THIS PAGE HAS BEEN MOVED
If you are not redirected to its new location in a few seconds, please click here
DON'T FORGET TO UPDATE YOUR BOOKMARKS!
KARL MARX
Sociology does not preach communism
Training Handout
Sociology does not preach communism. It does, however, use the writings and perspective of Karl Marx in some social analysis of "what is." This point need not be put on an exam answer, but is a notice to students who may be apprehensive about the content of the discipline.
How did Marx contribute to sociology?
Karl Marx never called himself a sociologist, but he had
immense influence on sociology and the other social sciences.
He is better known
outside the social sciences for his writing about communism.
He said that the working class will
defeat the ownership class, and result in a utopia where government will
wither away to nothing and the principle of economics will be based on
"For each according to his needs, and from each according to his
ability."
His contribution to thinking in sociology
is mainly in a perspective called "Conflict Theory" in which social organisation
and change is based upon conflicts built into society
He did not define the perspective
nor coin the word. Those who use the perspective draw from
his writings.
His notions of change were built
on the writing of a philosopher, Hegel, who developed the concept of the
dialectic.
This notion was based on the idea
that everything had within itself the seeds of its own destruction, but
that a new form would rise from the ashes of the resulting
destruction.
Marx took this idea of the dialectic
and applied it to society, saying that the origins of change are all materialistic,
not based on ideas.
In our terms that means they belong
to the cultural dimensions of technology and economy.
As technology of people developed
from gatherer/hunters, to agriculture (horticulture/herding) to the Industrial
revolution, changes in the technology led to changes in social organisation
and to changes in beliefs and values.
The major conflict in the industrial age was between:
the workers, whom he called the Proletariat
(from Latin) who survived by selling their labour, and
the owners of factories, whom he called the
Bourgeoisie (a word having the same origin as burgh and burger) who needed
the labour to make a profit.
The exploited class favoured and
would benefit from change towards more equality, while the exploiting class
resisted such change.
This approach is called dialectical materialism.
It is ironical that he predicted
revolution to take place in industrialized societies, but the only communist
revolutions in history took place in large agrarian feudal societies (as
Russia and China were).
An important concept of the conflict
approach, after seeing social dynamics as a product of competition over
resources, is that those in power (with wealth) had vested interests to
perpetuate the system which put them at the top of the social
heap.
The idea has been applied from micro
to macro levels, such as from family dynamics to national social
organization.
The conflict approach, derived from
his writings, has been borrowed by and adapted to a large number of topics
in sociology.
Although from Germany, Marx spent
most of his time writing in the British Library in London.
––»«––
If you copy text from this site, please acknowledge the author(s)
and link it back to www.cec.vcn.bc.caThis site is hosted through the Community Development Society (CDS)
By the Vancouver Community Network (VCN)© Copyright 1967, 1987, 2007 Phil Bartle
Web Design by Lourdes Sada
––»«––Last update:
2011.08.15
|