Abstract
In their admirable “Legal Evolution and Societal Complexity,” Professors Schwartz and Miller (1964: 161) expressed doubts about the validity of Durkheim's (1933: 68-174) well known generalization that repressive sanctions characterize a society based on organic solidarity; as distinct from one based on a complex division of social labour, in turn characterized by restitutive, rather than repressive, sanctions. Although Schwartz and Miller express considerable diffidence in their views on the invalidity of Durkheim's generalization, some later literature has taken their valuable study to be a “refutation” of Durkheim's theory (e.g., Schur, 1967: 111-13). The present comment attempts to analyze the reasons justifying the diffidence expressed by Schwartz and Miller and to show that their findings do not result in a definitive invalidation of Durkheim's thesis.
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