ABSTRACT
Although they can be accused of using over-simplified versions of Durkheim’s ideas for critical purposes rather than fully appreciating the sophistication of his thinking, later sociologists have seen the key weakness of the Durkheim-systems strand of thinking as a tendency to over-emphasise integration and consensus both within societies and within work organisations at the expense of attention to underlying conflicts and fundamental differences of interest. Differences of interest are recognised but interest groups tend to be conceived within a ‘pluralist’ political model which sees the parties in conflict as being more or less evenly matched in power terms. As we shall see in later chapters, contemporary approaches to understanding industrial capitalist societies, work organisations and industrial conflict, attempt to give a more balanced view through attending to basic power structures and patterns of inequality as well as to matters of co-operation and shared norms.
