Classical Theories of Work:

Marx, Durkheim, and Weber

GS 221; Term 141
Department of General Studies,
King Fahd Univ. of Petroleum & Minerals
By Dr. Sumanto Al Qurtuby

Classical Theories of Work

The gang of three (i.e. principal architect) of modern social sciences:

Karl Marx (Germany, 1818 1883)

Emile Durkheim (France, 1858 1917)

Max Weber (Germany, 1864 1920)

A Brief Overview

The three corners of a triangle: whereas Marx concerned himself with

social fragmentation, disintegration, and conflict, Durkheim focused on,
and sought to extend, social solidarity, integration, and control. Weber
developed his theory of rationality and bureaucracy.

Unlike Weber who emphasized the significant role of agency, both Marx
and Durkheim adopted structural arguments that delimited the influence
and impact of individuals upon society and social change.

Webers individualist sociology was demarcated from the approaches of

Marx and Durkheim, who were supporters of anti-individualist
methodology.

While Marx disavowed industrialization as the primary explanatory of

axis of society, Durkheim supported it.

Marx: A Glance

Profession: journalist, philosopher, sociologist, historian, economist,

activist, and revolutionary socialist

Education: University of Bonn, University of Berlin, and University of

Jena

Family background: Jews, Christians, and a wealthy-middle class

family BUT Marx himself never ran a company, never held political
office, and never had a jobthroughout his life was supported by his
close friend: Friedrich Engels.

Countries influenced by Marxism: Soviet Union (1922), PRC (1949).

Notable Publications: The German Ideology, The Communist Manifesto

(with Friedrich Engels), and Das Capital, most of which were anticapitalism and became the main basis for the ideology of Marxism.

Marxs Main Ideas (1)

Primary concepts (among others): class struggle, humans nature of

conflict, objectification, alienation, hegemony, materialist
conception of history, and exploitation of worker.

Marxism: a philosophy, worldview, and method of societal analysis

that emphasizes (1) class relations, (2) societal conflict, (3)
materialist interpretation of historical development, and (4)
dialectical view of social transformation.

Marxs main and initial concern was an analysis of early industrial

capitalism in England.

Marx was one of early figures of conflict school in sociology that

concerned about analyses of social fragmentation, disintegration,
and conflict in the society.

Marxs Main Ideas (2)

Marx's theories about society, economics, and politicscollectively

known as Marxismhold that human societies progress through class
struggle which is a conflict between an ownership class that controls
production and a dispossessed laboring class that provides the labor
for production.

Capitalism produced internal tensions which would lead to its selfdestruction and replacement by a new system: socialism, namely a
social system under which the necessaries of production are owned,
controlled, and administered by the people and for the people.

Class antagonisms under capitalism between the bourgeoisie and

proletariat would result in the working class' conquest of political
power and eventually establish a classless society or communism.

Marxs Main Ideas (3)

For Marx, the capitalist pattern (capitalism) is more important than

industrial process (industrialism), because only capitalism carries within it
the seeds of its own destruction and the adumbration (foreshadow) of
communism.

Why capitalism and not industrialism? Because for Marx, industrialism

produces objectification, while capitalism creates alienation.

Objectification is the product of human labor on raw materials; it embodies

the producers creativity and yet remains separate from the producer. Thus,
for Marx, some form of production is essential for humanity. However,
where the system of production is capitalist, namely where the means of
production are owned by a minority, where the majority own only their
labor power, and where production is for profit through a commodity
market, the result is not objectification but alienation.

Marx on working conditions under

early capitalism

Workers must do detailed

work.

Separation of mental and

manual labor.

Monotony (boredom) of
routine, repeated tasks.

Labor not creative but

merely concerned with
possession.

Marx on Work

Ideal work: get self-realization through work no matter

what kind of work it is; work as a personal necessity.

Labor for Marx is a source of anti-humanism and

exploitation (of the laborer).

Exploitation: a disequilibrium between work and wages;

the value of labor is added to the product and the wage
given to the laborer does not correspond with this value.
Therefore, Marx stipulated that an invisible surplus
value is taken by the capitalist.

Type of Alienation (1)

Workers are alienated from the products they make. Since the
products are appropriated by the capitalist class, the
commodities produced are no longer in the control of the
worker. And the more things the worker produces, the less
value they haveand thus the value of the work decreases.

Workers are alienated from their own work. Work is supposed

to be human nature, however, under capitalism, work turns out
to be a coercive commodity paid for in abstract. The alienation
from the act of production itself (deviates from human nature),
such that work comes to be a meaningless activity, offering
little or no intrinsic satisfactions

Type of Alienation (2)

Humans are alienated (estranged) from other humans because

capitalism reduces labor to a commodity to be traded on the
market, rather than a social relationship (i.e. social
relationship changed into market relationship; competitors).

Worker are alienated from species-being or from humanity

and human potential. Note: humans, unlike nonhuman
animals, have a consciousness and a will. They have a
conscious life activity, and in this activity, humans express
free activity. Being self-conscious and making ones own life
activity as the essence of humanity.

Marx on Outcomes of Alienation

The more the worker produces, the less he has to consume;

The more value he creates, the more worthless he becomes;
The more his product is shaped, the more misshapen
(deform) the worker;
The more civilized his object, the more barbarous the
worker;
The more powerful the work, the more powerless the
worker;
The more intelligent the work, the duller the worker and
the more he becomes a slave of nature.

Alienation: Examples

Emile Durkheim

Durkheim: A Glance

Sociologist, social psychologist, and philosopher; along

with Marx and Weber, Durkheim was dubbed the father of
sociology; set up the first European department of
sociology; and Frances first professor of sociology.

Fields: philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and religious

studies

Family backgrounds: Jews; Durkheims father,

grandfather, and great-grandfather were rabbis. However,
Durkheim decided not to follow his familys footsteps,
preferring a secular education to a rabbinical school.

Durkheims Major Work

Suicide (1897): explores the differing suicide rates among Protestant

and Catholics, arguing that stronger social control among Catholics
result in lower suicide rates.

The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912): identify social

origin and function of religion as well as classify the links between
certain religions in different cultures aiming at finding commonality of
religions that goes beyond the concept of spirituality.

The Division of Labour in Society (1893): depict how social order is

maintained in societies based on two differing forms of solidarity,
namely mechanical and organic solidarity, in which the former
characterizes primitive / non-industrial society while the later
modern / industrial society.

Durkheims Main Concerns

Durkheim was concerned primarily with three following objectives:

First, to establish sociology as a new academic discipline.

Second, to analyze how societies could maintain their integrity and

coherence in the modern era, when things such as traditional, social,
personal, and religious ties, as well as shared ethnic background and
traditions as commonly practiced in the primitive societies could
no longer be assumed; accordingly, to that end, Durkheim wrote
much about the effect of laws, religion, and education on society and
social integration.

Third, to study and understand the practical implications of scientific

knowledge.

Durkheims Major Concepts (1)

Sociology should become a distinctive, autonomous, legitimate science

that has its own methodology, apart from philosophy or psychology.

There is in every society a certain group of phenomena that might be

differentiated from others those studied by natural sciences.

A fundamental sociology is to discover social facts; thereby sociology is

the science of social facts, namely a term to depict phenomena
material (e.g. physical objects such as a flag that has immaterial social
facts) or immaterial (e.g. meanings, sentiments, norms, etc.)that have
an existence in and of themselves and are not bound to the actions of
individuals, but have a coercive influence upon individuals that compose
society (examples: social institutions, formal laws, customary laws,
regulations, religious rituals, family norms, etc.).

Durkheims Major Concepts (2)

Humans are intrinsically egoistic, but norms, beliefs, and values (i.e.
collective consciousness) shape the moral basis of the society, resulting in
social unity and integration.

Collective consciousness, the totality of beliefs, norms, values, and

sentiments common to the average members of a society, forms a
determinate system with a life of its own. Through collective or common
consciousness human beings become aware of one another as social beings.

In a socio-evolutionary approach, Durkheim described the evolution of

societies from mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity. As the
societies become more complex, evolving from mechanical to organic
solidarity, the division of labor is counteracting and replacing collective
consciousness.

Durkheims Major Concepts (3)

In industrial-modern societies, solidarity was not disintegrated or

dismantled due to transition to industrial life, but rather being
reconstructed in a different form.

For Durkheim, modern industrial society actively freed people

from isolation and alienation by encouraging mutual dependence
through the growing division of labor.

Unlike Marx who argued that the industrial division of labor

isolated and alienated human beings, Durkheim was interested in
finding the consequences of a complex and advanced system of the
division of labor on the cohesion and solidarity of societies.

Durkheims Major Concept (4)

Durkheims contribution to the sociology of work

is basically derived from The Division of Labor.
Written as his doctoral thesis, the book grapples
with the issue of social solidarity and social
cohesion during a time of rapid social and
economic transition.

Durkheim disagreed with the popular assumptions

of the collapse of social life due to increasing
division of labor in industrial societies and
urbanization of life. For him, each society has a
mechanism to consolidate and adapt with the new
social life and milieus.

Durkheims Major Concepts (5)

Mechanical solidarity: a type of social solidarity that existed in

very simple-traditional societies in which individuals were
integrated into society through the collective consciousness
(common conscience).

Organic solidarity: a type of social solidarity that existed in

modern industrial societies in which individuals were
integrated through the increasing division of labor.

No necessary correlation between increased specialization (as

manifested in the complex division of labor in industrial
society) and decreasing solidarity.

Max Weber (Germany, 1864 1920)

Profession: sociologist, philosopher, political

economist, and lawyer.

Education: University of Heidelberg and University

of Berlin. His doctoral thesis was on legal history in
Italian cities.

Family background: Jews; his father (Max Weber,

Sr.) was a wealthy and prominent civil servant and
a member of the National Liberal Party.

Major work: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirits of

Capitalism; The Religion of China; The Religion of
India; Economy and Society, among others.

Webers Major Concepts (1)

Webers work and ideas are often assumed to be a dialogue with the
ghost of Marx, albeit most of his dialogue was with contemporary
Marxists rather than with the works of Marx.

Webers contribution to the sociology of work lies in several but

disparate fields: (1) his theory of social stratification, (2) his
interpretative methodology, and (3) his arguments concerning the
rise of rationality, the nature of bureaucracy, and the form of
bureaucratic control, all of which embrace criticisms of Marxist
perspectives.

Emphasize the role of individual agency and its influences on

societies, social structure, and social change.

Webers Major Concepts (2)

Webers trilogy of power (i.e. social stratification): class, status, and

party. While classes fought over economic issues and status groups
contested the distribution of social honor, parties operated at all levels and
across all boundaries of class and status. The actual divisions of the three
are notoriously slippery, though Weber implies that parties attempt to
reconstruct the status quo, whereas class and status groups generally reflect
the status quo.

Three types of class: (1) property class, (2) commercial / acquisition class,
and (3) social class, all of which are determined by their power within an
economic order, capital ownership, and market situation. Hence those who
dont have access to economy, capital, and market (e.g. slaves, unpaid
domestic workers, unemployment, etc.) exclude from class category.

Webers Major Concepts (3)

Social class: occupationally based and distinguishes between the

Working Class of labor sellers, the Lower Middle Class of small
shopkeepers, etc., the Intelligentsia with little property but
technical qualifications, and Privileged Class who owe their
superordinate position to property ownership or education or
both.

The groups of status, the distribution of social honor or social

esteem, are not identical with class groups. Status groups were
usually determined by lifestyle, formal education, hereditary, or
occupational prestige. In some cases, class provides the material
wherewithal for the provision of status symbols.

Webers Major Concepts (4)

Contemporary society is increasingly grounded in the symbolic and

material advance of rationality.

The principle physical manifestations of rationality took three related

forms: capitalism, rational jurisprudence, and bureaucracy. However,
the essence of the concept consisted of three facets, namely
secularization, calculability, and the growth of ethics oriented to
means, not ends.

The rise of rationality means the decline of magical interpretations

and explanations of the world, and the gradual elimination of all
mysteries, as science exploded more and more mythical assumptions.

Webers Major Concepts (5)

The rise of rationality also meant the

replacement of affective and traditional
action with rational action. People act
because of calculation of benefits outweighed
the cost OR of efficiency of achieving the
goals.

Contemporary society also obey rules

because they appear to be built upon rational
principles and common sense. For Weber, the
foremost example of this form of authority is,
of course, bureaucracy.

Webers Major Concepts (6)

Bureaucracy (i.e. the administrative system governing any,

usually large, institution) predated the rise of capitalism (i.e.
patrimonial bureaucracies of the Roman, Byzantine, and
Egyptian empires). However, the bureaucracy was not structured
around the rational principles (e.g. free contract, fixed salaries, and
delimited spheres of competence).

The primary elements of modern bureaucracy include (1) an

abstract, legal code of conduct; (2) individual scopes of
competence structured within a hierarchy of offices; (3) the nonownership of offices; (4) selection and promotion through
qualifications and proven ability; and (5) fixed salaries with other
benefits.

Webers Major Concepts (7)

The essential points of bureaucracy are twofold: legal (it operates

on the basis of legitimate procedures) and rational (it operates
on the principles of expert knowledge and calculability).

Two contrasting sides of bureaucracy. First, it constitutes the most

efficient and rational way in which human activity can be organized,
and that systematic processes and organized hierarchies were
necessary to maintain order, maximize efficiency and eliminate
favoritism and nepotism. Second, it has potential to threaten
individual freedom, in which an increase in the bureaucratization of
human life can trap individuals in an "iron cage" of rule-based,
rational control.

Webers Major Concept (8)

The connection between rational capitalism and

Protestant ethic (esp. Calvinism).

Capitalism evolved when the Protestant ethic

influenced a large number of people to engage in
work in the secular world, developing their
own enterprises and innovations, and engaging in
trade and the accumulation of wealth for
investment. Thus the Protestant ethic was a
driving force for modern capitalism in Europe.

The Protestant (Calvinist) doctrine and concept of

predestination that eventually led to the rise of
rational capitalism.

Concluding Remarks

Assessment, appreciation,
and criticism on Marx,
Durkheim, and Weber.

The intellectual and

ideological offspring of
Marx, Durkheim, and
Weber.