19 19 The 1891 edition has “capitalist class” instead of “bourgeois class”. – Ed.
20 20 The 1891 edition has “the buyers of labour power” and “the sellers of labour power” instead of “the buyers of labour” and “the sellers of labour”. – Ed.
21 21 The 1891 edition has “labour power” instead of “labour”. – Ed.
22 22 The 1891 edition has “labour power” instead of “labour”. – Ed.
23 23 In the 1891 edition the words “and capable of working” are added here. – Ed.
24 24 The 1891 edition has here and in the next paragraph “simple labour power” instead of “simple labour”. – Ed.
25 25 The 1891 edition has “not only act on nature but also on one another” instead of “enter into relation not only with nature”. – Ed.
26 26 The 1891 edition has “action on nature” instead of “relation with nature”. – Ed.
27 27 The 1891 edition has “labour power” instead of “labour”. – Ed.
28 28 The 1891 edition has “workers” instead of “labour”. – Ed.
29 1 The letters and words enclosed in square brackets in this sentence are indecipherable as they are covered by an inkspot.– Ed.
30 2 Here and occasionally later Marx uses the French word ouvrier. – Ed.
31 3 Cf. Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Vol. I, p. 230 (Garnier, t. II, p. 162). – Ed.
32 4 Unlike the quotations from a number of other French writers such as Constantin Pecqueur and Eugeˋne Buret, which Marx gives in French in this work, the excerpts from J.B. Say’s book are given in his German translation.
33 5 From this page of the manuscript quotations from Adam Smith’s book (in the French translation), which Marx cited so far sometimes in French and sometimes in German, are, as a rule, given in German. … The corresponding pages of the English edition are substituted for the French by the editor and Marx’s references are given in square brackets.
34 6 Marx uses the English word “stock”. – Ed.
35 7 The text published in small type here and below is not an exact quotation from Smith but a summary of the corresponding passages from his work. Such passages are subsequently given in small type but without quotation marks.
36 8 In the manuscript: “is”.– Ed.
37 9 In the manuscript one word cannot be deciphered. – Ed.
CHAPTER TWO EMILE DURKHEIM
CHAPTER MENU
2A The Rules of Sociological Method (Emile Durkheim)
2B Suicide: A Study in Sociology (Emile Durkheim)
Emile Durkheim, who was born in France in 1858 and died in 1917, provides sociologists with a clear blueprint of how to conduct systematic sociological analysis. If inequality and alienation are the concepts at the core of Karl Marx’s theory of modern capitalism/industrial society, their approximate opposites – interdependence and integration – are the core concepts in Durkheim’s analysis of modern society. A preoccupying question for Durkheim is: What holds society together – especially modern society which, unlike traditional society that is characterized largely by homogeneity or sameness (sameness of social backgrounds, experiences, values), is instead characterized by multiple points of fracture based on the differences among and between individuals, groups and institutions? Like Mark, Durkheim focused on the transformation wrought by modern industrialization and, in particular, on the specialized occupational division of labor that emerged with factory production, and the transition from a mostly rural, agricultural‐based social structure to the density and impersonality of urban life (in Division of Labour, not included). Unlike Marx, however, Durkheim saw the structuring of the division of labor (whether of occupations; between rural and urban communities; or among various institutions such as the family, school, church, work) as functional to the organization of social relationships and the crafting and maintenance of social cohesion. The interdependence that such specialization of function requires means that individuals (and diverse groups and institutions) have to engage in social interaction with others (not like them) and are necessarily reliant on and tied to these (specialized) others for their effective functioning and well‐being. A plumber needs to work with a carpenter and a roofer if a house is to be built properly and not leak, that is, to be functional. Similarly, parliament makes laws but another specialized branch of government, the judiciary, oversees them to ensure that they are aligned with the constitution, and enforced. Each occupational specialization and each branch of government has its own function and it is only through working together (regardless of how they feel about this) – acting on their functional interdependence – can the value of the whole be realized. For Durkheim, these structures are functional to the everyday workings of society and, additionally, are functional to social integration or cohesion. This is especially significant in modern urban society, characterized as it is by an enormous amount of occupational, political, cultural, and ethnic diversity. What knits people together – integrates them into society – is not some shared family or social background (as would be typical in more traditional, largely rural communities) but the structure of interdependent relations and the organic ties they necessarily require and produce.
This cohesion is the social solidarity that, for Durkheim, is the outcome variable to be explained by sociological analysis; solidarity is dependent on several interrelated structural factors that variously impact the level of social integration in any given community at any given time. The first excerpt included here, The Rules of Sociological Method, encapsulates Durkheim’s understanding of the constraining and thus the cohesion‐imposing force of society on the individual. His opening sentences, about family roles, for example, or the kind of currency used for