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Three sociological theories
The sociological theorists
Three sociological theories
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Marx asserts that the economy is the most essential and important part of society, as everything is created and shaped around it. Economy is all about human survival and comes before everything else, including the superstructure. Economic organization is the main survival goal in which each society needs to strive towards. The elite personnel that control the economic base therefore control the superstructure. Our culture is entirely created by these economic elites.
Industrialization also enhanced the capitalism which is focused on the issue of more profit and conflict between capital and workers. While owner of productions take more profit with less labor, workers take less profit even with much more labor force. Karl Marx is one of the thinkers who criticizes this situation of capitalism in terms of workers and capitals in industry, especially he focuses on the situation of
For Marx, whether capitalism is
The film Metropolis ends with the Foreman and Joh Fredersen shaking hands and making peace, after a clash between capitalists and workers. However, that ending doesn't lead us to a clear conclusion and leaves many questions unanswered. This paper seeks to analyze if this peace is a rational one and if the end of the movie is a moment of totalitarianism. Metropolis is an indicative film of class and social issues. It is based on Marx’s class analysis, with the bourgeoisies at the top of the economic hierarchy, managers in the middle and workers at the bottom of the financial scale.
Arthurian Legends in Modern Times Danger, adventure, Camelot, sword in the stone, and death – these are all things that can be found in Arthurian legends. The stories of King Arthur, Lancelot, Sir Gawain, Sir Gareth, and Sir Galahad provide many mythical tales with real world applications; because of this, they have withstood the centuries. Arthurian legends are important stories that provide readers with moral lessons and an understanding of Medieval times and Chivalry. While all Arthurian legends are entertaining, they can also hold profound messages and insightful information about life in a different age.
He argues that with all the pressures of class conflict and the imbalance of capitalism there is no way that this pattern can continue without a major revolution. Marx compares capitalism to anarchy, in the sense that there is no organization within which only causes chaos. The common pattern of capitalism is a boom followed by a bust, and that bust leads to recession and social unrest. This sort of fickle economy, Marx believes, will furthermore contribute to the downfall of capitalism. This socialist revolution would, “abolish private ownership of key elements of economy and change nature of relationships from ones based on marriage and property.”
Imagine a world in which nobody innovates. A world in which not a single human being strives to make changes. Mathematics has the power to change the world. Newton used his calculus to systematize physics, which has had a major impact on the world. The axiomatization of Mathematics, from Euclid’s Geometric methods to the analytic methods of Cauchy, Hilbert, Weierstrass, Cantor, Dedekind, etc., to the logical methods of De Morgan, Russel, Turing, etc., Mathematics is firmly built on the shoulders of innovators who took risks.
Marx and Engels look at capitalism with seriously negative opinions. They regard the system as extremely unsuitable, and are deeply concerned with getting rid of it. In a capitalist society, capitalists own and control the main resources of production - machinery, factories, mines, capital, etc. The modern working classes, or proletariats, own only their labor. Proletariats work for the capitalists, who own the product that was produced and then sell it for a profit.
Marx believed that the current capitalist society is separated into two classes, the Proletariat society, and Bourgeois society. The Proletarians, as perceived by Marx, are part of the working class that only possess one significant material value, that is the ability to work, or labour power. The Bourgeoise, on the other hand, is the societal class that owns the means of production and hence rule over the Proletarians. As I quote from Marx’s book, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” (Marx and Engels, 1988, p. 473)
Marx’s theory on exploitation is related to his earlier writings on the theory of alienation. They are both similar in that they are both highly critical of the capitalist system. Grint,(2005) emphasises that before Karl Marx nobody had ever confronted the idea of exploitive wage labour, many great thinkers of Marx’s time like Locke and Ricardo thought that the value of the wage labour was exactly equivalent to the labour expended while producing a product. Watson,T.J (2008) states that “ capitalist employment is exploitive in attempting to take from working people the value which they create through their labour and which is properly their own. ”P.62.
Writings of Karl Marx had formed the theoretical basis for communism and the continual debate against capitalism. Marx understood capitalism to be a system in which the means of production are privately owned and profit is generated by the sale of the proletariat’s labour. He considered it to be an unfair exploitation of hard work with alienated social interactions and purpose. I agree with Marx that capitalism is indeed unfair and alienating, because it concentrates wealth within a small group of people by exploiting the surplus value of workers’ labour, and creates an alienated workforce. Hence, this essay will first discuss the relevance of Marx’s perception of capitalism as an alienating and unfair system for the contemporary world, before examining the potential of governments to influence the extent of alienation and unfairness that occurs.
The worker has no control or agency over the product that she produces, she is disconnected from her own labor. Marx posits that a commodity is viewed only in terms of a final product while the processes through which it underwent remains veiled and, therefore, disregarded. A commodity’s value is achieved only in terms of ‘exchange’ in the market. Therefore, the exchange value is based on the human activity under particular historical and social conditions. The worker in a capitalist society sells the labor, hence getting a small return, the capitalist on the other hand sells the commodity and gets a greater return.
Capitalism, according to Karl Marx is divided into two major social classes: the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat. The Bourgeoisie, which is the minority of the class system, own the means of production such as land, machinery, factories and raw materials whereas the Proletariat, which is the majority of the class system, having no means of their own production and have to work to earn wage for a living. Karl Marx has his own theory that history is made up by class struggle which he mentioned in his book – Manifesto of the Communist Party: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” (Marx and Engels, 1848) and had predicted that the Proletariat would lead a revolution to overthrow the Bourgeoisie. Karl Marx believed that there will be intrinsic conflict like exploitation, alienation of labour and commodity fetishism between both of the classes.
Classical sociological theories are theories with ambition and great scope that either created in the early 1800s and 1900s in Europe. There were many sociological theorists such as Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Vilfredo Pareto, Auguste Comte, Karl Marx was important in its Time and have played a significant role in the subsequent growth and development of sociology. According to the origins of British Sociology, the market economy is a source of order, positive force, integration and harmony in society. According to Jackson (2014), there was a small elite inevitably dominates society on the grounds of enlightened self-interest. On the other hand, the anomie, considered out of any specific social context, refers to the problems
A Marxist sociologist is a materialist and a sociologist that follows the ideas of Marx. Marx’s main concern was that of capitalism and class conflict. In the words of Giddens and Sutton (2013), capitalism is ‘a system of production that contrasts radically with all previous economic systems.’ It was Marx’s belief that all societies, including capitalist societies, are divided into classes, with one being the dominant class. In the case of capitalism, there are two main classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.