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Chapter 4 - Social Thinkers: Working Major Perspective and Context Famous For Period Contribution Methods Used Karl Marx

Karl Marx was a German philosopher who developed the theories of historical materialism, mode of production, alienation, and class struggle. He argued that the first historical act is the production of material life through the forces of production and relations of production. The forces of production include tools, techniques, equipment, skills, and labor power. The relations of production are the social relations between people in the process of production, such as relations between employers and workers. Marx believed that changes in the forces of production lead to changes in the relations of production and the creation of new modes of production throughout history.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
307 views9 pages

Chapter 4 - Social Thinkers: Working Major Perspective and Context Famous For Period Contribution Methods Used Karl Marx

Karl Marx was a German philosopher who developed the theories of historical materialism, mode of production, alienation, and class struggle. He argued that the first historical act is the production of material life through the forces of production and relations of production. The forces of production include tools, techniques, equipment, skills, and labor power. The relations of production are the social relations between people in the process of production, such as relations between employers and workers. Marx believed that changes in the forces of production lead to changes in the relations of production and the creation of new modes of production throughout history.

Uploaded by

aditya singh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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CHAPTER 4 – SOCIAL THINKERS

Working Major Perspective and Context Famous for


period contribution methods used
KARL 1840-83 Historical Macro, Conflict Chaos in Radical approach,
MARX Materialism, and Evolutionary industrial concern for the
Class Conflict, perspective. society, poor and the
Alienation Method of exploitation and deprived and
Dialectical poor workers gave primacy to
Materialism condition, society over
absence of individual
welfare state
DURKHEIM 1890- Social Facts, Macro, Social disorder First true
1912 Suicide, Division Functionalist, in Europe in sociologist, called
of Labor and Evolutionary and general and ‘Father of
Religion Positivist France in Sociology’.
perspective. particular. Known for purely
Society is sui- Uncertainty and sociological
generis and anxiety due to explanations,
individual is change developed
subordinate to it. distinct methods
Comparative, for sociology,
statistical, established first
concomitant dept in France
variations,
indirect
experimentation,
inductive and
causal
functionalism
MAX 1900-20 Theory of Social Micro, Rise of He led change in
WEBER Action, Ideal Interpretativist capitalism, perspective of
Types, and Voluntarist industrialization sociology from
Protestant Perspective, and growth of macro to micro
Ethics and Spirit Used
methods of bureaucratic and argued
of Capitalism Verstehen, Ideal institutions ‘Social Action’ as
Types, subject matter of
Comparative, sociology.
Causal Pluralism, Bridged gap
Rationality between
positivism and
idealism.
MEAD 1910-30 Theory of Self. Micro, positivist, Understanding Famous for laying
Symbolic empiricist, human foundations of
Interactionism symbolic personality and Symbolic
interactionism, its development Interactionism
Evolutionary. in a pre-existing and pioneering
Used qualitative, society Social
Inductive Psychology.
methods
PARSONS 1937-79 Social Action, Macro and micro, Post colonialism Famous for giving
Social System structure chaos, modern grand functional
functionalist, world paradigm,
synthesis complexities combining macro
perspective.
and emergence and micro,
Used abstract,
deductive methods of welfare state employing a
multi-disciplinary
approach
MERTON 1949- Theory of Macro and micro, Failure of pure Known for his
2003 Reference functionalist and functional ‘Functional
Groups, inductive perspective and Paradigm’
Deviance, perspective grand theories
Middle Range
Theories

Karl Marx – Historical Materialism, Mode of Production, Alienation,


Class Struggle

A Biographical Sketch

Karl Marx was born in Trier, Prussia, on May 5, 1818. His father, a lawyer,
provided the family with a fairly typical middle-class existence. Both parents
were from rabbinical families, but for business reasons the father had
converted to Lutheranism when Karl was very young. In 1841 Marx received
his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Berlin, a school heavily
influenced by Hegel and the Young Hegelians, supportive, yet critical, of
their master. Marx’s doctorate was a dry philosophical treatise, but it did
anticipate many of his later ideas. After graduation he became a writer for a
liberal-radical newspaper and within ten months had become its editor in
chief. However, because of its political positions, the paper was closed
shortly thereafter by the government. The early essays published in this
period began to reflect a number of the positions that would guide Marx
throughout his life. They were liberally sprinkled with democratic principles,
humanism, and youthful idealism. He rejected the abstractness of Hegelian
philosophy, the naïve dreaming of utopian communists, and those activists
who were urging what he considered to be premature political action.

MODE OF PRODUCTION

(FORCES & RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION)

According to Marx –“The first historical act is the production of


material life”.

The mode of production is a central concept in Marxism and is defined as the


way a society is organized to produce goods and services. It consists of two
major aspects: the forces of production and the relations of production.

Production is a cooperative enterprise. Also production can’t be carried out in


isolation. This is how production becomes logical basis for humans to
cooperatively exist. People need food, clothing, shelter and other necessities
of life in order to survive. They cannot get all these things ready-made from
nature. To survive, they produce material goods from objects found in
nature.

Man produces to satisfy his needs which are ever growing and according to
Marx – ‘Man is a perpetually dissatisfied animal’. Once a set of needs is
satisfied, new ones are created. Thus, production continues and history
proceeds. In order to produce, man must enter into ‘relations’ with others.
Apart from relations, some ‘forces of production’ are also required which
includes tools, techniques etc.

A. FORCES OF PRODUCTION

Forces of Production, according to Marx, have two aspects – men and things.
Men are further categorized into – ‘the haves’ and ‘the have nots’. Things
include – tools, techniques, equipments and skills etc. Major changes in
society occur when new forces of production are evolved (which also create
new relations of production) which replace the older ones and create a new
mode of production.
Forces of production help in transforming the things which are available in
nature into things which can be exchanged in market. The forces of
production are the ways in which material goods are produced. They include
the technological know-how, the types of equipment in use and goods being
produced for example, tools, machinery, labour and the levels of technology
are all considered to be the forces of production.

In other words the forces of production include Means of Production and


labour power. The development of forces of production reflects the
constant struggle of human beings to master nature through their labour. In
every social order there is a continuous change in the material forces of
production. The forces of production determine the superstructure.

B. RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION

According to Marx, in order to produce, people enter into definite relations


with one another. Only within these social relations does production take
place. Relations of production are the social relations found among the
people involved in the process of production. These social relations are
determined by the level and character of the development of productive
forces. Relations of production are the social relations of production.

Relations of production are not merely the ownership of means of


production. According to Marx, they are of two types in any mode of
production.

i) Relations between man and man: The employer’s relation to the


worker is of domination and the worker’s relation with co-workers is
of cooperation. The Relations of Production are relations
between people and people. Relations of production are reflected in
the economic ownership of productive forces.
Broadly, there are two classes – ‘The Haves’ – who own the
production and earn profit or benefits, and ‘The Have Nots’ – who
sell their labor and earn wages in an industrial society.

ii) Relations between man and things: The Means of Production


are relations between people and things. The relations of production
can influence the momentum and direction of the development of
the productive forces.
‘Forces’ and ‘relations’ of production are strongly interrelated. Each mode of
production has its specific relations of production. Neither the forces of
production nor the relations of production are fixed and static. Even within a
given mode of production, the forces of production may change.

According to Marx, ‘It is not the consciousness of men that determines


their being, but, on the contrary, their social being determines their
consciousnesses’ i.e. men themselves don’t decide what type of social
relations (in production process) they will have, rather social relations
determine who they will be – the ruled or the ruler.

Both the forces and relations of production change continuously and


together the two constitute ‘economic base’ or ‘infrastructure’ of
society. Economic infrastructure shapes social superstructure which in turns
helps in functioning of economic infrastructure. This constant interplay
results into a particular type of social formation which is ‘mode of
production’ according to Marx.

A major contradiction in any production activity is that there is a conflict


between forces and relations of production. There is a conflict of interest
between the various social groups in the relations of production as forces of
production are unequally controlled by such groups.

For example, in capitalist production, forces of production include collective


production by a large number of workers, yet they are privately controlled
by the capitalists. Contradiction is that – while production is collective or
social in nature, control over forces is private.

Mode of production theory of Marx makes some attempts to determine the


direction of the history of mankind. It advocated that all human societies
necessarily pass through successive stages of development.

In Marx’s writings, the stages of social history are differentiated not by what
human beings produce but by how, or by what means, they produce the
material goods for subsistence.

In this way, we can say that historical periods are founded and differentiated
on the basis of the modes of material production. Marx has given four
different modes of production, namely-
1) PRIMITIVE MODE OF PRODUCTION

Primitive society; No classes; Structured around kinship; Very low division of


labour; No private property; All worked together for common good

2) ANCIENT (SLAVE) MODE OF PRODUCTION

Aristocracy (Masters) and slaves; Ancient Greece and Rome ; Salves did
most of the work; Concept of private property started to develop

3) FEUDAL MODE OF PRODUCTION

Dark ages of European society; Feudal lords and serfs came to forefront;
Exploitation of peasant class; changing technology; Renaissance came into
being

4) CAPITALIST MODE OF PRODUCTION

The prime focus of Marx was on Capitalism. Capitalism is a mode of


production based on private ownership of the means of production.
Capitalists produce commodities for the exchange market and to stay
competitive must extract as much labor from the workers as possible at the
lowest possible cost.

The economic interest of the bourgeoisie (capitalist) is to pay the worker


(Proletariat) as little as possible, in fact just enough to keep him alive and
productive. The workers, in turn, come to understand that their economic
interest lies in preventing the capitalist from exploiting them in this way. As
this example shows, the social relations of production are inherently
antagonistic; giving rise to a class struggle that Marx believes will lead to the
overthrow of capitalism by the proletariat. The proletariat will replace the
capitalist mode of production with a mode of production based on the
collective ownership of the means of production, which is called
Communism.
Marx terms Feudalism and Capitalism as ‘negation of negation’ as these
modes of production negate a mode of production which has itself negated
another mode of production. Future stages include –

5) Socialism – It is a transitory mode of production in which proletariat will


topple bourgeoisie in a revolution and will control forces of production. Marx
calls it as ‘dictatorship of proletariat’ as, for a short while; worker controls
the forces of production.

6) Advanced Communism – It is the final mode in which forces of


production will be communally owned as workers to renounce their rule and
everyone will carry on his own creative pursuit and there will be no class in
society. There will be no state and a person’s true self or being will be re-
integrated with oneself. According to Marx, this will be the last mode of
production as the contradiction will be resolved in it and hence there will not
be any new relations of production. In this mode of production, collective
production will remain, but the qualitative nature of relations will be
transformed and ownership will also be now collective. Dialectical principle
will cease to operate in this mode of production and this stage will be a
closing chapter of dialectical materialism.

General criticism of Marx against his Mode of Production theory is that


Mode of production is an abstract analytical concept. In any particular
society at a particular point of time there may exist more than one mode of
production. However, it is possible to identify a dominant or determinant
mode of production which gains primacy over all the other production
system. Particularly during the period of social revolution more than one
mode of production coexist in the same society.

His futuristic communist utopia never arrived even in the communist


countries. Proletariats have never taken a leading role in toppling capitalism
and instead, intellectuals have filled the void by coming forward for the
cause of the proletariat.

He also suggested that some societies may have different mode of


production as in Asia – Asiatic mode of production – which runs counter to
his generalized ‘mode of production’ thesis.

His mode of production theory is criticized of narrow empiricism and


reductionist in approach. He has also limited his analysis to production and
has ignored the aspects related to consumption.

He has also ignored the feminist dimension of production as patriarchy is


also seen as an important factor in the growth of capitalism.
Asiatic Mode of Production:

The Asiatic mode of production is characteristic of primitive communities in


which ownership of land is communal. These communities are still partly
organized on the basis of kinship relations. State power, which expresses the
real or imaginary unity of these communities, controls the use of essential
economic resources, and directly appropriates part of the labour and
production of the community.

This mode of production constitutes one of the possible forms of transition


from classless to class societies; it is also perhaps the most ancient form of
this transition. It contains the contradiction of this transition, i.e. the
combination of communal relations of production with emerging forms of the
exploiting classes and of the State.

Marx did not give any systematic presentation of history of India. He set
down his observations on certain current questions related to India which
attracted public attention, or drew materials from India’s past and present
conditions to illustrate parts of his more general arguments. The concept of
Asiatic Mode of Production is therefore inadequate for an understanding of
Indian history and society.

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