Social Sciences
Karl Marx Sociology
Karl Marx's sociology is a branch of social theory that focuses on the study of society, particularly the dynamics of class struggle and the role of capitalism in shaping social relations. Marx's work emphasizes the importance of economic factors in shaping social structures and power dynamics. His theories have had a significant impact on the development of critical and conflict theories within sociology.
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11 Key excerpts on "Karl Marx Sociology"
eBook - PDF- Craig Calhoun, Joseph Gerteis, James Moody, Steven Pfaff, Indermohan Virk, Craig Calhoun, Joseph Gerteis, James Moody, Steven Pfaff, Indermohan Virk(Authors)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
Part III Introduction to the Sociological Theory of Karl Marx Introduction to Part III 11 The German Ideology 12 “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1884” 13 “Manifesto of the Communist Party” 14 “Wage Labour and Capital” 15 “Classes” 16 “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof “ 17 “The General Formula for Capital” Classical Sociological Theory , Fourth Edition. Edited by Craig Calhoun, Joseph Gerteis, James Moody, Steven Pfaff, and Indermohan Virk. Editorial material and organization © 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2022 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Although widely considered as one of its foundational thinkers, Karl Marx (1818–1883) played no direct role in instituting the modern field of sociology. Marx’s academic studies were in philosophy, and, over the course of a tumultuous career, he became a political economist, journalist, social critic, and political revolutionary. Nonetheless, Marx developed a sociological understanding of capitalism. He sought to explain why it produced conflict and crisis alongside technological innovation and economic growth. He became convinced that capitalism’s inherent tendencies toward exploitation and instability would foster a great rebellion of working people. He predicted that a great proletarian revolution would ultimately overthrow parliamentary government and abolish capitalism and private property in advanced industrial societies. Although there are good reasons to doubt his gifts as a prophet, Marx remains an intellectual giant because he was the first social thinker to develop a theory of social inequality over the long run of history, ranging from the earliest advent of agriculture, through the evolution of pre-industrial states (he called this “feudalism”), to industrial times and beyond. At the heart of his analysis was the exploitation of labor, the inevitable clash of social classes, and the ongoing concentration of productive means.
eBook - PDF- Gerard Delanty, Engin F Isin, Gerard Delanty, Engin F Isin(Authors)
- 2003(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
This chapter reflects on the relationship between the thought of Karl Marx and the study of historical sociology. In so doing, it defends two claims. One is that Karl Marx can be understood as a ‘practitioner’ of historical sociology. The other is that there is something that we can learn about this discipline from a study of Marx’s writings. Clearly, these claims are mutually reinforcing, though they require a word or two of explanation. For although Marx’s place in a collection concerned with exploring the depth and vitality of historical sociology as a method of intellectual inquiry might seem self-evident, two principal issues must be clarified. One relates to the legacy of Karl Marx, and the other concerns the nature of historical sociology itself. As a specific type of intellectual enterprise, historical sociology tries to make explicit the relationship between social theory and histori-cal change; that is, historical sociology uses social theory in a self-conscious way to outline general propositions about the nature of historical development. And as the editorial introduction to this volume makes clear, such a broad understanding permits a healthy degree of interpretative latitude. This free-dom seems to be immediately constricted, however, when considering the work of Karl Marx, particularly in the present climate, when it is often assumed that everything that needs to be known about Marx is already known. Indeed, it is one of the most stunning about-turns in contemporary academia that writing about Marx and Marxism, which up until the fall of the Berlin Wall at least had become an industry in itself, has so rapidly declined. The general consensus, at least among many contemporary liberals, seems to be that Marx was an astute analyst of capital-ism, but the political, social and historical theories associated with his writings can com-fortably be left behind (see, for example, Holmes, 1998).
eBook - PDF- Jay Coakley, Eric Dunning, Jay Coakley, Eric Dunning(Authors)
- 2000(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
If ‘one believes Marxists like Karl Korsch, sociology was never anything but a bourgeois invention to counteract the critical impact of Marxism on the dominant self-descriptions of capitalist societies. The influ-ence of Marx’s thought in sociology should therefore be ubiquitous’ (Ganssmann, 1994: 81). Korsch, Lukács and other Marxists rejected ‘the idea of Marxism as a positive science of society – as sociology ...; instead, it was conceived as a “critical philosophy” which expressed the world view of the revolutionary proletariat just as, according to Korsch, German idealist phi-losophy had been the theoretical expression of the revolutionary bourgeoisie’ (Bottomore, 1979: 132). In addition, there are other reasons that question attempts to conceptualize Marxism as sociology: Marxist theory is based upon political preferences, interdisciplinary research, a philosophical methodology (dialec-tical materialism) and the paradigm of eco-nomic determinism. With regard to these epistemological positions, Marxist theory can-not be reduced to an academic subject such as sociology. However, the so-called bourgeois scholars also rejected the idea and possibility of establishing a Marxist sociology as they believed it would be politically and ideologi-cally connected with the revolutionary interests of the working class and the deterministic con-cept of Marxism (see, for example, Popper, 1968: 336–46). Despite all these arguments and points of resistance, Marxist sociology has become firmly based within the general frame-work of sociological theories and methods. Western Marxist Sociology The academic development of Marxist sociology was initi-ated and occurred predominantly in Western Europe.
eBook - PDFFrom Kant to Lévi-Strauss
The Background to Contemporary Critical Theory
- Jon Simons(Author)
- 2002(Publication Date)
- Edinburgh University Press(Publisher)
‘Superstructural’ social, political and legal forms could be understood to be determined by the economic ‘base’, the mode of production. Western Marxism, in contrast, has tended to be more interested in Marx’s earlier, philosophical works and in concepts such as alienation or commodity fetishism, which offer a great deal of insight into the subjective conditions of life under capitalism. Western Marxists focus on the cultural and social forms of capitalism which characterise the experiences of social classes, specialising in analyses of the ideologies that sustain capitalism in its varying social forms. Introduction One of the most important thinkers of the modern world, Karl Marx was born in Trier in 1818 and studied at the Universities of Bonn and Berlin before establishing his reputation as the most original of the so-called Young Hegelians. Over the next fifty years Marx produced a stream of books, articles, pamphlets and letters which established him as the most significant figure of the nascent inter-national communist movement he had helped to create. During his own lifetime he established a reputation primarily as a vociferous critic of social democracy and utopian socialism, reflecting his active Karl Marx 51 engagement with the politics of his day. It was only after his death in 1883 that his significance as a theorist really emerged, in part due to the efforts of his long-time friend and co-author Friedrich Engels, but also due to the impact of his ideas on debates concerning the future of working-class struggle. Today Marx’s influence within critical theory is mainly felt through the work of Western Marxists, particularly Lukács, Gramsci and the Frankfurt School, all of whom sought to develop Marx’s suggestive analysis of culture and literary form into an account of the ideological basis of capitalism.
eBook - PDF- Robert Bickel(Author)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Information Age Publishing(Publisher)
Classical Social Theory in Use, pages 11–139 Copyright © 2013 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. 11 Karl Marx T hroughout his adult life, Marx was a relentless and insightful critic of prevailing academic and professional knowledge. This was abundantly evident as early as the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (Marx, 1844/ 2004), a collection of notebooks that give voice to Marx’s early think- ing on the nature of capitalism and its consequences for human beings. The Manuscripts were written while the 26-year-old Marx was in political exile in Paris, fleeing prosecution by the Prussian authorities for the radical character of his articles in Rheinische Zeitung, a weekly newspaper that he co- founded and edited. The following year, Marx was forced to leave France, and for a time, he lived in Brussels. He subsequently settled in London, where he lived and worked until his death in 1883. Marx never sought to publish the Manuscripts, which helps explain their sometimes sketchy, sometimes repetitious, and otherwise unfinished character. In fact, the Manuscripts were not discovered among Marx’s col- lected papers until the early 1930s. When they first appeared in print in the 1950s, they were judged to be essential reading for anyone with a serious interest in Marx and his scholarship (Bottomore, 1956). Here was the early Marx, introducing and explaining at length the seminal concept of alien- ation, an idea that is less conspicuous and less well developed in his later, better-known work. 12 Classical Social Theory in Use Classes and Class Struggle For readers with a casual, popularized knowledge of Marx, it will come as no surprise that he begins the first section of the first manuscript with a reference to a fierce struggle between capital and labor.
eBook - PDF- A. Hess(Author)
- 2001(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
2 Karl Marx’s Critique of Political Economy General presuppositions and/or theoretical affiliations and influ- ences: historical materialism; German philosophy (G.F.W. Hegel, Ludwig Feuerbach), political economy (Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Jean-Baptiste Say, John Stuart Mill), Charles Darwin. Model/paradigm(s): capitalism (200 years). Concepts: labour power, exploitation, class struggle, classes, class as a social relationship, class consciousness, forces of production, relations of production. Empirical environment(s): Germany, England, France, Russia, USA. Karl Marx (1818–83) was not a sociologist. Yet modern contempo- rary sociology would not be the same and certainly at a loss if the contributions of Karl Marx were not to be taken into account. Marx himself did not call his approach ‘sociology’ but rather critique of political economy (Marx, 1983: 158–61). ‘Critique of Political Economy’ can have a double meaning. It could mean that one is critical of political economy; thus distancing oneself from the field of criticism, i.e. political economy. Critique of Political Economy could also mean the criticism of society from the standpoint of politi- cal economy. Traits of both perspectives can be found in Marx’s work. If one reads Marx, the first impression is that he writes pri- marily about the economic sphere; production, labour, and eco- nomic exploitation are the words that appear time and time again – and after all: is not Marx’s most famous work called Das Kapital? Yet despite the fact that Marx, for the most part, uses this ‘economic’ lan- guage, it does not automatically follow that Marx’s thought is purely 10 Karl Marx’s Critique of Political Economy 11 economic or economistic. In Marx’s work we can also find traces that clearly separate him from political economy.
- Karin de Boer, R. Sonderegger, Karin de Boer, R. Sonderegger(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
Accordingly, the structural perspective has to be complemented by a more agency-oriented one since there are no revo- lutions without revolutionary practice. In a similar vein, Marx attempts to move beyond the dichotomy between individualism and collectivism, proposing a relational account that eschews any attempt to reduce the complexity of social relations. To be sure, Marx frequently refers to human nature, or, more precisely, to the ‘species-being’ (Gattungswesen), and he can be considered to ground his social critique in a philosophical anthropology that portrays capital- ism as systematically obstructing the full realisation of central human capabilities and the satisfaction of basic human needs. Yet he does not conceive of human nature in an ahistorical or essentialist way. Rather, in his view, it is subject to social conditions and historical changes, and in the final analysis has to be understood as the object of humanity’s self-creation through labour, ‘as the outcome of man’s own labour’. 12 Accordingly, what an individual is and does is essentially social, but at the same time social reality is constituted in and through the concrete social practices that individuals engage in: Just as society itself produces man as man, so is society produced by him. … What is to be avoided above all is the re-establishing of ‘Society’ as an abstraction vis-à-vis the individual. The individual is the social being. 13 Before turning to Marx’s critique of liberal political practice and theory as an exemplary case that can illustrate the continuing significance of his perspective in the next section, I want to sketch briefly the role that he assigns to politics. For Marx, ‘legal relations as well as forms of state are to be grasped neither from themselves nor from the so-called general development of the human mind, but rather have their roots in the material conditions of life’.
eBook - PDFDurkheim: The Rules of Sociological Method
and Selected Texts on Sociology and its Method
- Emile Durkheim, Steven Lukes(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
Marxism and Sociology 129 Sociology and the Social Sciences (1903)* Sociology is commonly said to be the science of social facts, that is to say, the science of those phenomena which show the life of societies itself. Although this definition may pass as a truism no longer disputed by anybody, the object of the science is far from being determined by this alone. Indeed, those very facts which are ascribed as its subject matter are already studied by a host of specific disciplines, such as the history of reli-gions, law and political institutions, and statistics and economics. We are therefore seemingly faced with this alternative: either sociology has the same subject matter as those sciences termed historical or social and is then merged with them, being no more than the generic term which serves to designate them as a whole; or it is a distinct science, possessing its own individual character. Yet to be so it must have a content specifically its own. Consequently, where is this to be found outside the phenomena with which the different social sciences deal? The purpose of this paper is to show how this dilemma may be resolved. On the one hand we propose to establish that sociology is and can only be the system, the corpus of the social sciences. On the other hand we propose also to establish that grouping them all together under a common heading is no mere verbal operation, but implies and indeed indicates a radical alteration in the method and organization of these sciences. Yet we do not intend to set about such a demonstration using purely dialectical proce-dures. Our concern is not to analyse logically the content of an idea formu-lated beforehand. Such conceptual expositions are rightly held to be futile. Sociology exists, and has now already a history which reveals its nature. Thus there is no point in seeking to conjure it up from nothing, for it is possible to observe it.
eBook - PDF- Graham Crow(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Red Globe Press(Publisher)
2 Karl Marx: sociology as radical criticism Introduction and overview Karl Marx was born in Germany on 5 May 1818 and died in London on 14 March 1883 aged 64, following several years of failing health. Many aspects of his family life were ‘thoroughly bourgeois’ (Blumenberg 1972: 126), but his lifetime’s work was devoted to developing an unrelenting cri-tique of capitalist society. It is for this critique that he is best remembered. His radical politics meant that he spent most of his life in exile, finding a haven in London where he oscillated between periodic involvement in political activism and long spells of solitary study in the Reading Room of the British Museum. He was an avid note-taker, and the published versions of his notebooks offer insights into the furious pace at which he worked, his zeal for questioning all aspects of conventional wisdom and his preparedness to ‘turn everything upside down’ (in Nicolaus 1973: 59) in his search for an analysis with which he could be satisfied. He was capable of being self-critical in his pursuit of a style of writing that achieved the exacting standards that he set, but he had the capacity to take his criticism of others much further, and few writers whose works he encountered escaped the uncomfortable experience of his waspishly criti-cal attention. One of his opponents even characterised him as someone who had so much self-belief that he tended to ‘divide mankind into two parties: Marx and the rest’ (McLellan 1973: 247). He was aware that he had the physical appearance of a prophet (Wheen 2000: 379), and this befitted his role as an uncompromising critic of the social evils that he saw all around him. Marx lived at a time when the transition to an industrial age was transforming all aspects of social and economic life and raising profound political and philosophical questions. The transition to an industrial order undermined previous certainties and represented to Marx a historically pivotal break with the past.
eBook - PDFMarx, Justice and History
A Philosophy and Public Affairs Reader
- Marshall Cohen(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Princeton University Press(Publisher)
When so- cial science is necessary, men do not understand themselves. A society in which men do not understand themselves is a defective society. Socialism is not a defective society, and therefore social-scientific theory is foreign to it. Capitalism is obscure. Only science can illumi- nate it. But in the bright light of socialism the torch of the specialized investigator is invisible. 4. Philosophy is not identical with social science. Nevertheless, in his early response to the work of FeueAach, Marx called for a repeal of philosophy comparable to the repeal of social science entailed by his mature views of science and socialism. In each case the abolition 38. Capital, I, 76-77, 43. 39. "The mystical character of commodities does not . . . proceed from the content of the determining factors of value" (Capital, I, 71, 37-38). Cf. Critique of the Gotha Programme, in Selected Works, II, 22-23. Karl Marx and the Withering Away of Social Science is a consequence of the extinction of those "illusiogenic" properties of social reality which give life to philosophy and social science alike. In the present section I propose a somewhat novel account of Marx's Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach. It suggests a close connection between the dictum on essence and appearance and the Marxist emphasis on the unity of theory and practice. The concept of the unity of theory and practice has borne a number of meanings in Marxist theory and practice. In its popular use, it advances a policy for revolutionaries. In its crudest accentuation, it enjoins the revolutionary to spend half his day up in the library, and the rest down at the docks or the factory gates. But this life-style does not in itself deserve the description unity of theory and practice, for it is merely their juxtaposition. A further demand is that the teaching of the library be carried into the docks and the experience of the docks be applied at the library desk.
eBook - PDF- Syed Farid Alatas, Vineeta Sinha(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
While the socialist revolution ushering in a new mode of production as envisaged by Marx did not take place and capitalism was not over- thrown, Marx remains relevant to sociology and the other social sciences for the concepts and method that he presented for the study of feudal capitalist and the so-called Asiatic societies. Although there are problems with his understanding of the nature of Asiatic societies, informed by his Orientalist standpoint, our attitude is that rather than exclude Marx, he needs to be rescued from himself, from his Orientalist assumptions, in order that what remains useful in Marx and be salvaged. 99 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1973), 39. 78 S.F. Alatas
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