Category: Karl Marx

How did Karl Marx and Max Weber Differ in their Theoretical Assumptions? Essay

Modern society, or modernity, according to Giddens (1990) is defined as modes of social life or organization which emerged in Europe from about the seventeenth century onwards & which subsequently became more or less worldwide in their influence. Karl Marx and Max Weber are two prominent social scientists who had different views on modern society, but it is still important to compare and contrast their work in order to better understand modernity.

Karl Marx was a deep and complicated thinker, but his ideas are presented in very simplistic and politically motivated ways. For Marx, of course, the central features were capitalism and all of the consequences that came with capitalism, everything from alienation to forced labor to class divisions and exploitation in society. Marx’s theory of alienation grew out of the young Hegelians (particularly Ledwig Feuerbach), who argued that people ascribed to God qualities which they themselves actually possess. He criticizes the alienation that arises from capitalism and defines it as a condition of profound loss of control over one’s own activities and creations and this in turn renders those activities and creations meaningless and oppressive. Our ability to create freely and autonomously and on behalf of society is central to our humanity. Capitalism takes away our control over our activities and creations and in turn something that is supposed to make us happy, it turns out make us feel like we are oppressed. Furthermore, the more capitalism advances, the more impoverished the workers become. “The worker becomes poorer the richer is his production, the more it increases in power and scope. The worker becomes a commodity that is all the cheaper and the more commodities he creates. The depreciation of the human world progresses in direct proportion to the increase in the value of the world of things. Labour does not only produce commodities; it produces itself and the labour as a commodity…” (86). Under capitalism, workers are alienated from the product of their labour, the process of production, their “species-being”, what makes them human and other people.

Max Weber made many great contributions to the social sciences but what’s clear about Weber is that he was a systematic thinker who cross disciplinary boundaries and in many ways transcended them and is an originator of so many foundational concepts and ideas in ways of thinking that in many ways continue to influence different branches of the social sciences. Like Marx, Weber wants to identify the central features of the modern world. Both recognized that society was changing radically and wanted to identify what was special about the modernization. He tells us it was about capitalism, or specifically what he calls modern capitalism, and this was also central from him. In fact, he tells us this was the most fateful force in modern life; But he doesn’t focus so much on these other dimensions of capitalism in a way that Marx did. Instead, he emphasizes a different feature of modernity and this is rationality, or an approach he took in his work known as rationalism. He begins his introduction to the text, the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, by arguing that scientific knowledge and observation have existed elsewhere but the rational proof that you see in western science. Moreover, he claims we also see in the west a systemic, rational approach to everything from law, music, architecture to institutions of social life including things like education, the state and economy. In fact, his idea of rationalism and its centrality, not just to capitalism that this becomes embedded in the emergence of the modern world in general.

Rationalization for Weber must be seen as part of the foundation of the modern western world – its tendency to favor in all aspects of the social and cultural identity modes of thinking and acting of a rational character rather than modes inspired by respect for tradition or those allowing the spontaneous expression of emotions. He is not indicating that this is positive or negative and in fact elsewhere in his writings we can see that he has a sense that there is a loss of spirit that comes along with capitalism that comes along with these developments of rationality and rationalism in the modern world. Here he is not indicating in the introduction to this text that these are positive developments or negative developments, rather he is framing them as an objective change in the way that western societies have come to think and act in these different areas – that these are peculiar to western modes of thinking and that this warrants exploration for him.

In general, rationality is a matter of fact attitude for understanding the world around you and acting versus an attitude that attributes events to unseen magical forces – it’s a reliance on reason as a guide for belief and action. Weber emphasizes the sheer complexity and multiplicity of rationalism’s meanings and how rationalism is manifested in specific places or parts of society like the law or the economy. He has other views on rationalism but in the context of the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, he highlights essentially two kinds of rational action. First is what we generally tend to think of as rationality, which is instrumental behavior driven by an assessment of the costs and benefits of particular courses of action, with the objective of maximizing a rationally chosen goal. This is fairly similar to the way we think of rationality today, which is the idea that individuals have preferences, that those preferences are ranked and that individuals attempt to maximize the benefits to themselves. Weber contrasts this with a second kind of rationality that he calls value-oriented rationality and here he believes that there is a related but separate way of going about the world and this is behavior driven not by thoughts of material gain but by commitment to a particular value. The action that individuals take in this context are determined by whether those actions serve that value. However, he tells us that the value a person pursues might actually produce economic behavior so it might not be motivated by instrumental reasons, but it might result in a kind of instrumental action. Conduct based on economic rationality is central to the development of modern capitalism and what Weber is trying to show us, which is in stark contrast to Marx in terms of explaining the origins of capitalism, is that according to Marx it was primarily a material change in the way that society produced and those material changes had impacts on the way that people thought about the world under capitalism. Weber is acknowledging that of course material changes and the modes of production and technology matter tremendously for the development of capitalism and so much else of social life but what he’s saying here is that ideas also matter – there could be a change in the economy but if you have a particular set of religious ideas then that might act as an inhibitor in the way that you will go about acting in the world. Weber is going to offer us an ideational view and this contrasts with the material view of the development of capitalism. He argues that modern capitalism is not just a quest for acquisition or profit and says that this has always existed. Instead, he says capitalism is the methodical pursuit of profit and modern capitalism is different from the age-old profit maximization for three reasons. First, he tells us that modern capitalism is centered around the organization of free labor and here he sounds like Marx. Second, he says that its defined by the separation of the business from the household. Third, he tells us that modern capitalism is built on double-entry bookkeeping, which is the systematic keeping track of debits and credit. What this formulation of accounting for one’s business activities made possible for capitalists was the ability to evaluate rationally the consequences of their past decisions – they could calculate exactly the resources currently available to them and those that would be forthcoming in the future. All of these different phenomena Weber argued originated from modern times in the west and so this if the foundations of his text.

Marx’s theory in general tells us that the reformation and the rise of Protestantism was an ideological reflection of the economic changes taking place in the early development of capitalism and he has this explanation in theoretical terms that you have a given material mode of production and from that flows a superstructure of political, social ideas and institutions that derive their meaning and significance from the underlying material mode of production. Weber is arguing against that and what he is telling us is that the reformation (change in religious ideas) played a central role in spurring economic changes, not the other way around.

The spirit of capitalism is an attitude of mind or an ethos held among the early capitalists. Weber use an excerpt from Benjamin Franklin’s writings as a prototypical example of the spirit of capitalism. Here we find some of the typical tenets of capitalism – profit maximization as a part of daily life not only for firms but also individuals, disciplined activity and duty. Profit achieved through hard work is seen as a moral end on to itself – you don’t want the profit in order to spend it, you just want the money for the sake of money itself. Weber contrasts this spirit of capitalism with the attitude of traditionalism, or the belief that returns on economic activity should remain at what he refers to as “customary levels” just enough to support one’s customary way of life. This attitude of traditionalism blanketed Europe but gradually in certain pockets, the attitude changed, and it just so happens that intended to change first and most thoroughly in those areas in which the protestant reformation began.

What Weber is explaining to us is that it was this change in values which lead to a change in the ideas that individuals held about their place in the world and what they should be doing with their lives and that when they chose to use their lives to labor on behalf of god, this resulted in “let’s not spend five hours working and then head to the tavern” as he said happened in traditionalism, but we must labor throughout the day, throughout the week and we must labor in order to produce on behalf of the glory of god. This is this idea that one is constantly engaged in work that to waste time is to waste the ability to produce. He tells us that once modern capitalism is established it no longer needs religious ideals to keep it going; Once it is established it becomes a force that essentially sucks everyone in regardless of their religious beliefs and taken on a life of its own. Here we see some affinity with Marx’s idea that capitalism is a force that we can’t escape or control, which was his idea of alienation. Weber refers to capitalism as what he calls an ‘iron cage’ – this is the idea that modern capitalist life is forced on to the individual and everyone must play by the rules even after those rules have lost all religious meaning and significance.

To conclude, Marx and Weber do agree with each other to some extent on certain issues; They both had perceived the social class as the groups which are formed and also structured out from the economical relationships and also believe that class form the info influential social actors in the reference of the capitalist industry. Both of these arguments seem to be equally as compelling for me due to the strong arguments each of the two theorists make.

Karl Marx and Max Weber: Compare and Contrast

First, to understand Karl Marx and Max Weber perspectives on religion. Marx defines religion as a particular mode of production for, both Marx and weber, religion has a functional value. Unlike Marx, Weber assumes and does not attempt to explain the religious instinct; he merely tries to understand how it determines human action [religious action] from the actor’s point of view. Weber explains the capitalist class from a psychological perspective (what motivate it), while Marx focuses on the working class (grand theory), Marx constructs the notion of class around two poles: the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Also, Marx believes that religion is nothing more than a method used to spread the ruling class ideology to the working class.

Both Marx and Weber are concerned with the origins and development of modern capitalism. For Weber, religion, and specifically Protestantism (Calvinism), is a major, though not exclusive, causal factor in the development of modern capitalism. For Marx, capitalism, like other historical modes of production, is the result of real, material conditions, and religion is part of the super-structure of society (thus rising on a historically determined material base). For Weber, ideas can create social change, while for Marx, the causal relation is inversed, and they are only the result of material conditions. For Weber, religion can be a force of social change, while for Marx it is necessarily a conservative, status-quo-preserving force. It may, therefore, appear surprising that Marx and Weber agree on the basic elements of modern capitalism: a rational process of accumulation of wealth/capital (surplus value) for reinvestment, and thus on the basic reproductive features of the capitalist system. Before attempting to reconcile these two perspectives, it might be helpful to review their respective positions on religion.

In this context, religion is defined as ‘opium of the people’ (providing temporary, false relief and keeping them ‘in their place’), as well as a form of social control (as an expression of the ideas of the dominating classes in a given historical phase). It is thus internally consistent that, just like alienation of labor is crucial for understanding and criticizing capitalism, alienation of self-consciousness plays an equally important part (‘the criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism.” Either way, religion is dependent on the material base, and it is not an independent force of social change (it is important to note that Marx does not distinguish between or within religions, as this is not important for his argument). The only place where Marx appears to allow religion a principal, rather than secondary part is in ‘On the Jewish Question.’

However, Weber also claims that while these variables explain the origins of capitalism, by now they have lost their initial meaning and purpose, they have become ingrained in the system independently of their religious origins, and thus that the modern capitalist work ethic has become completely separated from its religious context, although it continues to function in the same way. He identifies Protestantism and specifically Calvinism as the root of the capitalist work ethic. The doctrine of predestination, vocation, a methodical life and asceticism (a strict work ethic that requires self-denial), as well as individualism, are all linked together to create a core capitalist ethic.

What do these two perspectives on religion mean for a common definition of capitalism? For both Marx and Weber, religion has a functional value. Weber explains the capitalist class from a psychological perspective (what motivates it), while Marx focuses on the working class. For Weber, religion is a key motivating factor that clarifies the psychology and behavior of the individual capitalist, legitimizes it, and ascribes to it a positive morality. Marx acknowledges the hold that the religious instinct has over individuals, and his ‘opium of the people’ metaphor explains how it affects both the psychology and agency of the individual. As Marx understands religion to be a tool of oppression, it is only natural to ascribe positive morality to the exploited, and negative morality to the exploiters. Weber helps us understand how the exploiters, far from being intrinsically evil or mere creatures of the system, are in fact individuals who function within clearly delimited spheres of psychology, morality, and agency, and how this contributes to the perpetuation of the system. Interestingly, both Marx and Weber, albeit for different reasons, end up looking towards societies that either transcend or downplay religion.

Conclusion

Marx and Weber both believed capitalism to be largely based on irrationality. Both try to understand this irrationality through the medium of religion, although it differs in significance. The Weberian viewpoint argues that religion is the key to explaining the origins of Capitalism. In ‘The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’, Weber argues that the ideas within the Protestant faith, combine with technology to shape society (Weber). In contrast, Marx believes that religion is nothing more than a method used to spread the ruling class ideology to the working class. It could be suggested that the arguments that Marx and Weber made, somewhat parallel each other; the main difference which sets them apart is that in Weber’s opinion God dominates the individuals actions, whereas in Marx’s argument capital controls their actions.

Significant Influence of Karl Marx and Max Weber on Society

Karl Marx and Max Weber are two men who spent their lives trying to make their dream society a reality. Both of these important sociological contributors were raised in bourgeoise households where they took every opportunity to expand their knowledge, but despite this similarity between them, they were still two very different people. Max Weber felt that society was built on understanding and he believed in the ‘ideal type’. On the other hand, Karl Marx believed society was dominated by man’s history of competition for resources and focused on alienation. Sociology is the study of the development, function, and structure of society and without the research and work conducted by these two important contributors and others before them, we would not have the depth of knowledge on the subject that we do today.

Karl Marx was raised in a financially successful family, in other words, Marx never really had to worry about money, and this allowed him to advance his education. Karl Marx was born May 5, 1818 in Trier, Germany, to his father who was a lawyer (Wolff, 2017). In later years, Marx followed in his father’s footsteps and studied law at the University of Bonn at age 17, but later transferred to the University of Berlin where he switched his focus from law to philosophy (OpenLearn, 2002). Karl Marx lived in Paris, France from 1843 to 1845 where many important life events took place that made him the philosopher, we know him as today. In his short time in Paris, Karl Marx met Friedrich Engels, got married, and became a socialist (Gundraker, n.d.).

Karl Marx’s encounter with Friedrich Engels resulted in a lifelong friendship and Marx also gained an intellectual colleague. Friedrich Engels was the son of a wealthy textile manufacturer who was a socialist. Marx was later kicked out of Paris by the government in 1845 where he then moved to Brussels (Gundraker, n.d.). While he was in Brussels, he was introduced to the socialist organization called the German Workers’ Educational Association. A few years later, the German Workers’ Educational Association asked Marx to create a document explaining what they believed in and what their organization was about. In order to achieve this, Marx revised a work completed by his friend and colleague Engels and called it ‘The Communist Manifesto’. In 1849, Karl Marx moved to London where he received an admission card to the reading room of the British Museum here, he spent most of his time studying capitalism, and because of this, his work ‘Das Kapital’ was created (OpenLearn, 2002). Despite this man’s great achievements in his work and theories, he was a poor provider for his family and three of his children died from malnutrition. His friend and colleague eventually left Marx an annuity to aid him in his work so that he could have a form of income to conduct his research with.

Another great sociologist that made a lasting impact on society was Max Weber. Max Weber was born on April 21, 1864 in Erfurt, Germany to a cultured, bourgeois household (Trubek, 1979). Max Weber’s family was a complicated one where his mother was very religious, and his father was hedonistic. As most boys do, he identified more with his father’s beliefs than his mother’s, but his parents would eventually get him committed to a psychiatric hospital later in his life. Weber was a precocious child although sickly and shy (Scaff, 2011).

Max Weber eventually attended college at the University of Heidelberg, but only for a few semesters because he had to fulfill his military duty. After his military duty was fulfilled, he returned home and continued his education at the University of Berlin (Sung Ho, 2019). He stayed at the University of Berlin for eight years continuing his education and gaining a deeper understanding of his parent’s relationship. After reviewing his mother and father’s relationship with one another, he grew to despise the way his father treated his mother. Once he moved to the University of Heidelberg where he served as a professor of economics, Weber’s parents came for a visit. During his parent’s visit, he confronted his father about his abusive behavior towards his mother and after some confrontation, he asked his father to leave his home. A month later, his father died unexpectedly and after discovering this news, Weber had a complete breakdown and did not recover until five years later (Sung Ho, 2019). After spending those years in a sanitorium recovering from his loss, he later returned to the University of Heidelberg where he picked up where he left off and became a successful scholar. Weber and Marx’s legacy has left a lasting impact on not just sociology, but society, including economics and philosophy.

Karl Marx’s work was closely related to the ideals of communism. One of Karl Marx’s theories regarding society was that the history of society was based on the driving force of how people relate to one another in their attempt to create a livelihood in nature. Throughout history, this is a prominent part of it because, according to Johnathon Wolff of Stanford University, “Class struggles were always present”.

Karl Marx also focused heavily on the concept of ‘alienation’. Alienation is a condition in which society is dominated by forces that they themselves have created (Gundraker, n.d.). Marx suspected that alienation was demonstrated in our capitalistic society in four ways. One way is that man is alienated from the object he produces. Another way is that we are alienated from the process of production. Finally, the last two ways we are alienated in our capitalistic society is that we are alienated from ourselves and our fellow coworkers (OpenLearn, 2002). Marx believed that capitalism was very alienating and that it would be replaced by communism eventually. Marx described society as one full of competition and made clear the conflict between society’s interests and our interests. He also believed that in a capitalistic society trust would be hard to maintain, and in order to resolve this, private property should be abolished in order to create a true community and avoid this inevitable conflict (OpenLearn, 2002).

Max Weber believed that society was based on ‘verstehen’, otherwise known as the German word meaning ‘understanding’. Max Weber’s work focused mainly on the ‘ideal type’. This served as a measurement system for him to compare society’s current situation versus the ideal situation (Sung Ho, 2019). He used this method to compare the current bureaucracy we use today to the ideal one. After researching and comparing bureaucracies, he concluded that bureaucracies may be useful, but they were ultimately dysfunctional and depersonalized modern society (Kalberg, 2010). He also used the ‘ideal type’ to study how authority is gained and transferred.

After his thorough research, he concluded that there are three forms of authority in use in society. The first type is traditional authority which is found in older societies and is based on tradition. Basically, the leader of a traditional authority is someone that society follows because he or she continues to respect the ways of the past (Kolko, 1959). The second type is charismatic authority which is where society follows someone who they believe has extraordinary ability and tremendous appeal. A leader in this type of authority is most likely an extrovert with an approachable personality. The third type of authority discussed by Weber is rational-legal authority which is based on rules that have been legally enacted or entrusted by a contract. A great number of leaders that we have today are based on this type of authority (Kalberg, 2010).

Both Karl Marx and Max Weber are sociologists who have made a lasting impact on our lives, and without their research and hard work, we would not have to society that we live in today. Karl Marx and Max Weber are recognized as two of the most prominent theorists of the 19th century. Many might argue that there are many similarities between these sociologist’s theories, however although Marx and Weber both examined similar ideas, they came to two drastically different conclusions. Although these theorists have two different ways of approaching society, they still have some similarities in their works. For example, one similarity that could be drawn is that Marx and Weber both believed capitalism to be largely based on irrationality. Both try to understand this irrationality through the medium of religion, although it differs in significance. Max Weber argues that religion is the key to explaining the origins of capitalism (Trubek, 1979). In contrast, Marx believes that religion is nothing more than a method used to spread the ruling class ideology to the working class. It could be suggested that the arguments that Marx and Weber made, somewhat parallel each other; the main difference which sets them apart is that in Weber’s opinion God dominates the individual’s actions, whereas in Marx’s argument capital controls their actions. Although they shared similarities, their theories were still drastically different.

Karl Marx believed in a true community where there was no competition for resources, and everyone had equal access to everything. Karl Marx may be known for this communistic theory, but communism was not the end goal. He believed that, communism would be replaced with a classless society in which every person was in complete harmony with one another (Scaff, 2011). On the other hand, Max Weber believed that society just had not reached its ‘ideal type’. Weber’s work focused on the understanding of one another and society which led to the creation of the different types of authority present in our society today (Sung Ho, 2019). Another difference between the two sociologists is that Marx tends to focus on economic influences and Weber tends to focus on political. Marx argued that power is concentrated in the ruling class who use their power to exploit the public. Marxism admits the importance of the state but argues that the state promotes the interests of the ruling class in order to keep the wealthy happy (Scaff, 2011). In contrast, Weber focuses on the political and generalizes it to the economic. He emphasized that economics alone could not explain the class system.

There are many differences between Marx and Weber’s views on social class. Firstly, Marx puts a huge emphasis on structures that he believed to govern behavior including the ‘modes of production’ that he believed social classes were defined by. In comparison, Weber argued that such structures were unimportant in defining social classes and believed they were a result of individual’s behavior. Secondly, Marx argues that social groups are created around class alone. Weber criticizes this view due to Marx’s view being unable to define groups based around inequality. Weber argues that other factors are involved in the formation of social groups. Finally, Marx’s view is that class relations are based on economic exploitation, whereas Weber argues that class relations are more dominance based and economic conflicts are only a struggle between the dominant person and the inferior person (Sung Ho, 2019).

In conclusion, these two prominent, yet different sociologists made a mark on society that is still a part of our lives today.