Classical Sociological Theory: Marx's Theories

Classical Sociological Theory: Marx's Theories

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Classical Sociological Theory: Marx's Theories

Ideologies

Marx's criticism on ideology is a persuasive argument that highlights the ideological perspective of human on social reality. Marx explained that people see society from the eyes of the people who are dominant in society. The action and behavior of the powerful or dominant people shape the social belief and gender roles within that society. Therefore, domination people play the most important role in ideology. The ruling of the dominant class is performed as an intellectual force that controls the dissemination of ideas and ideological production factors. The reason for the intellectual force is that people who are not dominant are unable to understand their power to bring the change, so they simply accept the role of the dominant class. It implies that human consciousness has an impact on the ideas to bring revolution. There is a mixed opinion regarding the importance of an idea; some thinkers believe that idea is a closed perspective, while some consider it as an open theoretical perspective in Marx's theory.

Marx's work on ideology can be observed in the present society where the modern industry has brought a great revolution. Free trade enables the producer to circulate their ideas and goods anywhere. The prediction that Marx made regarding capitalism, ideology, and other aspects of society due to communism became true after his death. Marx's principle and work already told us about the ideas, which are so prominent in today's society. Besides, he pointed out the royalism in France during the 19th century, but in contemporary times, the same dominancy and power can be observed through voluntary market exchanges and ostensibly free carry the factor of domination and exploitation ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"uvEuE755","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Sperber, 2013)","plainCitation":"(Sperber, 2013)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1424,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/mlRB1JqV/items/RZN5WHCU"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/mlRB1JqV/items/RZN5WHCU"],"itemData":{"id":1424,"type":"article-newspaper","title":"Is Marx still relevant?","container-title":"The Guardian","section":"Books","source":"www.theguardian.com","abstract":"The 19th-century thinker identified exploitation and questioned the automatic self-regulation of a capitalist economy. And, says Marx biographer Jonathan Sperber, there's more","URL":"https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/16/karl-marx-ideas-resonate-today","ISSN":"0261-3077","language":"en-GB","author":[{"family":"Sperber","given":"Jonathan"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2013",5,16]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",10,11]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Sperber, 2013). Almost every country ignored the negative outcomes of the public policy exalting market exchanges while focusing on the increase in production and profit. It indicates that Marx's insight is required in contemporary time to handle the situation of discrimination, exploitation for the sake of power, and profit.

Alienation

Alienation is another perspective on, which Marx made a criticism. Alienation of labor is a flaw of capitalism. According to the Marx theory of history, capitalism is the main factor in bringing exploitation and isolation of the labor force, and this is why communism is attractive for the formation of a productive society. Marx explained the perspective of alienation through the concepts of self-estrangement discussed from the work of French socialist Francois Noel Babeuf and Charles Fourier. Marx believes that more labor gives his service to the producer, the more powerful the producers become. Producers start treating their labor as an object, and human follows four discrete due to the alienation. These discrete includes alienation from the producer's product, from the producer's productive activities, from the producer's nature and other people. In addition, he explained that alienation is an objective situation where bored labor has more chances to be alienated than happy labor.

The theory of history regarding alienation is still relevant to the 21st century, where the gap between the classes is increasing and rich are becoming richer by using modes of communication, production, and distribution. On the other hand, the middle class is moving down in status due to issues like unequal distribution of wealth, opportunities, and wages. People who believed that inequality is a natural phenomenon, their ideologies are disappeared. Besides, Marx's perspective seems correct where upper class or producers are ruling the world while the middle and lower class is struggling to manage their livelihood. Marx believes that capitalism is beneficial to increase the economic output. It is correct even today that most of the economic activities whether it is a domestic production or free trade is simply related to the economic growth or profit of the nation. Similarly, he mentioned that negative consequences are also present in society that is ownership of one class that exploits other classes for the sake of profit ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"HxQvMnOX","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Menand, 2016)","plainCitation":"(Menand, 2016)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1425,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/mlRB1JqV/items/BISJD6N5"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/mlRB1JqV/items/BISJD6N5"],"itemData":{"id":1425,"type":"article-magazine","title":"Karl Marx, Yesterday and Today","source":"www.newyorker.com","abstract":"The nineteenth-century philosopher’s ideas may help us to understand the economic and political inequality of our time.","URL":"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/karl-marx-yesterday-and-today","ISSN":"0028-792X","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Menand","given":"Louis"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016",10,3]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",10,11]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Menand, 2016).

Social Change:

Marx's theory of social change implies that social change in pre-capitalist societies had two main factors. First was the contradiction between relations and forces of production, which means with the increase in production forces of productions developed in the society. The rapid increase of forces faced conflicts with the relations of production. These conflicts ultimately resulted in social change. The second factor was antagonisms, which emerged due to the idea of being in power and take possession to increase capacity for collective action. When the producer tried to bring feudalism it effected the economic as well as social relations. Marx explained that men identify these two fundamental factors and fight to sort it out.Marx criticized that all societies are divided into which people are present who own property and view the world from an economic view while there are people who work as a labor and considered as a slave in production.

Marx's work "The civil war in France" was published after his death in 1871 in which he wrote about the social change due to the communist. The conflicts between different classes lead to the revolution insociety which resulted in social change for the rest of life. In addition, the labor movement started to increase the gain of the labor where labor force raised their voice against exploitation and discrimination with labor ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"up0IMRF8","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Sperber, 2013)","plainCitation":"(Sperber, 2013)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1424,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/mlRB1JqV/items/RZN5WHCU"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/mlRB1JqV/items/RZN5WHCU"],"itemData":{"id":1424,"type":"article-newspaper","title":"Is Marx still relevant?","container-title":"The Guardian","section":"Books","source":"www.theguardian.com","abstract":"The 19th-century thinker identified exploitation and questioned the automatic self-regulation of a capitalist economy. And, says Marx biographer Jonathan Sperber, there's more","URL":"https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/16/karl-marx-ideas-resonate-today","ISSN":"0261-3077","language":"en-GB","author":[{"family":"Sperber","given":"Jonathan"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2013",5,16]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",10,11]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Sperber, 2013). This movement influences the social thoughts and ideas of Marx. In economic activities, this conflict can be seen as a crisis. The number of times, the economy has to face a crisis, which we call today a recession. This recession disturbs the capitalist market economy, which is according, to Marx, is not a self-regulating system. Due to the recession, the condition of the people also changes which leads to social change ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"tNPgZtMS","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Menand, 2016)","plainCitation":"(Menand, 2016)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1425,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/mlRB1JqV/items/BISJD6N5"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/mlRB1JqV/items/BISJD6N5"],"itemData":{"id":1425,"type":"article-magazine","title":"Karl Marx, Yesterday and Today","source":"www.newyorker.com","abstract":"The nineteenth-century philosopher’s ideas may help us to understand the economic and political inequality of our time.","URL":"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/karl-marx-yesterday-and-today","ISSN":"0028-792X","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Menand","given":"Louis"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016",10,3]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",10,11]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Menand, 2016).

References

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Menand, L. (2016, October 3). Karl Marx, Yesterday and Today. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/karl-marx-yesterday-and-today

Sperber, J. (2013, May 16). Is Marx still relevant? The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/16/karl-marx-ideas-resonate-today