The values of social solidarity imparted to the child during its formative years will greatly help government officials to implement social security policies like unemployment benefits, palliative care provisions, etc. Durkheim also believed that the division of labour imperative of capitalist systems contributes in its own way to fostering solidarity and preventing anomie. Division of labour indirectly fosters solidarity, in that it makes all sections of society dependent upon one another. This way, the rich and powerful members become indebted to the less privileged members of society, thereby creating cohesion and unity. What division of labour also does is to restrain the selfish impulses of humans by reminding of the inter-connectedness. This atmosphere is most conducive for authorities here in Australia to draw up welfare schemes for the most needed groups. (Dillon, 2010, p.188)
Policy makers in Australia can also peruse the works of Critical Theorists in making prudent policy choices. Critical Theory is a large and varied body of work that emerged as a critique of traditional Marxist thought. Critical Theory found its most vibrant expression in the fertile intellectual atmosphere of Western Europe during the middle of the twentieth century. Two important intellectuals in Western Europe, who helped shape Western Marxist thought, are Gyorgy Lukacs and Karl Korsch, whose insights on class divisions and class relations bear upon the essay topic (Alway, 1995, p.17) Lukacs and Korsch can be seen as the pioneers who brought ‘culture’ into the seemingly abstract politico-philosophical Marxist discourse. Culture, as opposed to other disciplines within the humanities, is highly subjective and its substance is generally value-neutral. Despite this intuitive mismatch between culture and Marxism, Lukacs and Korsch elaborately integrated the former into the study of the latter.
Another influential figure who belonged to the Frankfurt School was Theodor Adorno. He too emphasized the need to study culture as part of the Marxist critique. For example, Adorno asserted that the ideas underpinning late capitalism are strongly ideological in nature. But at the same time, he objected to the sweeping generalization that Western culture is largely a depiction of false consciousness. That culture should simultaneously be preserved and overcome is the thrust of Adorno’s argument. On one hand, culture serves to “legitimate conditions that continue to cause tremendous human suffering; this is why it must be overcome. On the other hand, to denounce culture as false consciousness would wrongly extirpate every chimerical anticipation of a nobler condition…” (Cook, 2004, p.100)