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Comparing Marx And Durkheim's Theory Of Discord Within Society

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Marx and Durkheim both construct a theory of discord within society in two contrasting ways. Though both theories consist an argument that revolves around aspects of industrialization and the workforce, one theory highlights it as the main cause of discord while the other lays out several other factors that play into the decline of society. In the Marxian notion of alienation, the theory focuses on the four factions of “estranged labor”: The process of the worker being alienated from the product of his labor, the alienation of the worker from actual productive activity, alienation from the social life around human species, and lastly the alienation from other humans as a result of the predeceasing factors (Lemert, 31-33). Meanwhile, the theories posed by Durkheim’s anomie and suicide revolve around the individual’s lack of solidarity and …show more content…

An example of a working class expatriate working within construction may have the Marxian theory of alienation applied to him as he builds and produces a mall but will never be able to enter it after its opening. This will be a great analysis of the discrimination between the working class and the middle/upper-class workers that can manage to exploit the labors of the worker. Meanwhile, Durkheim’s theory of anomie shows that a working class Qatari individual faces the anomie of society by being accepted into the mall but the economic differences and appearances between the individual and other people will showcase the lack of solidarity. To expand, the Qatari worker would be extremely conscious in terms of whether they can afford to buy the things within the mall, to appear well groomed for the mall, or to interact with others. The solidarity that would exist within a shared religion between the upper class and the working class individual, especially Islam’s unifying message, would be overshadowed by these concepts of

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However, Emile Durkheim understands the complications of his ideas because unstructured division of labor demands equability of external forces that he knows can never occur. The way that anomie would be define is the way that people or a crowd is in constant conflict with each other. Furthermore, anomie affects a group or people when they are struggling to follow the current norms, which causes people to feel separated from society

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