Marx Durkheim Weber
Devin Young
Marx, Durkheim, and Weber: Understanding Modernity’s Implications on the Evolution of Labor
The nature of modernity is grounded in the exploration of social change by Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber. Each theorist discovered a distinct link between history and society, creating separate theories based on their unique situations in the face of the emerging modern, capitalistic world. Their concepts of Alienation, Anomie, and Rationalization find the division of labor a key component of social change but see differently the way in which labor participated and evolved at the hands of social conflict.
According to Marx, the division of labor helps to fuel modernity but is ultimately a product of capitalism; therefore capitalism is the nature of modernity. To Marx, capitalism is a system of commodity production, where exchange value becomes top priority for its success. The bourgeoisie learn to strive to increase profits by any means necessary and eventually exploit the labor of the working man, giving way to Marx’s concept of Alienation. A worker becomes alienated from his product of labor at the beginning of the process of alienation, “the more objects the worker produces, the less he can possess and the more he falls under the domination of his product, capital” (Marx 16). Workers have no influence in the process of production besides giving away their own labor and the more he lends, the less of himself there is to give. Workers have no ownership of that which they produce but continue to lend their own life’s labor to the object and never reap the benefits of their labor. They are only able to view their creation as something foreign and strange from themselves. Eventually the worker loses sight of himself as there is no room for an individual expression in the market as the market is communal, dependent upon workers co-operating with other workers. Once man cannot distinguish himself from one another, he becomes replaceable by any other
Marx, Durkheim, and Weber: Understanding Modernity’s Implications on the Evolution of Labor
The nature of modernity is grounded in the exploration of social change by Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber. Each theorist discovered a distinct link between history and society, creating separate theories based on their unique situations in the face of the emerging modern, capitalistic world. Their concepts of Alienation, Anomie, and Rationalization find the division of labor a key component of social change but see differently the way in which labor participated and evolved at the hands of social conflict.
According to Marx, the division of labor helps to fuel modernity but is ultimately a product of capitalism; therefore capitalism is the nature of modernity. To Marx, capitalism is a system of commodity production, where exchange value becomes top priority for its success. The bourgeoisie learn to strive to increase profits by any means necessary and eventually exploit the labor of the working man, giving way to Marx’s concept of Alienation. A worker becomes alienated from his product of labor at the beginning of the process of alienation, “the more objects the worker produces, the less he can possess and the more he falls under the domination of his product, capital” (Marx 16). Workers have no influence in the process of production besides giving away their own labor and the more he lends, the less of himself there is to give. Workers have no ownership of that which they produce but continue to lend their own life’s labor to the object and never reap the benefits of their labor. They are only able to view their creation as something foreign and strange from themselves. Eventually the worker loses sight of himself as there is no room for an individual expression in the market as the market is communal, dependent upon workers co-operating with other workers. Once man cannot distinguish himself from one another, he becomes replaceable by any other
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