“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. Karl Marx used the word “struggle” repeatedly for the social changes in describing how society move forward. In his theory, a commodity is something that is bought and sold, or exchanged in a market. It has a “use – value” determined by the qualities of things and the purposes or needs because the commodity can satisfy human’s need and it also has a “exchange – value” determined by quantities of things and what can be gotten for them. As use – values, commodities have all of different qualities, but in terms of exchange – values, they are just different quantities and do not contain the use – value.
Framing social inequality, he ‘elaborates a theory of class that fuses the Marxian insistence of economic determination with the Weberian recognition of the distinctiveness of the cultural order and the Durkheimian concern for classification’ (Wacquant 2007, 270). By combining different theories, Bourdieu distances himself from the unilateral Marxist theory of classes. Instead of focusing on social inequality and a class based system simply on behalf of economic estate, he ‘argues that classes arise in the conjunction of shared position in social space and shared dispositions actualized in the sphere of consumption’ (ibid, 272). Thus, he draws upon the concepts of habitus, capital and fields when capturing and explaining social
The latter consists of the base structures needed for the said societies production and operation; structures such as transport, energy and healthcare are part of the infrastructure. Institutions such as the justice system, military and family, among others, make up the superstructure. Marx viewed the 'state' as being in a relationship with society as one of control and subservience, respectively, therefore creating conflict. In Marx's theory of the state, he postulates the terms of mode/means of production, where the labour force are oppressed by the elite and owners of the production. He conferred that there were different stratifications, which formed economic bases, creating an ideological superstructure which consisted of juridical and
Finally, a connection will be drawn between such Marxist analysis and state of the Capitalist system as it exists in the current South African socio-political and economic climate, examined vis-à-vis a contemporary newspaper article, Business rescue for Lily Mine only option, says Solidarity, alluding to such structures and contradictions. Marx achieved an unrivalled complexity in his analysis through his use of the materialist dialectic, which sought a material and economic basis in reality in order to understand the ‘superstructure’ – those elements of ideology and other institutional aspects (Best, 2003). To properly outline the structural components of Capitalism, one must begin with its smallest functional unit founded in the material world – the
Weber was worried that this would eventually eradicate the intrinsic element to human existence which is humanity. Marx, on the other hand, argued that modern societies are characterised by capitalism and people who owns the means of production. Marx identified four successive modes of production which are primitive communism, ancient society, feudalism and capitalism. All these production is profoundly influenced by class relations. For instance, people who own the means of production exploit the labour.
A group that criticized the economy and cultural foundations of the day. Which began Marx ideas came from the ideas of Hegel and learned the way of thinking about the world and the surrounding fluidity complexity, which is referred to dialectics. Marx study of capitalism was mainly philosophical that was both dialectical and materialistic. With dialectics interactions and changes are more focuses and emphasized on and viewed
The most well-known and important theories of class are those developed by Karl Marx and Max Weber. Marx and Weber contributed to sociology in many different ways. A significant element is their diverse approach to social class. Marx put great importance on class, which he observed as an impartially given trait of the economic structure of society. He sees the primary split between the owners of capital and the workers who did not own capital.
In other words, they appear to be qualitatively distinct from other kinds of jobs in the market.” (Pg. 258). I will touch more on the dual market theory and its importance to creating stratification later in the paper. I would also like to touch on how the filling of these jobs within these markets can be, and often times is achieved through social reproduction. Social reproduction theory which “examine how inequality is reproduced over and over again in our everyday behavior and situations…Social reproduction identifies the barriers to social mobility, barriers that constrain without completely blocking lower and working class individuals’ efforts to break into the upper reaches of the class structure”(Pg.
The second view of Marxian class is related to struggle in the society, which gives rise to a subjective but essential element in the concept of class. Max Weber (1912) elaborated the concept of class and status of the individual in the social set up. He presented his
Social conflict theory is a macro-oriented paradigm in sociology that views society as an arena of inequality that generates conflict and social change. Key elements in this perspective are that society is structured in ways to benefit a few at the expense of the majority, and factors such as race, class, and age are linked to social inequality. To a social conflict theorist, it is all about dominant group versus minority group relations. For social theory Karl Mark is the famous scientist that prove his theory for social conflicts. Education is very important thing but some people don’t think that education today is very useful like in the past.