Introduction to

Sociology
Lecture 4
Different theoretical approaches to society
Karl Marx
Dr. Feyda Sayan Cengiz
 Recap from last week
• Major theoretical approaches to explain society and social change
• Durkheim - Sociology as a science – Studying social facts
• His question: What holds societies together?
• Collective consciousness
• Division of labor – evolution of division of labor from pre-industrial to industrial societies
• Mechanical – based on similarity of actors
• Organic – based on difference of actors (where does solidarity come from then?)
• Anomie
• Types of suicide
 How/in what way have societies changed?
What happens to people when societies
change?
• Two different theoretical approaches and explanations proposed by two
figures
• Durkheim: The way in which society holds together changes – from
mechanical to organic solidarity – that is what’s new
• Marx: The change in mode of production and a new form of class conflict
– that is what’s new
 Karl Marx

Lived btw 1818- 1883

German

Education – Law and philosophy

Contributions to many different disciplines: Philosophy,

economy, political science, sociology
 Marx – Focus on conflict and power relations

• Contrary to Durkheim, Marx focuses on the inequalities, power relations and

class conflict in societies
• What are the inequalities after the Industrial Revolution? What kind of social
conflict is there?
 Marx and “class conflict”
• With the Industrial Revolution, the dominant “mode of production” changed. Now there
are factories and mass production.
• The Industrial Revolution changes societies: A lot of people are working in factories as
industrial workers
• There are rich factory owners, they are the capitalists who own and operate factories. They
want to have more profit.
• Marx observed the conditions of workers in Britain at the heyday of Industrial Revolution
• There is a lot of wealth accumulating because of mass production
• But there is also growing inequality in how wealth is shared
 Marx and class conflict
• There have always been inequalities in the history, (like slaves and their owners)
• According to Marx, in the modern society  the major inequality is between capitalists
(the bourgeoisie) and the proletariat
• Capitalists - bourgeoisie: People who own and operate factories (means of production) to
gain profits
• Proletariat - proletarians: People who sell their labor for wages – they are not slaves, they are
free to sell their labor
• Class conflict: The conflict in capitalist society is between capitalists (bourgeoisie) and
proletariat, according to Marx
• Capitalists  exploit proletariat to maximize profits and gain surplus value
 Marx and alienation
• What happens to workers in this system? Alienation
• Alienation: The experience of isolation and misery resulting from
powerlessness.
• Acc to Marx, human nature is productive – It is human nature to put in labor
and enjoy the products of labor
• Under capitalism, their labor becomes a “commodity” – sold and bought for
a certain amount of wage. This leads to alienation
 Marx and alienation
Under capitalism, workers experience what Marx calls alienation
• Alienation from the act of working : Work loses its meaning in the worker’s life – no
development of personal potential. No part in decision making
• Alienation from products of work : The worker only performs a very limited task –
does not know about the whole product
• Alienation from other workers: Bonds are broken, there is competition
• Alienation from human potential : Physical and mental energies are exhausted
 Marx as a materialist
• Economy, the change in economic relations, the change in mode of
production  Also changes social relations, acc to Marx.

• Infrastructure – the economy

• Infrastructure (economy) determines social institutions , ideas and values -
superstructure.
 Marx and class conflict
• So what will happen in the future of capitalism, according to Marx?
• There will be fewer and fewer, bigger capitalists
• A lot of more people will become poorer, and there will be more
proletarians – The proletariat class will grow
• The inequality between capitalists and proletarians will be sharper
• Workers will move from “false consciousness” to “class consciousness” and
make a revolution