...tony.varley@nuigalway.ie Course Description: The classical sociological tradition has been heavily dominated by the writings of Marx, Weber and Durkheim. Each of these three theorists has carved out a distinctive approach to the study of society and, in the process, has contributed substantially to our understanding of the transition from pre-modern to modern society. There are many who would argue that the ideas of these three classical figures continue to have much to offer to an understanding of contemporary society and politics. There are several possible ways to study the ideas of Marx, Weber and Durkheim. In this course we will attempt to take a thematic and comparative approach by comparing the views of Marx, Weber and Durkheim on a number of central topics. We will look therefore at their ideas concerning the methods appropriate to the study of society, their views on class and the division of labour, on democratic politics and the state and on culture, religion and ideology. Our discussion will begin with a consideration of what a ‘classical’ tradition might look like in the social sciences; and of why Marx, Weber and Durkheim merit inclusion as the most significant members within such a tradition. For a fuller appreciation of the classical tradition in social theory there is no substitute for a reading of the original writings of Marx, Durkheim and Weber. As these writings are very extensive, we will rely on a number of commentaries – principally those by Morrison...
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...“Explore the ideas of Karl Marx, discussing his theories and views toward capitalism. Discuss how these matters compare to modern day economic conditions, and consider the ethical and sustainability matters that are raised for today's managers.” Karl Marx; an economist, sociologist, revolutionary and historian, whose theories continue to influence economic thought for managers today. Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5,1818 – March 14, 1883) put forth many theories with regards to economics, politics and society that established the base on which Marxism was formed. His critique of the philosophies of other theorists and critical analysis of capitalism has influenced economic perception, and contributed largely toward the current understanding of capital and labour and the relationship that exists. In Karl Marx’s criticism of capitalism, he discussed many social matters such as ‘alienation’, the dominance by the ‘bourgeoisie’ over the ‘proletariat’; issues with regard to labour, such as the de-skilling and dehumanisation of workers as technological advances came about and capitalists strived to maximise ‘surplus value’ through the ‘exploitation’ of human labour. Although times have changed and this type of work environment is not as common, it is still an ever present situation in places such as China and India where cheap labour is employed to maximise the return for those in ‘control’. Advancements in technology continue, to the extent where the duties of workers can be performed...
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...Explain how the four thinkers discussed in term one understand the notion of identity Hegel understands identity through the notion of self-consciousness, which he argues “exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged” (Hegel:p111). So Hegel believed in order to know who we are we need the recognition of another, we therefore need to be acknowledged to have an identity. He then goes on to talk about the struggle for recognition, which takes place when the self and the other come together, in doing so making self-consciousness possible (OnlineSparknotes:2011). Hegel explains the realisation of self-conscious as a struggle for recognition between two individuals, who are bound together in an unequal relationship of dependence. So in order for an individual to know they exist they must enter into a life and death struggle with a second conscious this struggle has to be to the death because in risking its life the self is demonstrating it rational status, “that it has power over the realm of mere biological life and its animal desires” (Beiser:2005,p187) however in doing this the self-conscious has to realise that by eliminating its other they will in effect be eliminating them self also, because without them both there would be no one to be recognised by. Therefore the only solution is for one to dominate over the other by reducing it to a ‘thing like’ status. Hegel explains this process using the Lord...
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...KAFKA MARX COMBO _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Kafka wrote about the contradictions and anxieties of his time but the central theme of his works, indisputably, is the theme of alienation. Alienation is a complex subject which is linked with its vast historicity from the Judeo-Christian beginnings. To understand alienation in Kafka’s works, it is essential to understand its foundation within a socio-economic context of the modern society. In this regard, Karl Marx and his theory of alienation can help steering our way. The human society, as Marx had stressed in the Grundrisse, “does not consist of individuals; it expresses the sum of connections and relationships in which individuals find themselves”. Human beings therefore cannot exist independently of the society but are shaped by the society they live in. Human lives are dominated by natural and impersonal forces that control society to a great extent. While studying the nature and functioning of the capitalistic form of production Marx had discovered the uniqueness of human labor: “At the end of every labor-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the laborer”. This physical and intellectual labor of man has resulted in the collective development of the productive forces and subsequently became capable of producing a surplus. By taking over control of the means of production, a particular minority class of people adroitly...
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...both a structural and a conflict theory. From a structural perspective, Marxists analyse the way society as a whole fits together. It views society as a structure in which the economic base determines the shape of the superstructure. The superstructure is made up of all the institutions such as the family, the media and the education system. Their function is to serve ruling class interests and maintain a capitalist society, according to traditional Marxists. Traditional Marxism has been extended through the work of neo Marxism. Neo Marxism is a more modern, new and up to date version of traditional Marxism. Karl Marx is the founding father of Marxism and Marxism is based on the ideas of Karl Marx, hence the name Marxism. Marx describes the concept ‘Polarisation of the Classes’. This describes the historical process of the class structure becoming increasingly polarised. Marx describes how in capitalist society the class structure becomes polarised into a wealthy bourgeoisie and an impoverished proletariat. One way in which Marxist theories helps us to understand society is through explaining historical materialism. Materialism is the view that all humans are beings with material needs, such as food, clothing and shelters and must therefore work in order to meet them. Overtime tools have been developed to help achieve material needs. This has led to two classes. Those that own and control the means of production and those that don’t. There are five epochs or eras. 1. Primitive...
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...Karl Marx was influenced to establish his theory on alienation by his observations of the social, economic and political developments of the industrial revolution during the middle to late nineteenth century. His assertion was that newly founded industrial processes’, which were much different from imperial and feudal societies, isolated workers from their labor under the confines of the capitalism system. Because of the industrial revolution, many workers had to endure low wages, long hours and a substandard working environment under the exacting observation of profit driven owners. Alienation from Marx can be summarized into four different aspects: 1) the alienation of the worker from the product of his labor; 2) the alienation of the worker in the process of production; 3) the alienation of the worker from his creative self; and 4) the alienation of the worker from society (Hodsen & Sullivan, 2007). The worker no longer carries any connection to the product that they produce. Work is carried out in a monotonous and routine process where the worker is focused on a specialization of labor and they have little to no control over the disposition of the product. When a product is produced, he does not own it and only provides tangible goods for the capitalist to sell and make a profit. Products are not a conceived out of desire but rather as a means to an existence and consequently becomes a slave to the object. For Marx, the monotonous redundancy of this labor is highly...
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...Whitechapel London, also known as the East End, was the scene of at least five gruesome murders in 1988 that were committed by a killer now famously known as Jack the Ripper. These murders took place in the height of transition from feudalism to capitalism and fueled by this, the East End was plagued with gross overcrowding, unemployment, and was a place of severe poverty and prostitution. Marxist theories of alienation and dialectical materialism help to explain how the rise of capitalism formed the case setting and supported The Ripper’s murders of five women. In the mid-nineteenth century, an influx of Irish and Jewish immigrants hit England and swelled the population, including that of East London (Kershen 2008). Whitechapel suffered gross overcrowding and an urban proletariat started to emerge (Rumbelow 2001). Housing and working conditions became worse and poverty led many people to alcohol, crime and violence and women were driven into prostitution as work was hard to find (Vaughan 2008). Many people were dependent on lodging houses for a place to sleep, and would only be admitted if they had four pence as payment. Those who did not have the money were left outside on the streets (Rumbelow 2001). The first of the official Jack the Ripper murders occurred in the early hours of 31st August 1988 (Rumbelow 2001). A woman later identified as forty-two year old Polly Nichols was found with her throat cut from ear to ear and when taken to the morgue and undressed by morgue...
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...contemporary world, one of the most important concept of sociology of work is alienation. “The sense that our own abilities, as human beings, are taken over by other entities”(Anthony Giddens ,1989:224). The more people transform the world themselves, the more the world becomes strange for them and the more people experience themselves as aliens in that contemporary world. The world faced a rapid technological process. On the contrary, people experience of uneasiness about our technological being in the world. Some sociologists maintain that work technology has an important impact on the level of job satisfaction or dissatisfaction of industrial workers in their workplace behaviour. Many people become alienated by doing their repetitive as well as boring job. An oversimplifying example of alienation is when worker attaches tires onto a car in a auto manufacturing plant. This essay will examine Karl Marx's contribution on alienation as well as contribution of Robert Blauner. Initially, Karl Marx claimed that alienation exists whenever and wherever there is Capitalism(Kennett, 2004). Marx maintains that alienation is interior part of the capitalist labour process, and that is why he considers that alienation is an objective state where all workers find themselves(Noon, 2007). He argues that there are four manifestations of alienation under industrial capitalism. The first manifestation is “product alienation”, it occurs when workers see themselves as a product which is owned by the...
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...critiques of it. To Marxism, the biggest critique of community development is that it is a mechanism for control to keep the working class in their place and in reserve for when their labour is needed. I will discuss the Marxist theories of alienation and struggles over mode of production and resource allocation, as well as how Western Marxism has shaped community development. In this essay I will also discuss how Marxist theory has identified that the working class are to be exploited by the bourgeoisie and the only way to improve society is to dismantle the capitalist society and install a socialist society. Marxist theory is based on Karl Marx’s theory of the struggle of the working class people selling their labour to the bourgeoisie – the capitalists – and their oppression by the welfare system. Marx believed that the rich bourgeoisie exploited the working class and the only way to stop this exploitation was to overthrow the capitalist system with socialism. The only real difference between capitalism and socialism is that private property rights and voluntary exchange define capitalism, whereas socialism is based around collective ownership of the means of production, which is owned by the state (Butgereit and Carden 2011, p41). Marx took this theory further, with the hope that once the capitalist system was overthrown, the socialist society would be based on a classless, stateless, moneyless society heading into low-level communism. Community development is the development...
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...workers are unsatisfied with their jobs (BBC News). Alienation can be define as "the state or experience of being isolated from group or an activity to which one should be long or which one should be involve" (Hobson, 2004:16). This essay will analyses whether technology is the major cause of alienation in various industry. It will look in different perspectives; marxism, Blauner, Nicholls and Beynon, Gallie and Zuboff respectively. Karl Marx argues that alienation is an objective state and it is an intrinsic part of capitalist society. Thus, it is an unavoidable (Noon et al, 2013:227). Alienation occurs because "work in industrial capitalist society is the dehumanized opposite of satisfying experience which develops the human capacity for creativity" (Edgell, 2006:29). According to Marx, there are four types of alienation under industrial capitalism. Firstly, product alienation, employees are alienated from product of their labour which is owned by the capitalist and lose control over their product (Noon et al, 2013:227). Secondly, alienation from productive activity. In this type of alienation workers being lost control upon their ability of labouring activity to ensure their being and determine their self-existence (Morrison, 2006:123). A third type of alienation is alienation from human species, from the product and activity alienation incur alienated from their nature species (Edgell,2006:29). Lastly, social alienation, because workers alienated from their normal life...
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...Canada, exploitation in the workplace occurs daily. Exploitation can be defined as the utilization of another person for selfish purposes (William Morris, 2000). Since the rise of the social structure Capitalism, there has been a distinctive split between two classes of people – the bourgeoisie and proletarian (Karl Marx, 1848). To some, capitalism is the ‘end-all be-all ‘ social system, but these people are more than likely one of the fortunate few who have benefitted from it. By the fortunate few I mean the bourgeoisie class - the owners of the means of production. They own the capital and the resources (factories, farms, stores) to grow their wealth further, but they need labor to do so. Then there is the proletariat class - the labor. I reference them as the labor because in order to feed their families, they need money, and they have no means to make money other then to sell their labor. It is between these two classes that exploitation occurs. The bourgeoisies offer the lowest wages that the proletariats are willing accept, that way the bourgeoisie consume all the available profit for themselves. This exploitation is prevalent in the Canadian workplace. In this essay, I will investigate how the Canadian capitalistic structure exploits its workers today. The reality of this structure capitalism is there will always be this exploitation from the ruling class (the bourgeoisie), but this will change as the process of proletarianization (more and more member of society become...
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...KARL MARX Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, sociologist, historian, political economist, political theorist and revolutionary socialist, who developed the socio-political theory of Marxism. His ideas play a significant role in both the development of social science and also in the socialist political movement. Marx's theories about society, economics and politics, which are collectively known as Marxism, hold that all society progresses through class struggle. He was heavily critical of the current form of society, capitalism, which he called the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", believing it to be run by the wealthy middle and upper classes purely for their own benefit, and predicted that, like previous socioeconomic systems, it would inevitably produce internal tensions which would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system, socialism. Marx polemic with other thinkers often occurred through critique, and thus he has been called "the first great user of critical method in social sciences. Fundamentally, Marx assumed that human history involves transforming human nature, which encompasses both human beings and material objects. Humans recognise that they possess both actual and potential selves. Marx had a special concern with how people relate to that most fundamental resource of all, their own labour power.[120] He wrote extensively about this in terms of the problem of alienation. Refers to the separation...
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...scholars throughout the years; this essay will focus primarily on the workings of John Locke and Karl Marx. Both being raised in a different time, thus different upbringings have resulted in a difference in their train of thought and philosophical approaches on life. Karl Marx has been forced...
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...Economics, is infamous has been called the “first modern school of economic thought.”[1] Two economist/philosophers who have been placed within this Classical category are Adam Smith and Karl Marx. Though these two men are polar opposites in the political-economic spectrum they share some similarities; and although dated, there are points of value to both Adam Smith’s and Karl Marx’s theories. Adam Smith, the father of economics as a science, combined economics with moral theory in regards to the way societies ought to live. Today’s capitalist economic systems have been shaped by Smith’s explanations of market factors and the role of the state, or lack thereof, in economics. Karl Marx, a fundamental revolutionary, is one of the original minds behind communism. He is renowned as a radical political philosopher. These men have together been placed in the school of classical economics, signaling that there are similarities in their ideology. Politically, however, these men differ greatly. This essay intends to study some of their most poignant theories to compare fundamental differences. Karl Marx became famous for his revolutionary ideas and as one of the originators of communist theories. He is renowned for his book on economic theory, Das Kapital. As members of the Communist League, Marx and his friend Friedrich Engels authored the Communist Manifesto—which discussed the class struggle and the need for a revolution of the proletariat.[3] Common Sense dictates...
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...| the alienation of labor 1 karl marx economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844 | | In political economy 2 and its terminology, we have shown that the laborer sinks to the level of a commodity and indeed becomes the most miserable commodity possible, that the misery of the laborer stands in an inverse relationship to the power and size of his production, that the natural result of competition is the accumulation of capital in a few hands, which is the most frightening type of monopoly, that finally the difference between the ground-rentier 3 and the capitalist 4 as well as the difference between the farmer-renter and the factory laborer disappears and the entire society must fall into two classes: those with property and those propertyless souls who labor. Political economy begins with the fact of private property. It does not explain this fact to us. It describes the material process of private property--by which it actually passes from hand to hand--in general, abstract formulas, which it then raises to the status of laws . It does notunderstand these laws, that is, it does not show how the existence of private property comes about. Political economy gives no explanation concerning the foundation of the division between labor and capital and between capital and land. When, for instance, it describes the relationship between wage-labor and the profit of capital, its fundamental point of departure is the interest of the capitalist, that is, it accepts as given what...
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