class (Marx, 1965, p. 171) and its _ capacity to realize them, and this in turn depends_ upon the regional and international level of class struggle at any particular ume. Thus the problem of much of the political analysis and predictions of Marxism is due not, as Laclau and Moutfe (1985) and Foucault (1970, 1980a) have argued, to the fundamental inadequacies of Marxist theory but rather to its misapplication (Geras, 1987; Wood1"":1ss,_ 1987b; rearce, 1988). The ideological discourse to be found w1thm M�rx s texts does not _ invalidate Marx's conceptual schema because 1t 1s possible to develop this differently to produce more fruitful concepts by acknowledging where it is incoherent, inadequate, underdeveloped and overextended. The recent work of Wolpe (1980) and Rattansi (1985) is, in this respect, exemplary.

2

Durkheim's epistemology and sociology

Durkheim and ep istemology At the same time that it is teleological, the method of explanation generally followed by sociologists is essentially . psychological. These two tendencies are interconnected with one another. In fact, if society is only a system of means instituted by men to attain certain ends, these ends can only be individual, for only individuals could have existed before society. From the individual, then, have emanated the needs and desires determining the formation of societies, and it is from him that all comes, it is necessarily by him that all must be explained. Moreover, there are in societies only individual consciousnesses; in these, then, is found the source of all social evolution. (Durkheim, 1938, pp. 97-8) This chapter identifies some of the major strengths and weaknesses of Durkheim's overall conceptual system. His epistemology, which is outlined below, is of interest both because he made telling points against other theorists and also becau)ie his 'scientific rationalism' anticipates aspects of 'realism' (see Bhaskar, 1978; Keat and Urry, 1975). His epistemology and sociological theorizing, it is true, were flawed by positivistic, Comtean and essentialist elements, but this does not invalidate them as a whole. Since the different levels of concepts \.Vithin discourses have a certain relative autonomy from each other it is possible to be reasonably selective about what to retain and what to reject and, as will be shown, the coherence of their substantive concepts is often more important than the status of their 'epistemological protocols' (Hindess, 1977a, pp. 223-7). In the latter part of the chapter, particularly when analysing the phenomenon of charisma, we will see just how much can be gained by using and developing 13

14

The

some of the Durkheim

more

valid

Durkheim's s _conceptual

of Durkheim'

aspects

that

believed

Durkheim

Radical

schema.

have

societies

human

all

depended

social life.

of organized

independently

(Durkheim, Here he advocated p ositivist epistemology

n the

fo

example, that a

. . . fo r

out of

nothing

social

one

miracles

veritable

that

llows

a

by

possible institution

an

of its will,

injunction

be

to

create ca\357\277\275

legislator

mere

believed

or

transform

he

27)

man theorists are as superstitious as primitive and their ill-considered Utopianism has generated unrealizeable aspiraand tions, social disorder despair. . . - the A quite opposite error is of substit\357\277\275tlOn . theoretici\357\277\275m theoretical ideas fo r valid attested expenence. Some theones, hke those of Spencer, are often developed instead of and, abstractly used to the of social turn to explore complexity phenomena, . being to illustrate their concepts, that reality merely ther\357\277\275by a\357\277\275summg \302\267 and the entities fo rms of organization and that they relationships posit determine the real (1938, pp. 17 -21). Two other erroneous modes of analysis are variants of empiricism. On the one hand are historians who conceive of societies as 'j ust so many heterogeneous Will-artefact

other

not

among themselves' (and anthropologists like Frazer)

comparable

philosophers

'only humanity is real' of

76) . The

crucial

and

must

be

and

nature

human

attributes

point

assessed

is

who

that

status

of fa

fo r

on

the

whom

'it is fr om

t?e general (1938, p. cts is context-dependent

belie\357\277\275e _ soCial evolution

that all that the

and

flows

theoretically .

was accurate and is criticism of these approaches still relevant but his own brand of 'scientific whilst rationalism', coherent and insightful, is less relatively ry and somewhat satisfact confused. Science, he should base Its concepts up on believed,

Durkheim's

information

accurately

derived

fr

om

the

senses .

observation

dealt

such

of his

he

.

conceded

which

'representation',

ally.

inter\357\277\275 _w\357\277\275th

positivism

of

1938,

pp . 43

gro\357\277\275nded

phenomenahsm,

-4)

in

a

a stress

combination of inductive theorization. However, fa cts as definition of social was that their effectivity individuals recognized s_ub\302\255

and a fo rms of

an operational

external, etc., and

empiricism

systematic

- an ontology

developed by

jectively

aspect

(1976, p.

individualities

mediated

q\302\267uotation,

into another . . .

system

a

\357\277\275nd hypothetico-deductive whilst

are

of

centrality

observable,

It

15

and sociology

istemology

all lay Science, then, has to create new concepts, it must dismiss and return to sense them, otions and the terms expressing the and necessary substance underlying all \302\267\357\277\275erception, primary From all general ideas sensation ts. whether flow, concep they fa or scientific or true lse, \357\277\275re impressionistic.

fo r

their continuing existence the un\357\277\275c_ientific ideas that men upon 1 and about themselves, the world developed nat\357\277\275re. T?ese their to their behaviOur fu nction to explain experience, regu!ate and to mediate their relationship with the environment (1938, pp . . since But such ideas were 14-15) only nly pragmatically \357\277\275 \357\277\275sef\357\277\275l Is science real knowledge . Because mankm? produced reflecti:re, _ and capable of making contracts, calculative th pohtical _ensts _ as a conscious tend to explain social order cre ation of mdividual _ _ human These are assumed to be rational pnor to .and beings.

ep

was

J? espite

m practice a

t\357\277\275is often-c\357\277\275ted relatively

margmal

thought.

. .. _ _ was naturalism Durkheim's not mherently positivistic or He believed that 'societies are subject to natural laws reductionist. and fo rm a kingdom of nature' (1976, p. 27) not because nature is but rather because social fa cts are 'capable uniform of being the term if it is given a doctrinal explained naturally ...We reject ' the essence of social meaning concerning (1938, p. 141). objects the One must 'recognize natural of things' since heterogeneity fa cts 'have their own laws, social in nature and specific or biological laws, without being directly comparable to physical to the latter' (1982, p. 178) . Natural reducible laws are based upon the accurate of necessary causal relations between specification 'a given effect can maintain this relationship with phenomena: nature' only one cause, fo r it can express only one single (1938, p. have been established fo r 'decisive 127) . Once causal relationships or crucial fa cts' (1938, p. 79) through 'experiments with method' other more (1933, p. 220) , it is possible to explore relationships more systematically and make generalizations (1976, confidently p. 361).

Each

has its own order of reality; elements of this realm constitute its and determ ining principle its province proper. Thus sociology is fr om biology and psychology in that it has its own realm distinct and of fa cts, social fa cts that are supra-individual like all fo rms of coerce human b severe limits on what . reality by imposing eings can do (1938, p. 10) . The great merits of this argument are its they \302\267 resolute to methodological its individualism, and opposition the

science,

interconnectedness

Durkheim

argued,

of the

16

The

Radical

Durkheim

Durkheim's

o of the power that the social order recognition indi_vid\357\277\275als h\357\277\275s \357\277\275\357\277\275r m and of the importance of the role of 'represe\357\277\275tations hfe. soc\357\277\275al All of reality may not be equally so acce\357\277\275s1bleto percept10n, _ .. . only the most objective 'science chooses and most easily social (1933, pp. 66-7). Such observable phenomena are aspects of a greater, interconnected realm r partially 'beyond o\357\277\275 (1961, p. 86) . 'Social solidarity', ror \357\277\275xample,lS a SOCia} purview' 1s both a fo rm and fa ct realized and known through wh1ch law, index of this solidarity. Causal relationships can be identified even

measurable'

if the mind is not 'enslaved to 'sense to perception' but connects 'what the senses arated' appearances' se\357\277\275 is a of sociology of soe1al (1976, p. 237) . The object compleJ.C _ \357\277\275acts 1s partially with its own separate level of existence and which

if

inaccessible

visible

inaccessible to to

the

relationships

sense

Durkheim

and positivism. In

. Ible

.

phenomena only partially senses between which there were necessary

unobservable

common

perception.

that there exist

In arguing

broke

arguing

and

Let us illustrate

at times

of the by examining his analysis religion and society. First the tautology. For the 'social', the 'stuff of society, is a primary substance Durkheim with the 'horde', the simplest fo rm of social which he identified . The life p. 174; 1938, p . 82; Hirst, 1975, (1933, pp. 122-35) of the social realm is the conscience organizing principle and source which expresses itself through both co llective, social institutions and s ocial currents. The conscience becomes collective, , in his later with On the one hand he argued work, virtually identical religion. that all phenomena that are sacred (as opposed to profane) are and that since religion is caused and consists religious by society of its worship all religious are unitary and have a phenomena (Keat and Urry , 1975, p. 85) . On the other ' cause, society single is hand, he argued that religion \302\267

have

decisive!\357\277\275 w\357\277\275th that the scientist must _

\357\277\275imself

collective

representations.

most

the

both

(Benton, 1977, p. 85). To reJect the is epiphenomenal idea that the and to demonstrate that social fa ctors have a coercive fa cticity does not mean that they are all identical characteris\302\255 phenomena, merely that they s _hare t\357\277\275e tics as such. To demonstrate that certam ofjacts so\357\277\275Ial phe\357\277\275ome\357\277\275a cannot be explained or chmactlc by psychological, economiC fa ctors alone without introducing social fa ctors does not mean that the fa ctors with causal efficacy are social only they are certainly a but no means a of the necessary by sufficient component rele:r a\357\277\275t causal chains 1977, p. 90) . Certain (Benton, aspects of Durkh\357\277\2751m s 2 work and may then be criticized as tautological I_Uetaphysl\357\277\275al. But whilst it is indeed problematic to represent as a society _ smgle coherent continuous entity, there still be relat10nal and may . or may not figure m a may organizational continuities that society's

17

these

criticisms

acces\357\277\275

an active role in determining the criteria fo r what c