Karl Marx, Boourgeoisie And Proletariat

Sociology Research Assignment

Karl Marx

bourgeoisie and proletariat
Marx was focussed on two main classes; the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie was the wealthy upper class who were often factory owners, Marx classified them as the class that owned the means of production. The proletarians were the class of workers, they used their labor power to be paid a wage to allow them to survive. Marx argued that the capitalist bourgeois harshly exploited the proletariat.The two classes were dependant on each other as a source of employment and a source of labor. The relationship between the two classes is based on exploitation and class conflict.

class stratification
Social stratification is the categorization of people into groups based on their economic status, it is the hierarchical structure of class found in any society. When one group of people gains power and privilege over another it is known as social stratification. In Marx’s view social stratification is created by unequal access to means of production and unequal property relations.

conflict
When Marx referred to conflict he generally meant the struggle between the classes. While he recognized the existance of other conflicts he noted that the difference was that while they could be resolved within a capitalist system, class conflict could only be resolved with the fall of capitalism. Conflict theory states that inequality exists because those in control of a disprportionate ammount of resources, the bourgeoisie, defend their their privelage. Marx veiwed the structure of society in relation to the major classes and the conflict beteween them as the catalyst for change within society. An example of this conflict can be seen in the fact that the proletariats ...

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...the individuals in the bureaucracy have one specialised field which they focus on which allows for efficiency. Specialisation links into the concept of division of labor, in which a task is broken down into different pieces and individuals work on a specific part. The final part of bureaucracy identified by Weber was that of a standard operating procedure. This focusses on the system in which everyone follows the same procedure to allow proceedings to run smoothly and predictably.

rationalisation process
In Weber’s view modern society was becoming more and more rationalised, he saw bureaucracy as the height of rationalisation and strove to identify the workings of society in the same way he did with that of bureaucracy.

Mead symbolic interactionism social behaviourism pragmatism socialisation

Blumer symbolic interactionism meaning language and thought
symbols