Emile Durkheim's Suicide: A Study Of Society

The word sociology was first coined by the famous philosopher August Comte. He was considered as ‘father of sociology’ as he coined the term. In his famous book ‘Positive Philosophy’ “Sociology is derived for the Latin term Socius, meaning companion or associate, and the Greek word logos, meaning study or science. Thus, the etymological meaning of sociology is the science of society. He defined sociology as the science of social phenomena “subject to natural an invariable laws, the discovery of which is the object of investigation” as illustrated by Comte.(1) The next thing which comes to our mind before writing a sociology assignment is what is explaining the contents through your own imagination. What such imagination is called? Sociological

‘the study of society’. If we study this case in context of society then it is very sociological in nature. As this case effects society at large, as there are many such cases of suicides done by professionals working in companies of Wall Street, such cases is effecting society at large. Many sociological theories can be related with this case. Emile Durkheim analysed the suicide rates in Suicide: A Study in Sociology. Even if people see themselves in personal capacity exercising their own will, Durkheim’s study showed that even a highly personal act like suicide is influenced by what happens in the social world (6). Such type of suicide where the social regulation is less, and the period of disruptions unleash the currents of anomie- moods of rootlessness, normlessness and such currents leads to higher rates of anomic suicide (7). Capitalism is an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth (8). Exploitation is an important part of capitalist economy according to Marx. Capitalist exploits their workers and labours very much just to gain more and more profits. In this case, Gupta was also exploited by heavy work load and pressure due to which he has to work for all night and was not able to enjoy his freedom which led him to suicide. The capitalist even pay their workers less for the amount of work done by them. If we study the case properly than we can realise that Gupta was also alienated as there was no relation between human nature and worker and this relation was exploited by capitalism. Goldman Sachs just treated Gupta as source of earning only and only profit by making him sell his labour time to them. As a result they feel freely active only when they are doing their animal activities- eating,