Sociology Critical Reading

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Sociology-Critical Reading “At a certain stage of their development, the material elements of a new product, and as factors in the labor process, by incorporating living labor with their dead substance, the capitalist at the same time converts value, i.e. past materialized, and dead labor, into capital, into value with big value, a live monster that is fruitful and multiplies”. This piece of writing is taken from Karl Marx’s Capital: A critique of political economy. An abridgement by Otto Ruhle. Part 3: The Production of Absolute Surplus-Value. Chapter Five: The Labor-Process and the Process of Producing Surplus-Value German philosopher, Karl Marx was an economist, sociologist, and a political revolutionary. Das Kapital was one of his most significant works. His overall doctrine advocates that the society comprises of a moving balance of incompatible forces that procreate social change by their stress and struggle. For Marx, struggle rather than serene development was the mechanism of progress. According to Marx’s doctrine, men engage in hostile cooperation as soon as they leave the...

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  • Marx and Durkheim’s View on the Benefits and Dangers of Modern Capitalism

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    Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Émile Durkheim (1858-1917) were sociologists who both existed throughout similar time periods of the 19th and early 20th centuries, resulting in both Marx, and Durkheim to be concerned about similar effects and impacts among society (Appelrouth and Edles: 20, 77). Marx’s main focus was on class distinctions among the bourgeoisie and proletariat, forces and relations of production, capital, surplus value, alienation, labour theory of value, exploitation and class consciousness (Appelrouth and Edles: 20). Whereas Durkheim’s main focus was on social facts, social solidarity – mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity, anomie, collective conscience, ritual, symbol, and collective representations (Appelrouth and Edles: 77). For the purpose of this essay, we will be focusing on the concerns that arised among Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim towards the benefits and dangers of modern capitalism. Marx and Durkheim’s concepts are comparable in the sense that Marx focuses on alienation and classes, which is similar to Durkheim’s concepts of anomie and the division of labour. The beginning of the Industrial Revolution and technological advances can be seen as a key factor that gave emergence to modern capitalism, as the economic system was based on private ownership, mass production, and increased profits, resulting in people to be separated based on class and the division of labour, later giving rise to alienation and anomie. In this essay, I will explore Karl Marx’s and Émile Durkheim’s evaluation of the benefits and dangers that came about with the rise of modern capitalism. Through these two theorists and sociologists, we can analyze, discuss, compare, critique, and come to understand how modern cap...

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  • Why The Ideas Of Karl Marx Were So Radical To Society

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  • Analysis of the Main Strengths and Weaknesses of Marx’s Sociological Thought

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  • A Critical Analysis Of Estranged Labor By Karl Marx

    955 Words  | 2 Pages

    Karl Marx’s article titled Estranged Labor as found in his 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts pays significant attention to the political economic system, which is commonly referred to capitalism. He further delves into nature of the political economy with a keen focus on how it has negatively impacted the worker or laborer. Therefore, the laborer forms the subject of his critical and detailed analysis as tries demonstrates the ill nature of the political economy. To start with Karl Marx portrays how the political economy as presented by its proponents has led to emergence of two distinct classes in society; the class of property owners and on the other hand, the class of property less workers. According to Karl Marx (2004), proponents of the political economy have introduced concepts such as private property and competition indicating without providing any form of analytical explanation but rather just expecting the society to embrace and apply such concepts. In particular, political economists have failed to provide a comprehensive explanation for division that has been established between capital and labor. Estranged Labor clearly depicts Marx’s dissatisfaction as well as disapproval towards the political economy indicating that proponents of such a system want the masses to blindly follow it without any form of intellectual or practical explanation. One area that Karl Marx demonstrates his distaste and disappointment in the article is worker or the laborer and how the worker sinks to not just a commodity but rather a wretched commodity (Marx, 2004). This is critical analysis of Karl Marx concept or phenomenon on the alienation of the worker as predicted in Estranged Labor in several aspects and how these concepts are ...

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