CONTRACT AND SOCIAL-JUSTICE - DURKHEIM,EM ILE THEORY OF INTEGRATION OF MODERN SOCIETIES

Several readings of Durkheim's concept of organic solidarity, as devel oped in the Division of labor in Society, refer to the insufficient di fferentiation of the notion of division of labor in order to explain s hortcomings in Durkheim's account of integration of modern societies. In this essay it is argued that these problems result from Durkheim's overloading of contract as a social institution rather than in a lack of differentiation in his notion of division of labor. For Durkheim, t he function of contract does not only include the reciprocal assurance of market participants to fulfil their agreed upon mutual obligations . Instead, it is intended in a much stronger sense: Contracts have the function to tie the sphere of the market to ideals of a just social o rder. However, Durkheim does nor succeed in showing how these ideas of social justice can prevail under conditions of decentralized exchange relations, without eliminating the market as steering mechanism of ec onomic exchange.