Karl Marx and Marx Weber

Karl Marx and Marx Weber The latter part of the nineteenth century was teeming with evolved

social and economical ideas. These views of the social structure of

industrial society came about through the development of ideals taken

from past revolutions such as the Industrial Revolution which steamed

ahead paving the way for growing commerce, and widened the gap between

the classes. The development of a capitalist society was a very

favorable goal in the eyes of the bourgeoisie. But it had negative

implications on was the working-class and the proletarians who were

exploited a great deal under the reign of capitalism. During this era

of turmoil and anxiety, Karl Marx and Max Weber were two of the most

influential sociologist. Both their views on the rise of capitalism

have various similarities and differences.

Karl Heinrich Marx (1818 - 1883) grew up in an age of repression.

Marx's feeling of oppression was heightened by his family's conversion

to Lutheranism just prior to his birth in order to escape the legal

roadblocks and stigma of being Jewish (Pfohl 433). Marx thus was

exposed to systematic discrimination and a strong desire to eliminate

this oppressive system with a system that, instead of benefiting a

select few, was concerned with the social welfare and social justice

for all. It was this loathing of oppressive government and artificial

hierarchical systems imposed upon others that shaped the young Marx's

budding philosophy theories. Marx's primary works include Das Kapital

and Economic Works. At the end of World War I when the German Empire

colla...

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...arx argued that classes formed

the only significant groups in society, Weber argued that the

interplay of class, status and party led to the formation of social

groups.

Karl Marx and Max Weber's conceptions, lead them to very distinct

conclusions about the rise of modern capitalism. Upon careful

comparative analysis, a conclusion can be made about the extent to

which these theorists are complementary or competing. Marx was too

mechanistic, closed off to other causal factors besides that of the

economic base. He took historical materialism and historical laws to

an extreme and may have been stuck in the one-dimensionality of its

causal chain. Weber, on the other hand, was quite ambivalent. He

avoided making conclusions about the primacy or significance of

certain variables and seemed to lack focus in this respect.