Another set of chains

Two sections of this second Durkheim reading have really stuck with me. The first, when Durkheim says “Likewise, among primitive tribes the conquered enemy is put to death; where industrial functions are separated from military functions, he continues to exist beside the conqueror as a slave” (213). At first this reminded me primarily of Marx and Rousseau, but it also tied in strongly with a later quote of Durkheims and how I have been viewing his idea of the division of labour while we’ve been reading.   The second is when Durkheim says, “We see how different our view of the division of labour appears from that of the economists. For them it consists essentially in producing more. For use this greater productivity is merely a necessary consequence, a side-effect of the phenomenon. If we specialise it is not so as to produce more, but to enable us to live in the new conditions of existence created for us” (217). Here I think I disagree with Durkheim (although it’s possible I’m just being pessimistic). Instead of “to enable us to live” I think it’s to enable us to thrive. If we are just trying to live, couldn’t we just find some role or niche at which we were not particularly talented, but merely adequate? It seems to me that many people do adapt their skills and talents to compete in a particular society, but not for mere survival. Durkheim says that now more than ever people can survive who would have almost certainly been weeded out for weakness or lack of skill in earlier, less progressive societies with less divisive labour. I think the division of labour is less necessary if it’s only in order to survive, but today many people wants jobs that pay more money, that give more incentives that perhaps keep them in supply of our newly created and devised demands, but not ones that are actually necessary. Durkheim even says, “it is very likely that fairly often the needs take shape because we have acquire a habit for the object to which they relate? (216). It seems like an inescapable cycle in which we decide upon new needs that require fulfillment (through the division of labour), so we must work for more money only to come up with new demands that must be met and carried out by others in our society. Those people who are in fact working and adapting just to be able to live don’t seem to be the same ones coming up with new specializations. The rich and powerful who have seen and tasted these new demands and who have the means to test whether they are in fact necessary enough to be successful are the ones who create these roles. Those attempting to just survive work in these roles because they are appearing more quickly, not because the specializations fit their skills. If anything, they have to learn new skills often and repeatedly to satisfy the oft-changing specializations in our ever changing world. In this capacity are we not, again, slaves existing “beside the conquerors”?