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The class struggle is one of the most discussed issues of philosophers and politicians. This question is not considered a problem, but a stage or a phase that is to be experienced by society.
Society was divided into certain groupings according to different factors including social status; every epoch has its specific characteristics from the point of view of the class arrangement, but all of them indicate the subordinate gradations (Calhoun 97).
Karl Marx is one of the authors and ideologists of the class struggle theory. The class struggle in the general sense is the division of the society on classes according to some income rate or level of life and wealth. But Karl Marx has divided society into classes according to the position of people in the chain of production, their relations towards the process of production.
This class division is the peculiarity of the capitalistic regime. Thus according to the Marxian theory, society is divided into two main classes; the other people who do not belong clearly to one of these classes form the golden mean and are considered members of both major classes.
Karl Marx claims that he and his contemporaries are the representatives of the epoch of the bourgeoisie and that this very society “has simplified the class antagonisms” (Calhoun 97). However, the society which is divided into specific class groups cannot be considered to have any class struggle.
The anomie can be decided to represent rational social action because the division of the society onto the classes is one of the characteristics of the society and the state. The existence of these two notions is impossible without class division; whereas class division would inevitably cause the class struggle. That is why anomie is considered a rational social action and is the result of the development of society and the state.
According to the ideas represented by the great philosopher Emile Durkheim, the class struggle is not only due to the anomie as the rational social action, but also the result of unequal proportions of the required and received means.
The world of animals does not possess this quality because all the representatives have equal rights and need material conditions to live. Thus there are some additional aspects for the existence of human beings, they are the moral ones. “A regulative force must play the same role for moral needs which the organism plays for physical needs” (Calhoun 195).
As a result of the satisfaction of the moral needs, the individual is free to do anything he/she wants. But at this point, we can assume that life cannot continue forever, because the individual can live only having some physical and moral needs and satisfying them to some extent.
Thus at the moment when the individual does not need to satisfy any physical or moral aspects of his/her life, there comes an end. Thus the author describes the existence of human beings and the reasons for their existence, including both physical and moral needs.
The work of Emile Durkheim suggests that the needs of the individual must be equal or in some way proportioned to his/her resources; “No living being can be happy or even exist unless his needs are sufficiently proportioned to his means” (Calhoun 193). Thus the requirements of the individual must be met to provide a full-fledged life satisfying physical and moral needs.
Durkheim describes several kinds of suicide committed for different reasons: the egoist one is caused by the lack of reasons for existence; altruistic suicide is caused by the location of the reasons for existence (they are beyond the life), and the anomic suicide is caused by the lack of regulation and torments. Thus the anomie is an integral part of the full-fledged society and its absence can cause anomic suicide. Durkheim insisted on the importance of society, its structure, and organization, as well as on the examination of the individuals within the society and its institutions. The lack of organization and regulation presupposes the lack of class division within the society.
The next author to be discussed is Max Weber, an English philosopher who supported the idealistic concepts about the world, universal truth, and individuals. “Most important is Weber’s distinction between class (determined by market position) and status groups (based on social honor) (Calhoun 208). Furthermore, the class theory is represented in his works within the new meaning.
The classes are considered an integral part of society. According to Max Weber, society is divided into classes taking into consideration two principles: the market position and the social status. “The degree in which ‘social action’ and possibly associations emerge from the mass behavior of the members of the class is linked to general cultural conditions, especially to those of an intellectual sort” (Calhoun 250).
Thus the division into the classes is explained by the great philosopher as the common structure of society from the point of view of social status as the society is divided into the classes according to the level of honor in this particular society, and the market position as the individuals are members of the society possessing economic characteristics.
The three authors are known for their attitude to the class division of society and their attempts to explain the reasonability of this division. Thus there are some similarities and differences in their theories of class division and class struggle.
Thereby Karl Marx represents the two major classes of the society without taking into consideration the minor part of the society members that possess features of both major classes.
According to the theory of Max Weber, society is divided into classes, but while Marx introduces only two classes indicated by the relation of the individual towards the production means, Weber introduces two principles of division, which represent the one described by Marx and the other is the result of social inequality.
According to the theory of Emile Durkheim our desires do not always coincide with our facilities, this disproportion leads to the development of the class division. Durkheim considers the class struggle in the context of society; meanwhile, Max Weber represents the theory of the class division in the context of the individual without taking into consideration the society and relations of individuals within the society.
Class division is an integral part of the development of society and the state. The classes constitute the society; the only difference which presupposes the theoretical approaches lies in the principles of division and the explanation of reasonability by different thinkers.
Works Cited
Calhoun, Craig J., and Joseph Gerteis, and James Moody, and Steven Pfaff, and Indermohan Virk. Classical Sociological Theory. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007.
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