What Are the Differences and Similarities Between Marx's and Weber's Understandings of Capitalist Society?
Essay: What are the differences and similarities between Marx's and Weber's understandings of capitalist society?
Introduction
Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Max Weber (1864-1920) are two remarkable founding fathers of Sociology. Both of them spent huge effort to study the rise of capitalist society. Marx created conflict theory paradigm called Marxism while Weber inspired the symbolic interactionism, both paradigm are still influential nowaday. This paper would try to discuss the differences and similarities of their understanding of the historical development of capitalist society; their view on social stratification on capitalist society and their understanding on the operation and future prediction of the capitalist society in three parts.
Understanding of the historical development of capitalist society
The different perspective of Marx and Weber's methodology to the understanding of human history underline an important divergence of their understanding of the capitalist society. According to Engels' speech at Marx's graveside, (1883)
The 'law of development of human history' is "the production of the immediate material means of subsistence and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch …… (which) form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved".
In other words, Marx in his Capital (1867) argued that instead of adopting Hegel's idealism in explaining the historical development of society, Marx maintained that the 'economic base' of 'infrastructure' of material life is important determinant of all other aspect of a society, including family, religion, politics, laws, education, etc, which Marx named it as the 'superstructure'. Owing to the fact that 'economic base' is the sole determinant all the other parts of a society, Marx investigated the capitalist society mainly on the economic
Introduction
Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Max Weber (1864-1920) are two remarkable founding fathers of Sociology. Both of them spent huge effort to study the rise of capitalist society. Marx created conflict theory paradigm called Marxism while Weber inspired the symbolic interactionism, both paradigm are still influential nowaday. This paper would try to discuss the differences and similarities of their understanding of the historical development of capitalist society; their view on social stratification on capitalist society and their understanding on the operation and future prediction of the capitalist society in three parts.
Understanding of the historical development of capitalist society
The different perspective of Marx and Weber's methodology to the understanding of human history underline an important divergence of their understanding of the capitalist society. According to Engels' speech at Marx's graveside, (1883)
The 'law of development of human history' is "the production of the immediate material means of subsistence and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch …… (which) form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved".
In other words, Marx in his Capital (1867) argued that instead of adopting Hegel's idealism in explaining the historical development of society, Marx maintained that the 'economic base' of 'infrastructure' of material life is important determinant of all other aspect of a society, including family, religion, politics, laws, education, etc, which Marx named it as the 'superstructure'. Owing to the fact that 'economic base' is the sole determinant all the other parts of a society, Marx investigated the capitalist society mainly on the economic
Bibliography: Barbalet, Jack (2012). 'Max Weber: Society as Culture ' Lecture on Classical Sociological Theory. Sociology Department, HKBU. Engel, Friedrich (1883). 'Speech at Marx 's graveside ' (17 March 1883) Marx, Karl &Engel, Friedrich (1848). Manifest of the Communist Party. MIA Library.website :http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007. accessed 25 Nov 2012. Marx, Karl (1867). Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume I. New York: International Publishers. Weber, Max (1920). 'Fundamental Concepts of Sociology" Economy and Society. 1920 Weber, Max (1920). 'Bureaucracy" Economy and Society. 1920 Weber, Max (1905). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Scribner 's.