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Sociology does not
preach communism. It does, however, use the writings and perspective
of Karl Marx in some social analysis of "what is." This point need
not be put on an exam answer, but is a notice to students who may be apprehensive
about the content of the discipline.
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,
| How
did Marx contribute to Sociology? |
....
| Karl
Marx never called himself a sociologist, but he had immense influence on
sociology and the other social sciences. |
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| He
is better known outside the social sciences for his writing about communism. |
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| He
said that the working class will defeat the ownership class, and result
in a utopia where government will wither away to nothing and the principle
of economics will be based on "For each according to his needs, and from
each according to his ability." |
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| His
contribution to thinking in sociology is mainly in a perspective called
"Conflict Theory" in which social organisation and change is based upon
conflicts built into society. |
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| He
did not define the perspective nor coin the word. Those who use the
perspective draw from his writings. |
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| His
notions of change were built on the writing of a philosopher, Hegel, who
developed the concept of the dialectic. |
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| This
notion was based on the idea that everything had within itself the seeds
of its own destruction, but that a new form would rise from the ashes of
the resulting destruction. |
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| Many
people see this as having much resemblance to classical (Greek and Latin)
myths about the Phoenix Bird (who flies too close to the sun and burns)
and creation myths of Athapaskan people of the Great Plains of North America. |
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| Marx
took this idea of the dialectic and applied it to society, saying that
the origins of change are all materialistic, not based on ideas. |
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| In
our terms that means they belong to the cultural dimensions of technology
and economy. |
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| As
technology of people developed from gatherer/hunters, to agriculture (horticulture/herding)
to the Industrial revolution, changes in the technology led to changes
in social organisation and to changes in beliefs and values. |
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The
major source of conflict in the industrial age was between:
-
the workers, whom he called the Proletariat
(from Latin) who survived by selling their labour, and
-
the owners of factories, whom he called
the Bourgeoisie (a word having the same origin as burgh and burger) who
needed the labour to make a profit.
|
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| The
exploited class favoured and would benefit from change towards more equality,
while the exploiting class resisted such change. |
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| This
approach is called dialectical materialism. |
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| It
is ironical that he predicted revolution to take place in industrialized
societies, but the only communist revolutions in history took place in
large agrarian feudal societies (as Russia and China were). |
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| An
important concept of the conflict approach, after seeing social dynamics
as a product of competition over resources, is that those in power (with
wealth) had vested interests to perpetuate the system which put them at
the top of the social heap. |
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| The
idea has been applied from micro to macro levels, such as from family dynamics
to national social organization. |
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| The
conflict approach, derived from his writings, has been borrowed and adapted
to a large number of topics in sociology. |
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| Although
from Germany, Marx spent most of his time writing in the British Library
in London. |
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