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Marx's view on religion in brief
Marx critiques of capitalism
Marx critiques of capitalism
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Karl Marx is fundamentally important within sociology. He is considered to be one of the key thinkers of sociological thought. Despite his death in 1883, Marxist analysis still has considerable significance and credibility within the study of society. His basic assumptions are still widely used and referred to, even in the understanding of modern phenomenon. Despite his large body of work, Marx actually wrote very little about religion. However, within some of his publications he provided the basis of his sociological analysis and interpretation of religion within society. Both Marx's Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1954/1844) and Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 are fundamentally important for understanding understanding Marx's view in application to religious ideology, and furthermore, will be examined within the context of this essay. Karl Marx and his analysis of society is seen as been a fundamental contribution to the advancement of social theory. Marx saw society as being characterised by conflict, especially in regards to the economic system. Moreover, Marx saw society as being divided by two distinct social classes; those who own the means of production, and those who do not. The social class who own the means of production are referred to as the bourgeois, and the workers are know of as the proletariat. He states that in both pre-modern and modern society, society is characterised by the exploitation of labour of one group by another. Within his sociological analysis, Marx saw the economy as being centre around such exploitation. Furthermore, in Feudal societies, peasants were exploited by the aristocratic lords, and in modern capitalist society, workers are exploited by capitalists. (Inglis ... ... middle of paper ... ...terministic in his analysis of social phenomenon. He places too much emphasis on exploitiation within society. Despite large volumes of criticism placed upon Marx and Engels analysis of religion, there is some weight of evidence to emphasis their contributions. For example, Marx stated that ideology of the religion derivved from the interests of the ruling class serves to justify inequalities and ------------ Caste system in India is justified by Hindu religious beliefs. Louis Althusser, a influential Marxist philosopher criticises Marx and furthermore, he rejects the concept of alientation. He does so on the basis as he seen the notion of alientation as being unscientific and based on romantic ideas. Furthermore, he states the religion does not necessarily function effectively as an ideology which serves to control the population and protect the 'status-quo'.
First, I want to identify who Marx and Nietzsche are and their critiques on religion. Karl
9. Hoselitz, Ben F. "Karl Marx on Secular and Social Development: A Study in the
Marx argues religion acts as a drug to be more exact like opium. People who usually do drugs do it typically because it is an escape from their problems. Likewise, people typically follow a religion because it help’s them escape from their problems. Following a religion helps them to numb the pain of reality. Some people born in society have it better than others and for those who do not religion turn into a great hope for them. Additionally, Marx goes onto say religion is man made and we do not need it to survive. Furthermore, the more people have the less they tend to care about religion. For example,
According to Marx, religion comes from the imagination of the mind, “Man makes religion.” (H/R,p.11) Marx believes in Atheism and that religion is simply justification to our actions and behaviors as “followers.”
"Karl Marx on Religion: The Opiate of the Masses?" About.com Agnosticism / Atheism. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 May 2014.
In Marx’s opinion, the cause of poverty has always been due to the struggle between social classes, with one class keeping its power by suppressing the other classes. He claims the opposing forces of the Industrial Age are the bourgeois and the proletarians. Marx describes the bourgeois as a middle class drunk on power. The bourgeois are the controllers of industrialization, the owners of the factories that abuse their workers and strip all human dignity away from them for pennies. Industry, Marx says, has made the proletariat working class only a tool for increasing the wealth of the bourgeoisie. Because the aim of the bourgeoisie is to increase their trade and wealth, it is necessary to exploit the worker to maximize profit. This, according to Marx, is why the labor of the proletariat continued to steadily increase while the wages of the proletariat continued to steadily decrease.
According to Marx class is determined by property associations not by revenue or status. It is determined by allocation and utilization, which represent the production and power relations of class. Marx’s differentiate one class from another rooted on two criteria: possession of the means of production and control of the labor power of others. The major class groups are the capitalist also known as bourgeoisie and the workers or proletariat. The capitalist own the means of production and purchase the labor power of others. Proletariat is the laboring lower class. They are the ones who sell their own labor power. Class conflict to possess power over the means of production is the powerful force behind social growth.
Some sociologists claim that what changes primarily is the social system and religious change is an effect of the change in the former. It is not religion but, to a larger extent, the economy that is supposed to legitimize reality. From this perspective it is the social system that changes and this change in relation to religion means secularization, which generally speaking means the diminishing impact of religion on social life at various levels, degrees and intensities. Theories such as Luckmann’s privatization thesis or Hervieu-Le´ger’s emotional theory of religion may be categorized as giving priority to changes within the individual. The fundamental thought is that in contemporary society it is primarily the individual who changes. It is the individual that seeks direct contact with the sacral sphere, is driven by emotion, feeling, a personal and individualized need. The third current of theoretical solutions to the question of what predominates in modern and post-modern changes is the one that points to religion itself as the sphere of these changes. It is neither the society nor the individual, but rather religion that is pushed to the forefront of the phenomenon. Religion in confrontation with modernity takes on new forms which function well in the modern
Marx, Karl, Friedrich Engels, and Robert C. Tucker. The Marx-Engels reader . 2d ed. New York: Norton, 1978. Print.
Karl Marx noted that society was highly stratified in that most of the individuals in society, those who worked the hardest, were also the ones who received the least from the benefits of their labor. In reaction to this observation, Karl Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto where he described a new society, a more perfect society, a communist society. Marx envisioned a society, in which all property is held in common, that is a society in which one individual did not receive more than another, but in which all individuals shared in the benefits of collective labor (Marx #11, p. 262). In order to accomplish such a task Marx needed to find a relationship between the individual and society that accounted for social change. For Marx such relationship was from the historical mode of production, through the exploits of wage labor, and thus the individual’s relationship to the mode of production (Marx #11, p. 256).
Karl Marx’s critique of political economy provides a scientific understanding of the history of capitalism. Through Marx’s critique, the history of society is revealed. Capitalism is not just an economic system in Marx’s analysis. It’s a “specific social form of labor” that is strongly related to society. Marx’s critique of capitalism provides us a deep understanding of the system to predict its pattern and protect ourselves from its negative sides.
Marx saw religion as an evil that existed in society and that it brought down all the people that believed in that religion. Marx said that, ?It [religion] is the opium of the people,?[1] and in saying this, Marx meant that religion was contagious on society. Once the society had a taste for the religion, they became totally engulfed it in, and then they do not want to get out of that way of live because they see it as a good way to live. Then even if people wanted to get out of the religion it was hard to get out because the whole society had already been infected by the ?opium.?
The Sociological Contribution of Karl Marx to an Understanding of Contemporary Society. This essay will discuss how the Karl Marx contributed his knowledge to the understanding of contemporary society. Karl Marx is often referred to. as the ‘intellectual father of modern day Marxist economics’.
In the first paragraph of the article, he lists various forms of people and philosophy, and their views of the relationship between religion and deviance. Functionalists and Marxists support the theory that religion deters deviance. Functionalism is a philosophy which states that what makes something a characteristic of a mental state is dependent on its function to the cognitive mind. Marxism is the view and critique which is applied to capitalism and class struggle as the systemic economy changed during the 19th century. (Merton 1968, p.98).
Karl Marx was a philosopher, a sociologist, economist, and a journalist. His work in economics laid a foundation for the modern understanding of distribution of labor, and its relation to wealth generation. His theories about the society, economic structure and politics, which is known as Marxism led to him developing social classes. He later on showed how social classes were determined by an individual’s position in relation to the production process, and how they determine his or her political views. According to Karl Marx, capitalism was a result of the industrial revolution. Capitalism is a system that has been founded on the production of commodities for the purpose of sale. Marx defined the