SOCB42 Classic Sociological Theory I November 25, 2016
Essay 2
Name: WONG Yuk Lun Anthony Student Number: 1002162072 From Marx’s perspective, he thinks that the modern society is inherently unstable. According to Marx, our society is divided into different classes. For instance: The bourgeoisies, owners and the proletariats. The majority of people in the society belong to the proletariats and most resources are owned and controlled by these two classes of people. He stresses that if capitalism and bourgeoisies fall, then our human society will become a classless one. On the contrary, Adam Smith holds a positive and optimistic view to the capitalistic society. In his opinion, he thinks that individuals especially workers
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Also, he opposed Marx’s idea of revolution to restore justice for the masses. The reason is because Smith valued order and stability over relief from oppression. The ideas of holding lands and aristocracy are not the main focus of Smith. I think Smith will try to refute Marx’s claim by emphasizing on the importance and prevalence of a free market economy. In fact, Adam Smith believed that an individual could freely consume and spend according to the earning abilities. Thus, a worker can also become a consumer in the free market economy. (i.e. capitalistic society). When a worker makes purchase of goods and services, then it will become the profit of the producers. This is a reciprocal practice and would help to facilitate economic activities and ultimately boost the economic growth and development of the …show more content…
As "the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority" (Marx-Engels Reader 481). When looking at the breakup of the social order of feudalism and the emergence of a modern society, Marx and Tocqueville come up with different conclusions about the nature of this modern social order. Tocqueville views the society as fundamental equality whereas Marx views society which primarily consists of two distinctive classes. The bourgeoisies and the proletariats. In reality, these two classes are increasingly polarized due to the prevalence and rapid growth capitalism. Capitalism becomes more
...the birth of capitalism liberated the goals and means of work. Capitalism allowed individuals to own and manage their own business and reflected the secular mind frame derived from the Renaissance Era. The individual is the unit on which capitalism is based. Bonds between merchants was based on free competition rather that the need to trade. This liberating system of economy allows rise for the individual to direct his own business.
Marx believes there is a true human nature, that of a free species being, but our social environment can alienate us from it. To describe this nature, he first describes the class conflict between the bourgeois and the proletariats. Coined by Marx, the bourgeois are “the exploiting and ruling class.”, and the proletariats are “the exploited and oppressed class” (Marx, 207). These two classes are separated because of the machine we call capitalism. Capitalism arises from private property, specialization of labor, wage labor, and inevitably causes competition.
Smith and Marx agree upon the importance of capitalism as unleashing productive powers. Capitalism is born out of the division of labour... that is, it is made possible by dividing jobs up into simple tasks as a way of increasing efficiency. By increasing efficiency, then everyone can produce more than they personally need. The extra produced can go towards the accumulation of capital, (machines, more land, more tools, etc) which will allow for even more increased efficiency and production. Both thought that this increased production was great. But Marx said that capitalism was only one stage... that every country must go through capitalism, to get that increased production, but that capitalism is unstable. It requires expanding markets and will end up creating a large gap between the wealthy and the poor, with more and more people becoming poor. Because of this instability, he thought that it would eventually collapse.
The decline of aristocracy in The Communist Manifesto began with Karl Marx’s statement, “The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles.”1 Marx recognized the ideals of the social rank, which has influenced every society throughout history. The two social classes described by Marx were the Bourgeoisie, or the upper class, and the Proletariats, or the lower class. Before the Bourgeoisie came to social power, landowners and corporate organizations ran the society. Marx believed that the severe separation of the two classes greatly troubled society and that the two classes must coexist as one with each other.2
Adam Smith was a philosopher whose political philosophies was based off of economics. He believed to some extent that there should be a redistribution of wealth, but at the same time there should be a limit to government interference in economy. He wanted the state to end politics that favor industry over agriculture or vice versa, and that business should be left to the business people. He also believed that the government cannot make people virtuous with laws, and that the state should not promote religion or
Marx’s ideals of communism were drawn from the realization that the cycle of revolutions caused by the class struggles throughout history led society nowhere. Society as a whole was more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes that were directly facing each other—bourgeoisie and proletariat. According to Marx, in order for society to further itself, a mass proletarian revolution would have to occur. The bourgeois, who were the employers and owners of the means of production, composed the majority of the modern capitalists. It was these individuals that controlled the capitalist society by exploiting the labor provided by the proletariats.
Karl Marx looks at human societies as a whole, and asks how they reproduce themselves, and as a result, change. For Marx a fundamental question about any society is whether it can produce more than it needs to reproduce itself, that is, a surplus product. Karl Marx believed that the middle class is based upon economic factors and rooted in solely that perspective. Many people have examined his work closely arguing that economic factors could not possibly be the only definition o...
Karl Marx does not agree with capitalism and views it as a system that incapacitates workers and places them in a category that will almost never attain the wealth that their owners/employers have. Capitalism oppresses its citizens and makes them believe that a capitalist society is best. Society has been able to benefit greatly from capitalism but a major fault in capitalism is the dependency that exists between capitalism and us. The disproportion of wealth amongst the rich and poor in America creates and maintains a group of Americans that will either have too much money and another group that struggles to ascertain a piece of that wealth but will almost never reach the same level of wealth.
As stated by Professor Veugelers “De Tocqueville happened to see that the inequality between the rich and the poor became more restricted, and thought that at some point the gap will close.” (Veugelers) Tocqueville was not a supporter of equality but he valued liberty, what he meant by liberty was freedom from a tyrannical government, one which arbitrary seizes property. De Tocqueville wondered how liberty could have been preserved as society becomes increasingly equal. When it comes to equality De Tocqueville is neither left or right. Karl Marx on the other hand had a different view on equality. He believed that families were organizations of inequality. He believed that the state would disappear if classes in society were erased because a state’s job is to take advantage of inequality. Marx speculated that he would see a good portion of the poor advance financially and socially. However, this did not occur. Aristocracy was taken over by the capitalism, they were the people who’s main objective was to acquire money and the working class were taken over by the proletariat which were those working in labor to acquire income. Marx states “workers end up alienated not only from the goods that they produce and the process itself but from fellow humans, from themselves, from nature (Marx, 6). His point was with capitalism and the people working would develop to have less money and experience alienation
Karl Marx, Adam Smith and Andrew Carnegie came up with various perspectives on how capitalism could be improved or changed for the betterment of society.
In the Communist Manifesto it is very clear that Marx is concerned with the organization of society. He sees that the majority individuals in society, the proletariat, live in sub-standard living conditions while the minority of society, the bourgeoisie, have all that life has to offer. However, his most acute observation was that the bourgeoisie control the means of production that separate the two classes (Marx #11 p. 250). Marx notes that this is not just a recent development rather a historical process between the two classes and the individuals that compose it. “It [the bourgeois] has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, and new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie ...
Political philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx dreamt up and developed unique theories of total revolution. Although similar in their intention to dissolve dividing institutions such as religion and class structure, as well as their shared reluctance to accept the rather less hopeful conclusions of government and man that had been drawn by their predecessors Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, the blueprints Rousseau and Marx had printed were cited to two very different sources. Rousseau approached the problem of oppression from a political standpoint, focusing on the flawed foundation of liberal individualism that has been continually adopted by democracies. Marx, on the other hand, took an unconventional route of concentrating on economics. By completely eliminating the economic class system, Marx believed there could be a society of which would transcend the realm of politics.
Analysis of the Main Strengths and Weaknesses of Marx’s Sociological Thought “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” Marx and Engels (1967, p.67) Born in 1818, Karl Marx, using his philosophical and socialist ideas, attempted to show how conflict and struggle in social development were important in the development of a society. The works of Marx were influenced by three distinct intellectual traditions: German idealist philosophy, French socialism and British political economy. German idealist philosophy is an approach based on the thesis that only the mind and its content really exist. This philosophy maintains that it is through the advance of human reason that human beings progress. French socialism is a political doctrine that emerged during the French Revolution and emphasised social progress led by a new industrial class.
Karl Marx focused on Capitalism and the rise of social conflict as the basis of modernity. Marx felt that capitalism through industrialization had increased the productive capability of the economy. Nevertheless, he also felt that capitalism produced two opposing classes of people. The first class, who owned and controlled the means of production and hired laborers, were known as the Bourgeoisie. The second class, who were com...
According to Marx class is determined by property associations not by revenue or status. It is determined by allocation and utilization, which represent the production and power relations of class. Marx’s differentiate one class from another rooted on two criteria: possession of the means of production and control of the labor power of others. The major class groups are the capitalist also known as bourgeoisie and the workers or proletariat. The capitalist own the means of production and purchase the labor power of others. Proletariat is the laboring lower class. They are the ones who sell their own labor power. Class conflict to possess power over the means of production is the powerful force behind social growth.