karl marx

SOCIOLOGY CIA III

“We live with tensions of constraining structures and creative meanings .Sociology sees this tension everywhere”.

Christina Manuel – 1313224 2 nd BA PSEnglish
4 th Semester

INTRODUCTION
“Political Economy regards the proletarian ... like a horse, he must receive enough to enable him to work. It does not consider him, during the time when he is not working, as a human being. It leaves this to criminal law, doctors, religion, statistical tables, politics, and the beadle.
~ Marx, Wages of Labour (1844)” Sociology is a scientific endeavor .Studying human beings , however is different from observing events in the physical world . Through our own actions we are constantly creating and recreating the societies in which we live . Society is not a static or unchanging entity ; social institutions are continuously being reproduced over time and space through the repeated actions of individuals . Sociologists view society as plagued with divisions , tensions and struggles .To them it is illusory to claim that people tend to live amicably with one another most of the time . Even when there are no open confrontations , they say , there remain deep divisions of interest which at some point are liable to break out into active conflicts . Sociological conflict theory is largely a synthesis of these two traditions with primary focus on the unequal distribution of rewards in society . Karl Marx is the leading architect of conflict theories . C. Wright Mills , Ralf Dahrendorf , Irving Louis Horowitz , Lewis Coser , Herbert Murcuse , Andre Gunder Frank and Randoll Collins are among the noted theorists of contemporary sociology . The idea of universal competition taken from modern conflict theory became central of classical economics. Racial tensions , class war , religious conflicts , strikes and protests , student power movements , revolutions , peasant upraising and the like often become subject of analysis for conflict theories .All societies probably involve some kind of general agreement over values , and all certainly involve conflict .Out of all these conflicts and struggles , class and class struggle is the most relevant and important . Generally speaking , conflict theories tend to be more specific , restricted to interrelationship between two or more units within the society .

KARL MARX Karl Marx ,the great Sociologist ,Philosopher , Psychologist , Environmentalist , Journalist , Revolutionist , historian , social scientist , Economist , Political analyst was born as the son of Heinrich and Henrietta on May 5 , 1818 In Germany. He was educated at home until he was 12 and spend five years , from 1830 to 1835 at the Jesuit High School in Trier , which was earlier known as Friedrich-Wilhelm Gymnasium . At his age of 17 ,1835 , he entered the University of Bonn to study Law . At the end of the year , Marx was enrolled in The University of Berlin .In Berlin he studied Philosophy and Law . In 1841 , Marx received his doctorate in Philosophy from University of Berlin . After graduation he become a writer for liberal-radical newspaper and within ten months he become its editor-in-chief .His early works sprinkled with democratic principles , humanism and idealism .In August of 1844 , Marx worked along with Friedrich Engels for a journal named ‘Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher (German-French Annals)’. Engels then become Marx’s lifelong friend and collaborator .Together they began to write criticisms of the Philosophy of Bruno Bauer , former friend of Marx , who was a young Hegelian .The result of this collaborated work was published in 1845 as ‘The Holy Family’. That year, Marx moved to Belgium as he was expelled from France while writing for another radical newspaper, ‘Vorwärts!’, which had strong ties to an organization that would later become the Communist League. I n Brussels, Marx was introduced to socialism by Moses Hess, and finally broke off from the philosophy of the Young Hegelians completely. While there, he wrote ‘The German Ideology’, in which he first developed his theory on historical materialism. Marx couldn’t find a willing publisher, however, and The German Ideology along with ‘Theses on Feuerbach’, which was also written during this time were not published until after his death. During 1846, Marx founded a Communist Correspondence Committee in an attempt to link socialists from around Europe. Inspired by his ideas, socialists in England held a conference and formed the Communist League, and in 1847 at a Central Committee meeting in London, the organization asked Marx and Engels to write ‘Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei’ (Manifesto of the Communist Party). ‘The Communist Manifesto,’ as this work is commonly known, was published in 1848. In London, Marx helped found the German Workers’ Educational Society, as well as a new headquarters for the Communist League. Marx became increasingly focused on capitalism and economic theory, and in 1867, he published the first volume of ‘Das Kapital’ . The remaining two volumes were assembled and published posthumously by Engels. Marx died of pleurisy in London on March 14, 1883.

MARXISM
“Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.”
― Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto Class is a large scale grouping of people who share common economic resources , which strongly influence the way of life they are able to lead .Ownership of wealth , together with occupation , are the chief bases of class differences .Sociologists explains stratification as the inequalities that exist between individuals and groups within human society . Among the four basic systems of stratification ( slavery , caste , estates and class ) , class systems differ in all aspects . Comparing to other types , classes are not established by legal or religious provisions ; membership is not based on inherited positions as specified either legally or by custom . Class systems are typically more fluid than the other types of stratifications .The boundaries between classes are evident . Class is economically based . It depends on economic differences between groupings of individuals . It was Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels who put forward the Marxist analysis which speaks about the economic changes happening during industrial revolution . Marxism is An analysis of world and also a method of societal analysis that focuses on class relations and societal conflict . Marxist methodology uses economic and sociopolitical inquiry and then they applies that to the analysis and critique of the development of capitalism and the role of class struggle in systemic economic change. Marx witnessed the growth of factories and industrial production as well as the inequalities that resulted . Marx offered a theory of capitalist society based on his image of the basic human nature . Marx believed that people are basically productive , that is , in order to survive they need to work in and with nature . For Marx , class is a group of people who stand in a common relationship to the means of production .Means of production is the way in which , they gain a livelihood .He says that before the raise of modern industries , the means of production consisted primarily of land and the instruments used to tend crops or pastoral animals . In preindustrial societies , therefore the two main classes were those who owned the land and those who actively engaged in producing from it . In modern industrial societies , factories , machinery , offices and the wealth or capital needed to buy them have become more important .The two main classes are those who owns these means of production ie, the industrialist or capitalist and those who earn their living by selling their labor to them , ie. The working class or the ‘proletariat’ as Marx say . According to Karl Marx , capitalism is inherently a class system in which class relations are characterized by conflict .The capitalist need labor and the workers need wages . This dependency is highly unbalanced. Marx believed that class conflict over economic resources would become more acute with the passing of time. The mid twentieth century witnessed the rebirth of Marxist sociology which remains today at the center of dialectic and conflict analysis . Marx believed that the contradictions and conflicts within capitalism will lead dialectically to its ultimate collapse , but he did not think that this process is inevitable . He thinks that people should act according to the situations for socialism to come into existence . The ideas of Marx constitute the gospel of Revolution and the Communist Manifesto , which is the handbook of all the revolutionaries . THE CONFLICT THEORY Karl Marx is undoubtedly , the master theoretician of conflict sociology . According to him , the existence of different social classes is the continuous source of inevitable conflict and changes in the social structure occur through violent upheavals affecting class composition . In all societies , two classes of people appear . A class that rules and a class that is being ruled . The first class , always the less numerous , performs all political functions , monopolizes power and enjoys the advantages that power brings , but the second class , the more numerous class , is directed and controlled by the first , in a manner that is now more less legal , now more or less arbitrary and violent and supplies the first , in appearance at least , with material means of subsistence and with the instrumentalities that are essential to the vitality of political organism . According to conflict theory, inequality and discrimination exists because those in control of a disproportionate share of society’s resources actively defend their advantages. The people are not bound to society by their shared values , but by coercion in the hands of those in power. This perspective emphasizes on social control and conformity. Groups and individuals progress to their own destinations, struggling over controls and preventions of societal resources. Those with the most amount of resources exercise power over others with inequality and this result in power struggles . According to Marx , the relationship between classes is an exploitive one . In feudal societies exploitation occur in the form of the direct transfer of products from the peasantry to the aristocracy . In modern capitalist societies , the source of exploitation is less obvious and Marx devoted much attention to trying to clarify its nature . Conflict theory mainly speaks about how the unequal distribution of economic rewards among the social classes results in conflicts . It explains that communications and understandings will be easier in among the peoples in same class as they share almost same values ..Marx then says that , this economic structure , historical situation and maturation of class consciousness results in the establishment of political organization . Conflict theory emphasize on the social change . It explains how every society is subjected at every moment to change . It says that social change is ubiquitous , The theory then explains how every society experiences at every moment social conflict . It says , social conflict is ubiquitous .The theory says , every element in a society contributes to its change and it also says that every society rests on constraint of some of its members by others .
THE THEORY OF CLASS STRUGGLE Class struggle constitutes the central theme of Marx’s theoretical scheme which is based on three main points .First , the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles . Free man and slave , patrician and plebeian , lord and serf , Guildmaster and journey men , in a word , oppressor and the oppressed , stood in constant opposition to one another , carried on an uninterrupted , now hidden , now open fight , a fight that each time ended either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large or in the common ruin of the contenting classes . Second , it is not the consciousness of men that determines their being , but , on the contrary , their social being that determines their consciousness . Third, the ideas of the ruling class are , in every age , the ruling ideas . ie, the class which is the dominant material force in the society is at the same time its dominant intellectual force . Marx’s analysis of the conflicts in the capitalist society mainly touch up on the following points .
1) The importance of property To Marx , the most distinguishing characteristic of any society is its form of property , and the crucial determinant of an individual’s behavior is his relation to property .Classes are determined on the basis of the individual’s relations to the means of production. It is not a man’s occupation but his position relative to the instruments of production that determines his class .Property divisions are the crucial breaking lines in the class structure. Development of class consciousness and conflict over the distribution of economic rewards fortified the class barriers.
2) The economic determinism The capitalist society is based on the concentration of the means of production and distribution in the hands of a few. The capitalist who hold the monopoly of effective private property take control of the political machinery, and their interests converge in the political and ideological spheres The bourgeoisie use the state as an instrument of economic exploitation and consolidation of self interests. The economic power of the bourgeoisie is transformed into political power and the entire political processes and institutions including the courts, the police and the military and the ruling elites become subservient to the interest of the capitalists.
3) Polarization of classes Inherent in capitalist society is a tendency toward the radical polarization of classes. The whole society breaks up more and more into two great hostile camps , two great directly antagonistic classes ; bourgeoisie and proletariat , the capitalists who own the means of production and distribution and the working classes who own nothing but their own labor . This is not to deny the existence of other classes .Indeed Marx repeatedly referred to the small capitalist, the petty bourgeoisie and the lumpen proletariat. But on maturation of class consciousness and at the height of the conflict, the petty bourgeoisie and small capitalist will be deprived of their property and drawn into the ranks of the proletariat .
4) The theory of surplus value Capitalists accumulate profit through exploitation of labor. The value of any commodity is determined by the amount of labor it takes to produce it . The labor time necessary for the worker to produce the value equal to the one he receives in the form of wages is less than the actual duration of his work . Surplus value refer to the term used to the quantity of value produced by the worker beyond the necessary labor time , meaning by the latter the working time required to produce a value equal to the one he has received in the form of wages . Since employers have the monopoly of the instruments of production , they can force workers to do extra hours of work and profits tend to accumulate with increasing exploitation of labor .
5) Pauperization The poverty of the proletariat grows with increasing exploitation of labor . One capitalist kill many others and the wealth of the bourgeoisie is swelled by large profits with corresponding increase in ‘the mass of poverty , of pleasure , of slavery , of perversion , of exploitation , of the proletariat .Society is divided into rich and poor . Thus to Marx ,poverty is the result of exploitation , not of scarcity .
6) Alienation The economic exploitation and inhuman working conditions , lead to the increasing alienation of man .Work is no longer an expression of man himself , only a degraded instrument of livelihood .It is external to the worker and imposed upon him ; there is no fulfilment in work .The product of work become an instrument of alien purpose . Economic alienations results in ‘devalution of the world of man’ , self-estrangement and powerlessness .
7) Class solidarity and Antagonism With the growth of class consciousness , the crystallization of the social relations into two groups becomes streamlined and the classes tend to become internally homogeneous and the class struggle more intensified .
8) Revolution At the height of the class war a violent revolution breaks out which destroys the structure of capitalist society .The revolution is most likely to occur at the peak of the economic crisis which is part of the recurring booms and repressions characteristic of capitalism .
9) The dictatorship of the proletariat The bloody revolution terminates capitalist society and leads to the social dictatorship of the proletariat .The revolution is violent but does not necessarily involve mass killings of the bourgeoisies . Since the property is wrested from them , the bourgeoisie get transformed into the rank of proletariat .Thus the inevitable historical processes destroys the bourgeoisie and the proletariat establishes a social dictatorship , merely a transitional phase to consolidate the gains of the revolution . CONCLUSION
“All human history thus far is the history of class struggles”
~ Karl Marx Although Marx focused most of his attention on capitalism and modern society, he also analyzed how societies had developed over the course of history and time .According to Marx, social systems make a transition from one mode of production to the another – sometimes gradually and sometimes through revolution – as a result of contradictions in their economics .He outlined a progression of historical stages which began with primitive communist societies of hunters and gatherers and passes through ancient slave-owning system and reached the feudal system based on the division between the landowners and serfs . Marx argued that , just as the capitalists had united to overthrow the feudal order , workers also will unite to supplant the capitalists and will create a new order . According to Marx , society is divided into classes with unequal resources which results in conflicts .This conflict , at a point will break out into active change which results in revolutions . Whatever the conflict groups on which most emphasis is put , society is seen essentially as ‘full of tension’ – even the most stable social system represents an uneasy balance of antagonistic grouping . REFERENCE
1) Grusky.B , David ,Szelenyi Szonja , The Inequality Reader ;contemporary and Foundational Readings in Race , Class and Gender (II) ,Delhi, Rawat Publications ,2011
2) Giddens ,Antony , Sociology (IV) , Cambridge, Polity Publishers , 2001
3) Ritzer, George , Classical Sociological Theories (VI) ,California , McGraw-Hill Publishers ,2010
4) Marx ,Karl , Engels , Freidrich, The Communist Manifesto , New York, Penguin Adult, 2002