Two Views on Social Stability: An Unsettled Question

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, Oct, 1999 by Jack Birner, Ragip Ege

ABSTEACT. Emil Durkheim published The Division of Labour in Society as part of his strategy to create a place for sociology as a science independent from economics. The book describes how social cohesion and cooperation evolve spontaneously in the course of the process of the division of labour. Friedrich Hayek developed a theory of markets and competition which was later extended into a theory of society, in which spontaneous evolution is a central element. The main force behind this process is competition and the evolution of coordination. Both authors address the problem of social stability. Hayek rejects Durkheim's analysis as constructivistic, but his criticism is unjustified. Further analysis reveals many similarities between the two authors' theories of societal evolution. A striking point of convergence is that Hayek's theory of markets is a network theory, add that sociological network theory is directly inspired by Durkheim's work. The main differences are Hayek's emphasis on the division of knowled ge and on coordination as the fundamental stabilizing forces as opposed to Durkheim's stress on the division of labour and cooperation. The network approach, together with an elaboration of Hayek's psychology, offer perspectives for integrating coordination and cooperation into a unified theory of social stability.

I

Introduction

THE QUIP ABOUT ECONOMISTS showing that something works and sociologists showing why it doesn't is usually passed off as just a joke. But like so many jokes, it contains a kernel of truth. A methodologist might point out that it captures the idea that sociologists think of themselves as offering a more general theory of society than economists do. Tolerant sociologists leave a place for economic explanations where they are applicable and true. At the same time they claim their theories to be more general than economics in that they specify the special conditions under which economic explanations are true, while also providing an explanation of what happens outside the domain of validity of economics. In the Popperian and Polish traditions in the philosophy of science this is known as the correspondence principle. [1]

Establishing a correspondence relation would be an accurate description of the aim of Emil Durkheim when he published his first book in 1893, La division du travail social [The division of labour in society]. Its content and method are direct consequences of Durkheim's problem situation. This is defined by his objective of placing sociology on the map as a scientific discipline in its own right. In order to create this intellectual space, Durkheim meets sociology's nearest rival, classical political economy, in the doctrine that constitutes its cornerstone, the division of labor. He does so by saying that the most important consequence of the division of labor is not efficiency, but solidarity. Given the intellectual situation in the "moral sciences" at the end of last century, this compels Durkheim to define his position vis-a-vis Adam Smith. According to The Theory of Moral Sentiments, what makes a civil society possible is sympathy, the human capability of imagining the others' position. Sympathy is based on the similarity of human beings. However, the division of labor, which is the subject of The Wealth of Nations, presupposes that humans are different from each other. This is an internal contradiction in Smith's thought, and for Durkheim its solution constitutes the birthright of sociology. However, the fact that he explicitly seeks to create a place for a new social science that is independent from economics does not mean that he denies that economics has its merits. On the contrary:

C'est aux economistes que revient le merite d'avoir les premiers signale le caractere spontane de La vie sociale, d'avoir montre que la contrainte ne peut que la faire devier de sa direction naturelle et que, normalement, elle resu1te, non d'arangements exterieurs et imposes, mais dune libre e1aboration interne (DTS, p. 380). [Credit is due the economists for first having seen the spontaneous character of social life, and having shown that constraint could only make it deviate from its natural direction and that, normally, it results not in arrangements which are external and imposed, but in a free internal elaboration. (Durkheim 1964, p. 386)]. [12]

Despite this generous recognition, Durkheim skillfully maneuvers into the position of secondary factors the mechanisms that "the economists" (except for Smith and Spencer he is never explicit who they are) think are sufficient to explain social stability and harmony. The whole of Book II of DTS is devoted to a systematic analysis to "the causes and conditions" of the division of labor. By causes Durkheim means the sufficient conditions, and by (secondary) conditions the necessary conditions. This reveals a rather modern approach to causality. But for Durkheim the main function of the distinction is methodological and strategic: it serves to define his own position with respect to economics. All that he finds of value in economics is relegated to the domain of necessary conditions, while his own explanatory factors constitute the sufficient conditions. Thus, he obtains what he regards as an incorporation of the economic theory of the division of labor and of the emergence of modem society into his own theory.