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Using Material from Item 2b and Elsewhere, Assess the Marxist View That the Main Role of the Family Is to Serve the Interests of Capitalism

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Using Material from Item 2b and Elsewhere, Assess the Marxist View That the Main Role of the Family Is to Serve the Interests of Capitalism

Marxism is a structural conflict theory, they argue that the main role of the family is to serve the interest of capitalism, but is that how modern sociologist view the family?
Each group in society has a different idea on what the main role of the family is. As Item 2B says, “Marxists see all social intuitions as serving the interests of capitalism.” This includes the family, and they say that it serves the interests of capitalism by maintaining and justifying class inequality and exploitation by the Bourgeoisie. Other groups, however, have different opinions, such as Functionalists who think that the family performs essential needs of society. Marxists and Functionalists opinions are completely contrasted, as Marxists think that we live in a Capitalist society based on unequal conflict between the classes, whilst Functionalists see society as based on “value consensus”, where everyone agrees.

Much like Functionalist, Marxists over emphasise on the traditional nuclear family being the best. The family is an important audience for the sale of consumer goods because advertisers encourage families to be in competition with each other in an old fashion ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ type of way and to keep feeding into the latest trends.
The Bourgeoisie don’t just exploit the proletariats they also target children with their bright and eye catching adverts selling toys, cloths etc who use their power of persuasion to get their parents to buy more and more things and spend more money on these materialistic items. This is one of the ways that Marxists say the family serves capitalism, because the family generates major profits for it. They also say that capitalism exploits the labour of the workers, making a profit by selling

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