Sociology: Marx, Weber and Research Approach When Essay

Sociology: Marx, Weber and Research Approach

When Karl Marx observed how the Industrial Revolution, with its new capitalist economic system, was affecting society and social life, he was especially concerned with the division industrialization brought into society. In his view, this new revolution polarized society into the bourgeoisie (those who own the means of production, the factories and the land) and the much larger proletariat (the working class who actually perform the labor necessary to extract something valuable from the means of production.)

In Marx's view, industrial capitalism presented many flaws as they went against certain implicit values that Marx based his own philosophy upon including: universal ethical values, which he believed were hindered by the presence of capitalism and the dimension it brought into the workforce and political atmosphere of the time.

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While Marx found the idea of industrial capitalism segregating in terms of society, he viewed the entire situation as an inevitable bridge into a progression towards socialism and then communism, which was the ultimate goal in his mind. For Marx, industrial capitalism was a mere hurdle in the face of the possibility of a post-capitalist society that had been emancipated from the shackles of industrial capitalism. He viewed the time to come as a communist utopia

Marx believed that the only positive side to the progression of industrial capitalism was the fact that society would soon understand that their past existences, which revolved around more human, social, and cultural forms, had now been destroyed by the inclusion of a class-dominated society that would exploit the worker and benefit the upper class. With this realization, Marx believed that the worker would rise up in support of forming the communist utopia, free of class restrictions and the exploitation of the common man.

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While Max Weber held his own views on the Industrial Revolution and the dawning age of industrial capitalism, his views were much different than those of Karl Marx. Weber has long been viewed as being torn between his own bourgeois condition and his intellectual identity, often sensitive to the arguments of the romantic, anti-capitalism thinkers that were so influential to him. In viewing Weber's opinion of the Industrial Revolution itself, Weber's main concern was the rationalization and bureaucratization of society that stemmed from this revolution. He believed that such changes within society would bring about significant changes in both humanity's agency…