...ruling classes (the bourgeoisie) control and exploit the workers (the proletariat), and it focuses on the unequal conflict between these two sectors of society. Marxists believe that the capitalist system is criminogenic – which means that by its nature it inevitably causes crime. As item B states, Marxists see crime in the capitalist system as ‘a tool of the ruling class’ where they can control the working class and crime is an unavoidable result because of the oppression the working class are subject to. They also believe that laws are enforced mostly to benefit the interests of the ruling class. (An example of this is 80% of laws exist to protect private property.) NeoMarxists (also known as critical criminology) are another branch of Marxism which was established in the 1970s. They discuss more contemporary ideas of crime and their ideas, such as saying crime results out of political anger. They note that the traditional Marxist perspective is too deterministic and try to implement an element of free will in their theory. Traditional Marxist’s view of crime has 3 key aspects: The Criminogenic capitalism, the state and law making and ideological functions of crime and law. As previously stated, criminogenic capitalism is the Marxist idea that crime is inevitable because of the nature of capitalism. They believe that because of capitalism as the unequal divide between classes, committing crime is sometimes the only way people can live. For example, a young woman who is living...
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...Arguments Against Marxism Melissa Criminology Abstract The German philosopher Karl Marx provided the world with a new and different way to think about the social and economic systems. This new social philosophy was called communism and Marx’s theory on communism is referred to as Marxism. Karl Marx’s concepts of Marxism are detailed in his book “Communist Manifesto” which was published in 1848. His book discussed the issue of social structure and the problems of a capitalist society. From the time Karl Marx first presented his ideas on communism, there have been many objections from philosophers and political scientists who have argued that the idea of communism in the modern western world would not work and is not a valid social structure. Arguments Against Marxism Marxism is a sociological and economic worldview that Karl Marx and Fredric Engles developed. One aspect of Marxism is a belief that throughout human history there has always been a defined level of social class. As a consequence of this, there has always been a struggle between the different levels of social class and the exploitation of lower class people. According to Marx, the class structure has existed throughout recent human society and is continuing to prevail throughout history (Walsh 2012). A second aspect of Marxism is the belief that a capitalist system does not work in present day society. In a capitalist society, only a small percentage of the population holds means and the ownership of...
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...Karl Marx’s ideas and later his books had great influence on Russia and eventually Soviet Union. There is no perfect political party or system, but Marxism appealed to Russian people more than any other system and eventually became a “guide” for the life after Tsars. To understand why Marxism played such a major role in Russian history, we will discuss historic events that led to the end of Tsarist Russia and discuss both sides of the argument – for and against Marxism. By the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, Russia was not a great Empire it used to be. Country was falling behind Europe in every aspect – economy, military and industrialization were not on par with the western world. Poverty and no glimpse of “brighter future” for lower class, or should we just say poor people, was working against Nicholas II and his reign. Throughout its history Russia was mostly an agricultural country, but with the need of industrialization and further development at the turn of the 20th century, the necessary for Marx’s ideas class was rising – proletariat, or working class. Working hours and conditions were unbearable across all industries and with work demand being way higher than available positions – pay was minimal, since there was the next guy who was willing to work for anything at all. Population was growing with anger and desire for change, but not necessarily overthrowing the Tsar. But since nothing was being done, and bourgeoisie was getting richer – landowners...
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...| What is a Reconstituted Family? | A reconstituted family is a family that consists of a mother and her children from one family and a father and his children from another family joining together through marriage. | | What is meant by the term 'industrialisation'? | When the industry changed from being one of agriculture to one where factories, shops, markets and healthcare was provided. This is the process of Structural Differentiation. | | What does cohabitation mean? | Cohabitation is where people live together without being married, it is also seen as a 'trial' marriage. | | The definintion of the 'Warm Bath Theory' | The Warm Bath Theory is... After a long, stressful and tiring day at work, going home to your family or household is said to relax you like a warm bath would. | | Who came up with the 'Warm Bath Theory'? | Parsons was the one who believed that the warm bath theory was an important major function of the family (stress reliever). | | What is Primary Socialisation? | Primary socialisation is where the family teaches the children the values and norms of society and the behaviour that is acceptable and unacceptable. | | What is meant by an Instrumental Leader? | The instrumental leader within the family is the male as he goes to work to earn money and provide for his family. | | Who identifield the Instrumental and Expressive Leader? | Parsons identifield the Instrumental and Expressive Leader. | | What is meant by an Expressive Leader? |...
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...Karl Marx: Sociologist of the 19th Century Karl Marx: Sociologist of the 19th Century Karl Marx was a man who was way ahead of his time. He was born in modern day Germany in 1818. He came from a long line of rabbis but decided not to follow that lifestyle. At the age of 17 he decided to attend Bonn University. He was taking law classes at Bonn University, but a year later he enrolled at the University of Berlin. While attending Berlin Karl Marx joined a group called Young Hegelians. This was a radical group full of students who criticized religion and politics. This was really the first noted time that Marx questioned authority, but would not be the last. Karl Marx graduated from school with his doctorates in 1941 at the age of 23 years old (Wolff 2003) In 1842 Marx got his first real job as an editor for the newspaper Rheinische Zeitung (Parsons 1964.) A year after acquiring this job the government ordered suppression of the newspaper, which caused Marx to quit. Shortly after resigning as editor Marx got married to his long time fiancé. They two of them moved to Paris in 1843. While in Paris, Marx worked for a paper while also working on a political journal. The writings Marx had in this newspaper got him expelled from France. (Wolff 2003) The first political journal that Marx worked on was titled Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. There was only one issue of this published before Marx and his co-writer got into a disagreement and decided to not continue...
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...According to Eatwell and Wright (Eatwell, Wright. 1999, pg. 104) Marxism is the theory of communism the practice- or else that both are perplexing mixtures of theory and practice. The history of Marxism is essentially the history of putting theories into practice to solve practical problems. which in turn promotes the continuous development of human society. Its impact far exceeds its theoretical scope and significance and an important reason lies in the fact that Marxism originates from practice, guides the practice and is developed in the practice. Karl Marx is considered by many to have been the greatest thinker and philosopher of all time. His idea on life, society and social structure revolutionized the ways in which people think and still holds much relevance in today’s society. Although there were many downfalls within his thinking he still set out the basis of Communism within Russia. Marx drew distinctions between the bases of his own contemporaries and his own scientific theory of which he believed were firmly rooted within society. He believed that social change was needed in order to achieve a better society for everyone and in order to achieve social change there must be class conflict. Marx’s major concern for social change was economic change and his most famous work dealt with the issues of class conflict and the opposition between the capitalists/bourgeoisie and the working class. During that time it was the bourgeoisie who were responsible for the controlling...
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...The father of the very important social idea, social conflict, is Karl Marx. Karl Marx brought a social revolution with his idea. Social Conflict has to do with inequality of people. The theory is that social groups are unequal and that the higher up social groups with more material and nonmaterial things use the social power to exploit the lesser social groups. Social Conflict theory revolves around many things such as political and economic standings. Other things that matter could be race and gender. The social group that could be deemed as the higher up in our society could be middle aged white males. All these ideas about inequality from Karl Marx brought about a revolution with Marxism. Marxism was Karl Marx’s solution found in his Social...
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...The foundational ideology and primary origins of fascism can be said to stem from absolutism. Absolutism was established to grant the monarchy full power over Europe which would centralize power with virtually no opposition, while fascism was the idea of awarding one leader with all power who would rule with no opposition. Absolutism and fascism were both undemocratic and anti-communist, however, Marxism in contrast, highlighted the importance of freedom and equal rights. In comparison, fascism and absolutism held similar views on religion. Both views held that church and politics should be separate, while maintaining the singular religious importance of the church. This paper will compare and contrast the power structure and views of religion of absolutism with...
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...Assess the contribution of Marxist theories to our understanding of society today Within sociology there are many varieties of conflict perspectives. Marxism is one of these. It is 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...
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...Introduction Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) was born the son of a well-known lawyer, in Trier. He was a German philosopher, economist and historian whose ideas played a major role in the development of the social sciences and the socialist political movement. During his lifetime Marx wrote and published many articles and books, most notably; The Communist Manifesto and Capital. Admirers of Marx work have drawn from what he wrote, taking his ideas one step further and created grand theoretical viewpoints which are known to us as Marxism. Marxism is a theory of economics and history and the basic explanation for how societies go through the process of change, Marx believed that capitalism was evil and created increasing disproportion so wealth in society, since the worker would become poorer the more wealth he created for their employers, this was because a worker becomes a cheaper commodity the more commodities he produces. The central theme of Marxism is public ownership and control of all means of production. Marxism thus calls for abolition of the capitalist economic system where chief means of production are privately owned. According to Marxism, supporting the development of a classless society would have led to prosperity and freedom for all. Marxist Ideas One of the basic ideas of Marxism is that of Dialectical Materialism. This outlook is referred to as dialectical materialism because its approach to the occurrences of nature, its method of studying and apprehending these...
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...Outline and asses marxist theories on social inequalities. Marxism is a political, social, and economic philosophy derived from the work of the 19th-century historians Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It views human history as a struggle between social classes and asserts that capitalism is inherently exploitative. According to Marxism, social inequality is an unfair situation, in which some individuals or groups have more money, influence and power etc over others, usually referring to the bourgeoisie, who use this advantage to oppress the proletariats. Marxists would argue that social inequality is caused by false class consciousness, and that eventually would lead to a revaluation. Marxism is a conflict theory, focusing on inequalities and divisions within society. According to Karl Marx, all stratified societies have two major classes, the bourgeoisie (rich) and the proletariats (poor). The rich owns the means of production, such as land capital, machinery etc, while the poor does not, this gives the ruling class the power to exploit the lower class, through the use of the superstructure, e.g. the legal and political system to justify their actions and maintain social order, due to the fact that the ruling class have more influence compared to the working class. According to Karl Marx, the rich exploits the working class who have to sell their labour to survive, thus creating huge inequalities, furthermore, due to the fact that many working class people rely on this...
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...river floods, bursts its banks, and may take a new course. This represents the dialectical part of Marx’s famous theory of dialectical (or historical) materialism." Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history first articulated by Karl Marx (1818–1883) as the materialist conception of history. It is a theory of socioeconomic development according to which changes in material conditions (technology and productive capacity) are the primary influence on how society and the economy are organised. Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans collectively produce the necessities of life. Social classes and the relationship between them, plus the political structures and ways of thinking in society, are founded on and reflect contemporary economic activity. Since Marx's time, the theory has been modified and expanded by thousands of Marxist thinkers. It now has many Marxist and non-Marxist variants. Objectives of Study: • To define Historical Materialism. • To discuss about the basic philosophy behind the concept of historical Materialism by Karl Marx. • To study about the Recent Versions of Historical Materialism. • To findout the limitations of the Concept of Historical Materialism. Research...
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...analysis of Caribbean society. (May/June 2000) Karl Marx was inspired to create an explanation of a society that had become industrialized and capitalist in the eighteenth century. He understood that the illusion of modernity reflected a continuation of class exploitation that had occurred in previous eras like slavery and feudalism. Hence, he constructed his own model, the Marxist model of class conflict to explain negative circumstances that existed in his time. The main features of Marxism include class conflict, surplus value extraction, false consciousness, revolution and by extension communism. The features of the Marxist model are all applicable to Caribbean society, however due to significant changes in society, they are not relevant to the extent that Karl Marx witnessed. The communist manifesto of 1848 declared that the history of all existing society hitherto is the history of class conflict i.e. oppressor and oppressed. According to Marx, this was reflected by the Bourgeosie as the oppressor and the Proletariat as the oppressed, this statement can be applied to society during the period of Colonization which implanted a Plantation Society which exploited the Indigenous people, West Africans, Indians, Chinese and Madeirans. The methods of class exploitation were visible through the Encomienda, Enslavement and Indentureship. In a Post-Colonial society, class conflict still exists however, it is not to the extent that Marx argued occurred in his time. There are class...
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...Karl Marx’s Good Intentions In Marx’s eyes, Capitalism has always been and will continue being an obstruction to the concept of human freedom and choice. His political views which are considered to be modern,deal with the on going class struggles within Capitalism. Marx suggests that Capitalism leads to the centralization of monopolies and the distribution of more power to the capitalist or wealthy. The success of Capitalism is directly connected to capital and wage labor. Capitalism’s goal is to increase profits and is a form of life that doesn’t do justice to human abilities frankly all it is is a division from basic powers to humans and the exploitations of human workers. Workers are forced to sell their labor power to capitalists and they exploit labor to gain capital. To achieve one’s wants and needs one must labor with other people and with nature. Laborers do not realize that they are the ones who are in complete control of the products that they produce.They very much have the power to create and recreate the world in which they live in. In a Capitalist society everyone is located in a class, either the class of the capitalist or the working class. More important than any skill, the class position is the essential factor that determines one’s life as a human being. To be capitalist is to own many properties,and for the working class to have no property and to live by the rules of the capitalist. The laborer is absolutely dependent upon the wage labor and has no...
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...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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