Chapter 2. The Forced^[1] Division of Labor

Section 1. Class War follows from pathological state

However, it is not enough that there be rules, for sometimes the rules themselves cause trouble.  This is what happens in the struggle between classes.  While the institution of classes and castes are themselves strictly regulated organizations within the division of labor, this strict regulation itself is a source of disharmony.  The lower classes are no longer satisfied with the role given to them by custom or law and they wish for positions that are closed to them.  Further, they seek to throw over or dispossess those exercising those functions!  In such a way do internal civil wars arise as a result of the way in which labor is distributed.

We see nothing like this in the biological organism.  No cell or organ seeks to take on a role different from the one it is filling. The reasons for this is that each anatomic element mechanically does its job.  Its constitution and its place in the organism determines what that job is; its function results from its essential nature.  It is very different in societies.  There is a great distance between the hereditary dispositions of the individual members and the jobs they fill.  One’s birth does not imply one’s vocation.  But on the other hand, this also means that there are many reasons individuals can end up in jobs to which they do not actually fit.  Although we are not predestined to some particular position from birth, we do have tastes and abilities which limit our choice. For the division of labor to produce solidarity is not enough that each has her particular task but also that the task be appropriate to her tastes and abilities.

In this second pathological form, this condition is not met.  If a system of class or caste sometimes produces sharp pains instead of solidarity it is because the distribution of jobs on which it rests does not accord with the distribution of natural talents.  Constraint alone, more or less violent and more or less direct, links people to their functions.  When this happens, only an imperfect and troubled solidarity is possible.

Class war is not a necessary consequence of the division of labor. Conflict between classes happens only under particular circumstances, when it is an effect of a social constraint upon the choice’s individuals make in their selection of jobs.  It is very different when class systems arise spontaneously out of the freely chosen initiative of individuals.  When this happens there is harmony between individual natures and social functions. Ideally, the only factor determining the manner in which work is divided is the diversity of capacities. Selection is made entirely through aptitude, since there is no other viable reason for selection.

The forced division of labor is thus our second pathological form.  Force or social constraint in this case does not mean every kind of regulation, as we have already seen that the division of labor must be regulated in order for it to produce solidarity.  Constraint only begins when regulation no longer corresponds to the true nature of things, when it is validated through force.

We could say, conversely, that the division of labor produces solidarity only if it is spontaneous. By that we mean the absence of everything that can even indirectly hinder the free development of the individual’s innate abilities.  There can be no obstacle, of any kind, preventing a person from occupying a place in the social framework which is compatible with their abilities.  In a word, labor is divided spontaneously only when society is constituted in such a way that social inequalities exactly express natural inequalities.  For that to happen, natural inequalities must be neither enhanced nor lowered by some external influence.  Perfect spontaneity is a consequence of absolute equality in the external conditions of the conflict.  It consists not in a state of anarchy which would allow people to satisfy all their good or bad tendencies, but in an organization in which each social value would be judged by its true worth.  Some might object that, even under these conditions, there are winners and losers, and that the latter will not accept defeat except when forced to do so.  But this is not really the same thing at all.  [Lack of constraint does not mean perfect equality of outcome]; constraint occurs when conflict itself is made impossible by refusing to admit the right of combat between the parties.]

It is also true that this perfect spontaneity exists in no society anywhere.  Even in places where there remains little vestige of past castes and legal restrictions against mobility, hereditary transmission of wealth is enough to make the external conditions very unequal, for such gives advantages to some beyond their personal worth.  Even today there are jobs and positions that are closed or very hard to enter for those who are without money.

[Nevertheless, we are tending towards a society in which birth plays less of a role in outcome.]  Society is compelled to reduce these disparities as much as possible by assisting in various ways those who find themselves at an unnatural disadvantage, aiding them in overcoming those disadvantages.  We feel obligated to leave free space for all merits and we regard as unjust any inferiority of position which is not personally merited. It is a widely held belief today that equality among citizens is increasing and that it is just that this is so.

Section 2. Reasons why progress towards equality is necessary

Equality is necessary not only to bring each person together with his or her function but also to link functions to one another.

Conclusion

Section 3. The necessity of justice

It is false to believe that all regulation is the product of constraint, because liberty itself is the product of regulation.  Liberty is not antagonistic to social action but is itself a result of social action. It is not an inherent property of the state of nature.  To the contrary, it is conquest of society over nature!  Naturally, humans are unequal in physical force; naturally they are placed under external conditions that advantage some and disadvantage others. But liberty, liberty is the subordination of external forces to social forces, for it’s only in these conditions that social forces can freely develop.  This is the reverse of the natural order.  We can escape nature only by creating another world where we dominate nature.  That world is society.

The task of the most advanced societies is a work of justice.  Just as the ideal of less advanced societies was to create or maintain an intense common life, one in which the individual was completely absorbed, so our ideal is to make social relations always more equitable, so that we assure the free development of all our socially useful forces.  Because the segmental type is disappearing as the organized type of society develops, because organic solidarity is slowly substituted for that which arises through mere likeness, it is absolutely necessary that external conditions become equal.  The harmony of functions and of our very existence as a society is at stake. Just as ancient people need a common faith to unite them, so we need justice.