Arpit Paul, Delhi Metropolitan Education, IPU
Introduction to Leon Duguit’s Theory of Social Solidarity:
Duguit (1859-1928) was a well-known Sociological School French jurist. He was a constitutional law professor at the University of Bordeaux. He belonged to the era of collectivist enactment. He developed the hypothesis of social fortitude during a period in Europe when the convention of independence was disintegrating and being replaced by a new way of thinking about community.
Duguit was influenced by August Comte, a prominent French positivist who clarified law as a reality and rejected the theory of abstract rights. Comte's belief that "the sole right that man can have is the privilege of consistently carrying out his responsibility" had a significant impact on Duguit's hypothesis.
Emile Durkheim's work 'Division of Labor in Society'1 had an additional influence on Duguit (1893). Durkheim discussed about two kinds of social solidarity, mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity. Men recognised the need for mutual assistance and the combining of their abilities in early, undeveloped society. The fact that they share a common conscience binds them together. Mechanical solidarity, or solidarity by similitude, was a type of cohesion that existed. Individualism would exist at a low level in such a society due to the collectivist attitude. Individualism supplanted collectivism in more advanced societies where labour division was widespread. A strong social conscience would generate organic solidarity or solidarity through division of labour that reflected men's functional interdependence. The rule of law serves as a barometer of social cohesion. Because law tends to reflect various types of social cohesion, various types of solidarity produced their own types of law.
