Mechanical and Organic Solidarity: A Comparative Analysis
1. Mechanical Solidarity or Similarities
The Collective Consciousness
The set of beliefs and feelings of the average members of the same society forms a determinate system with its own life. This can be designated as the collective consciousness or common consciousness. This consciousness is diffused throughout society, possessing specific characteristics that make it a distinct reality. It is independent of the particular conditions in which individuals are placed; individuals pass, but the collective consciousness remains.
Ordinary consciousness is therefore different from individual consciousness, although it is only realized in individuals. One should not say that an act offends the common conscience because it is criminal, but rather that it is criminal because it offends the common conscience. It is disapproved of not because it is a crime, but it is a crime because it is disapproved of.
Society is responsible for punishment. What undoubtedly makes the sentence social is that, once pronounced, it can no longer be waived except by the government on behalf of society. (However, there are exceptions in which individuals punish, not society).
The Power of Shared Beliefs and Feelings
It is known that the level of energy a belief or feeling can reach is determined by the community of individuals who share it. Just as states of consciousness weaken against each other, similar states of consciousness reinforce each other. While the former are subtracted, the latter add up.
If someone expresses an idea that we already hold, the representation of that idea adds to our own, overlapping and reinforcing it. Therefore, since feelings are offended when crimes occur within the same society, particularly those that violate the most universal and strong states of ordinary consciousness, it is impossible to tolerate the contradiction.
Social Cohesion and Conformity
There is a social cohesion caused by a certain conformity of all private consciences. There are two minds within us: one involves states that are personal to each of us, characterizing us as individuals, while the other encompasses states that are common throughout society. The latter represents the elements that determine our behavior, leading us to act not for our personal benefit, but for the sake of collective goals.
We are therefore dealing with mechanical solidarity, which arises from similarities and directly links the individual to society. It is this solidarity that repressive law is concerned with, since this part of the law expresses actions that directly affect the collective or common consciousness type.
The Role of Repressive Law
Criminal law simultaneously requires each of us to possess a minimum of similarities—without which the individual would be a threat to the unity of the social body—and forces us to respect the symbols that express and summarize these similarities, while they are guaranteed by it.
In short, there is a social solidarity that arises from the fact that a number of states of consciousness are common to all members of the same society. It is this solidarity that repressive law materially establishes.
2. Organic Solidarity or the Division of Labor
Restitutive Law and Social Solidarity
The very nature of the penalty restitutive suffices to show that the social solidarity corresponding to this type of law is of a completely different species.
What distinguishes this sanction is that it is not expiatory, but rather a replacement of things. Damages do not have a penal character; they are simply a way to restore the situation to its normal state as much as possible.
Restitutive rules do not sanction any part of the collective consciousness, or only weak states of it. While repressive law corresponds to what is at the heart of the common consciousness, purely moral rules are less central to it. Note: Even outside of collective consciousness, these standards do not relate only to individuals. If that were the case, restitutive law would have nothing in common with social solidarity, since it would regulate the relationships that bind individuals to each other without linking them to society.
The Nature of Cooperative Relationships
The rules of restitutive sanction are alien to the collective consciousness. The relationships they determine do not equally affect all of society; they are not immediately established between the individual and society, but between special and restricted parts of society. These relationships are very different from those regulated by repressive law because the latter directly bind the individual conscience to the collective consciousness, the individual to society.
The cooperative relationships governed by the law of sanctions and restitutive solidarity express the result of the division of labor. It is the nature of specialized tasks to escape the action of the collective consciousness. Violation of rules that determine this kind of solidarity does not deeply affect the component parts or the living soul of everyday society, thus causing a moderate reaction. Furthermore, since the disturbed regularity only needs to be restored, this moves away from the penalty, which aims to compensate for a poorly performed action.
Individuality and Social Development
Mechanical solidarity can be strong when the ideas and tendencies common to all members of society are numerous and intensely held by each individual. This solidarity can therefore only increase in inverse proportion to personality. Individual consciousness follows the collective type, much like a possession.
On the other hand, organic solidarity implies that individuals differ from each other, being possible only when each has a sphere of action of their own, and therefore, a personality. It is therefore necessary that the collective consciousness leave a part of individual consciousness undiscovered, that there are established special functions that it cannot regulate. The individuality of the whole increases while that of the parts decreases, thus characterizing a more developed society.
Organic Solidarity and Capitalist Society
Organic solidarity underlies capitalist society as it seeks to complement affinities and tasks. Restitutive law not only implements obligations but also dictates what will happen if such obligations are not obeyed. The interests of those involved are complementary, though divergent.