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|
Compare the
approaches to class of Karl Marx and Max Weber. How would those differences
apply a hundred years later?
|
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| Marx
and
Weber contributed to sociology in many ways.
An important contribution is their different approaches to social class
and inequality. |
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| Karl
Marx saw class as related to the means of production. |
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| He
saw a shift from a feudal society based on agriculture, where the land
owning class was differentiated from the peasant class, through the industrial
revolution, which saw the capital owning class (factory owners)
differentiated from the factory workers. |
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| Other
persons, such as scribes, information dealers, intelligencia and civil
servants, did not contribute to production in the economy, were therefore
useless (non productive), and did not constitute classes. |
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| Max
Weber, writing a quarter to a half century later, in contrast, saw class
based upon three factors, power, wealth and prestige. |
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| In
today's sociology, we tend to see the same three factors, although Marxist
sociologists still emphasize the relations to the means of production (including
now the production of ideas and information). |
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| Weber
saw society as having several layers, not only two, and that factors other
than the material were important. |
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| Today,
there is still a tension between owners and workers, but there are greater
proportions of people in other situations, dealers in information, managers,
civil servants, which mean that the relative importance of the struggle
between owners and workers has relatively declined. |
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| One
student in class pointed out that if Marx and Weber had been born today,
or twenty years ago, they may have produced very different perspectives
and theories, because they would have been socialized into a society much
changed since 1850 - 1900. |
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| Marx
predicted revolution would occur in industrial societies as the workers
rebelled against the owners, and this did not happen. |
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| The
only countries where there were communist revolutions were agricultural
and feudal. |
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| It
is likely that, if Marx were here today, he would have been surprised. |
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| Also
he might not have seen or predicted the rise of consumerism, and the privatization
of services. |
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| Many
mini capitalists have been created, and this brings a strong ideology in
favour of private enterprise, plus a decline in large factories, therefore
a decline in the tensions between the two classes as in the late nineteenth
century. |
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| Today
the difference between Marx and Weber continues to contribute to our understanding.
Both still contribute to a sociological perspective of today's society. |
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2007.04.23..