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Dissolution of society?
It is no news that essential elements of the theoretical baggage sociologists have received from
the classics concerning the social have become a burden to us, an obstacle rather than an
instrument in understanding human existence. These include the culturenature dualisms, in
particular the traumatic relationship to biology and evolutionary theory from which sociologists suffer. Another load of sullied goods is sociologists fixity on integration, order and
cooperation, and our consequent lockups on violence, conflict and war, which in global terms
have much more need to be understood than the haven of order and peace in which we
happen to live in the Nordic countries. But what about the concept of society itself? William
Outhwaite (2005) has identified three streams of critiques of the concept: (1) action theory that
gives priority to agency over structure (e.g. Alain Touraine, Margaret Archer, Anthony
Giddens); (2) post-modernism, which either emphasizes epistemic scepticism towards social
science concepts in general (Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Lipovetsky) or is critical of the traditional
ways that sociology has understood (modern) societies as disciplined social systems (Michel
Maffesoli); and (3) a whole range of globalization theorists who are critical of the underlying
idea of the nation, which most sociological notions of society share at least implicitly and in
the last instance.
One central idea about society, as we have received it from the classical period of 100 years
ago, is that it cannot possibly be based on a plan, nor can it be founded on a social contract.
By and large every branch of sociological theory has accepted this view. It has become so taken
Acta Sociologica September 2007 Vol 50(3): 325333 DOI: 10.1177/0001699307080939
Copyright 2007 Nordic Sociological Association Published by SAGE (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore)
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For any will to exist and for any individuals to enter into agreements, society is always already
necessary; contracts are the result of society, not its cause, and, as such a result, they can never
become the basis of social integration without other types of mechanisms that are archaic,
universal and not dependent on human volition. These other, non-rational and non-calculative
elements constitute the social proper, which makes it possible to speak of society as an entity.
It must be stressed that Durkheim argued more against Spencer than against the classical
social contract theories of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For them, the nexus of
social integration had been the state, which needed the legitimating contract with the citizens.
Whatever society meant for modern sociology, it was not the same as the state; even less so
for Spencer. He conceived voluntary cooperation and contracts as the only possible pattern of
social integration in differentiated industrial societies (e.g. Spencer, 1996 [1891]: 323). He
contrasted them with militant societies, which are based on military excellence, status, hierarchies and discipline. In primitive militant societies, individuals are egoistic; the course of
evolution gradually but inevitably boosts the division of labour, creates mutual dependencies
and trains people to cooperate. Spencer combined his organic model of industrial society with
a laissez-faire liberalism so radical that it makes van Hayek, Friedman or Margaret Thatcher
seem wimps. Any state interference into society, including public education, would introduce
militant elements into its structure, disrupt its voluntary contractual foundation and result
in a loss of adaptability, innovation, freedom, satisfaction of needs and equality (Peel, 1992:
192223).
Dissolution of society?
On the basis of these considerations, what should we think about the suggested dissolution
of society?
In one respect the classical notion of the social remains intact beyond doubt. Nothing at all
suggests the need to revise the Durkheimian view that no social bond, not to speak of whole
societies, can be based on voluntary contracts alone. Nevertheless, the contract is not futile
jargon. It is an illusion, but an illusion with the force of reality. In order not to minimize the
weight of reality it lays on us, I call it the heavy illusion of contract. It is like Bourdieus habitus,
which has the alchemic capacity to transform invisible structures of cultural capital to visible
structures of class and domination (Bourdieu, 1984: 172). It disguises social relationships as
voluntary agreements, while in reality they are products of circumstances that agents can do
very little about, and they even know it. Yet the disguise itself has effects that should be the
object of sociological analysis. It was indispensable for capitalism from the start; it is even
more indispensable in its contemporary condition.
An obvious function of this illusion, like that of habitus, is to justify actual relations of
domination in a way that meets the taken-for-granted expectations of autonomy, even of
authenticity. The truth of the contract is to conceal the truth, which is not Durkheims original
altruism but power. In this way it works towards the integration of society, not towards its
dissolution. However, we do not actually know very much about its effects on power relations,
except in the more obvious extreme cases. For example, it is a dangerous delusion to assume
that the contractual form alone would guarantee commitment and integration of populations
already destined to exclusion. On the contrary, in our studies it became amply clear, as is to
be expected, that the contractual form in many citizenstate interactions actually reinforces
the vicious circles of non-participation (e.g. Mtt and Kalliomaa-Puha, 2006).4 We also know
that in community work the key factor of success is the non-contractual basis of cooperation,
however rational, goal-directed and calculative the organizational forms are. To take up a third
type of complexity, the competitive form of public management may in fact produce new
forms of command structures that undercut rather than reinforce the autonomy of participants.
330
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Notes
1. Non seulement il y a pas de socits qui aient une telle origine, mais il nen est pas dont la structure
prsente la moindre trace dune organisation contractuelle. Ce nest donc ni un fait acquis lhistoire,
ni une tendance qui se degage du dveloppement historique (Durkheim, 1986: 174).
2. The reference to Smith should not be misinterpreted. The common interpretation of Smithian social
theory, according to which self-interest is in the interest of the common good through the operation
of the invisible hand, is misguided. For Smith, the foundation of social order in any society, including
the commercial society, is the human capacity to have sympathy for others, to experience a fellowfeeling with any feeling whatsoever (Smith, 1984 [1790]:10). Sympathy with somebodys underserved
suffering (the virtue of justice) is more central for social order than kindness and agreeable manners
(the virtue of altruism).
3. In a simple sense the de-commodification theory of the welfare state (Esping-Andersen, 1990) is counterintuitive. The welfare state has massively commodified caring work (Hernes, 1987; Julkunen, 1992).
4. For another example, a recent study by Simo Aho et al. (2006) shows that the contractual plan now
required of unemployed persons by law is applied only in about half of the cases where it should,
and when applied the follow-ups are often neglected. The consequences of such a contract may
aggravate the persons situation with extra sanctions.
332
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References
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Biographical Note: Pekka Sulkunen is Professor of Sociology at the University of Helsinki. He took his
PhD in 1980 at the University of Helsinki and is docent at the University of Jyvskyl, Finland. He has
worked on alcohol and addiction problems, published a book on the European new middle class,
written extensively on contemporary social theory and recently on new forms of governance and power.
Address: Pekka Sulkunen, Department of Sociology, P.O. Box (Unioninkatu 35), FIN-00014 University of
Helsinki, Finland. [email: pekka.sulkunen@helsinki.fi]
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