UNDERSTANDING CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGY

SECOND EDITION

UNDERSTANDING CLASSICAL
SOCIOLOGY
Marx
Weber
Durkheim

John A. Hughes
Wes W. Sharrock
Peter J. Martin
© 2003 John A. Hughes, W.W. Sharrock and Peter J. Martin

First published 1995. Reprinted in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
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or otherwise, without permission in writing from the Publishers.

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 Contents
Preface

1 Introduction
Sociology’s intellectual character
Conclusion
Select bibliography and further reading

2 Karl Marx
Biography and social background
Early years: the critique of Hegel’s idealism
Turning Hegel the right way up
The critique of political economy
The partnership with Engels
The materialist conception of history
The priority of society
The material basis of social organisation
Economic production and social organisation
The shaping of consciousness
The sources of social change
The nature of social change
Social revolution
The economic sources of social change
Issues of interpretation
Changes in the nature of capitalism
Conclusion: Marx’s legacy
Select bibliography and further reading

3 Max Weber
The early career
 Weber and modern capitalism
The organisation of society
Capitalism, rationality and social change
The methodological Weber
The legacy
Select bibliography and further reading

4 Émile Durkheim
The study of social action
The reality of society
The unity of society
Autonomy and constraint
The solidarity of society
Thought and society
The diagnosis of society
The aftermath
Select bibliography and further reading

5 Conclusion
Towards a postmodern Marx?
The Durkheimian legacy
Which Weber?
Concluding remarks

References
Index
 Preface

As with the first edition of this book, the second has taken longer than we
envisaged and again we need to thank Sage for their forbearance and
patience. In this case a major reason for the delay was preparing the
companion volume, Understanding Modern Sociology, a no less formidable
challenge than producing this book for the first time. As always, trying to
state complex ideas as clearly as possible, making sure that we had
reasonably covered all the arguments and debates, were considerable tasks.
As we said in the original edition, what prompted the idea for a book of
this kind was the feeling that many of our students had insufficient
knowledge of the classic thinkers and had, in effect and in no small part due
to the urgings of ‘postmodernist’ thinkers, given up on the idea of a
sociological tradition. Although, as ‘sociological dinosaurs’, we felt not a
little aggrieved at such neglect, we also felt that the sociological tradition
was itself an important source of these new ideas and arguments and
ignoring it could only impoverish understanding. As we have said many
times, sociology is, among other things, an argumentative discipline without
settled principles, no theories that all would subscribe to and no methods of
research which would receive universal assent. What there is, instead, is a
tradition of ideas which try to formulate the idea of the social as a topic of
systematic inquiry and, moreover, despite well over a century of effort, this
attempt continues.
Another reason for the seeming neglect of the classic thinkers, as we said
in the Preface to the first edition, is that in recent years efforts to
reconfigure disciplines into more appealing disciplinary packages have
blurred what were the already vague boundaries of the discipline even
more. We do not object to such efforts (after all, we earn much of our bread
and butter in teaching on them) but we do want to note the extent to which
there is a danger of the sociological tradition becoming lost. There is, too,
and as already noted, the influence of ‘postmodernist’ thinking which tends
to underplay the achievements of such as Marx, Weber and Durkheim as no
longer relevant to a postmodern era. Whatever the merits or otherwise of
such arguments, it is important to remind ourselves that they are but the
product of one point of view within sociology and, what is more, a point of
view which has a close affinity with the concerns which motivated these
classic thinkers.
However, and despite the fact that we still share the above concerns, the
sales of the first edition have far exceeded our anticipations. If this means a
renewed interest in the sociological tradition, then all well and good, though
we do not claim that this book necessarily has had much to do with such a
shift, although we would like to think that it has helped in its own small
way. We have always held that sociology is a great deal harder than it is
often made out to be. As we said before, and as our exposition will try to
make clear, Marx, Weber and Durkheim each spent much of their respective
lives trying to formulate ways in which the social could be made the subject
of disciplined inquiry. That they failed to settle this once and for all is a
measure not of their overambition but of the great difficulty of the task.
The major substantial changes to the text are contained in the final
concluding chapter. Wisely or not, we felt that updating the various
commentaries on the three thinkers might better be served by comparing
them a little more directly in light of contemporary themes in social
thought. We have also taken the opportunity to be a little more opinionated
and argumentative than we allowed ourselves to be in the substantive
chapters and in the first edition. Changes to the separate chapters are minor
except that the sections on Hegel in Chapter 2 have been extensively
rewritten to make them, or so we hope, clearer not only as an account of
Hegel’s thought but also his influence on Marx himself.
Inevitably there are a number of people to thank for their generous help
and advice during the progress of this book. In addition to those mentioned
in the original volume we would like to thank Karen, Cath, Claire and
Penny, all at Lancaster, who made sure that other commitments, such as
teaching, meetings, TQAs, RAEs, mission statements, learning outcomes,
etc., were met as the months dragged on. Thanks, too, to Mark who
shouldered a considerable research burden. Also, thanks for a variety of
services rendered by the regulars of the John O’ Gaunt, the Grafton and the
Selbourne; to Tina, Yvonne, Margaret and, finally but not least, to all our
sociological colleagues.
 Introduction 1

BEGINNING CHAPTER ONE

In this chapter we will outline the main background themes which concerned the classic writers,
Marx, Durkheim and Weber. These themes were preoccupations in social thought from the
beginning of the 19th century and include:

Sociology’s intellectual character and the ideas which played an important part in
formulating the very idea of sociology as a discipline.
Sociology’s critique of individualism and its ‘conservative’ reaction against the
Enlightenment.
Sociology as a science.
Understandings of the nature of society.
The relationship between sociology and history.

It may seem strange to be offering an exposition of the ideas of Marx,

Weber and Durkheim in an era when, so it is argued by some in the
discipline, the ‘grand narratives’ of thought, as Lyotard (1984) terms
overarching theoretical schemes, have lost their validity. New identities,
new forms of knowledge, new patterns of social relationships, new sources
of division, and more, are all forcing a break, it is claimed, with a past
shaped by modes of thought originating over three hundred years ago
during the Enlightenment. Marx, Weber and Durkheim are Victorian
scholars and it is perhaps hard to grasp that they have anything of relevance
to say to a world which has dramatically changed since their time.
Of course, there has always been a prominent strand in sociological
thought which is sensitive to the idea that the world or the discipline, most
often both, is in an impending state of crisis. Indeed, a strong case can be
made that such a sense was critical in the very formation of the discipline in
the early nineteenth century as industrialism began to effect major changes
in patterns of life throughout Europe. Later in that century, a young French
philosophy teacher was particularly concerned with what he saw as the
growing instability of social life. Long-established values and ways of life
seemed to be breaking down as industrialisation and urbanisation
transformed the society of his day. Where once the authority of church and
monarchy had gone unquestioned, there now seemed to be no authority
which could hold society together. Employers and workers confronted each
other with undisguised hostility, rates of crime were rising and individuals
tended to see each other simply as means to achieve their own selfish ends.
Suicides, too, were increasing as the old links to family and community
grew weaker. The young Frenchman, says one commentator, was ‘haunted
by the thought that modern society … was a fragile affair, a potentially
unstable mix of elements that was always on the verge of dissolving into
chaos’. His writings were an effort to try to understand how this state of
affairs had arisen so that it could be put right, stressing the ‘urgency of this
task, as though he saw himself in a race against time with the gathering
forces of anarchy’ (Parkin, 1992: 59). The worried young thinker was Émile
Durkheim, who addressed these problems in his first major work, On the
Division of Labour in Society, published in 1893. The same kind of
concerns that engaged Durkheim then are ones that have provoked
‘communitarianism’ (Etzioni, 1998) and arguments about the necessity for,
and loss of, trust (Fukuyama, 1999) in recent years.
In Durkheim, we see not only a motivation for sociological thinking
drawn from a sense of impending crisis, but also a formulation of what is,
with strong justification, the central question of sociology itself, namely:
how is social order possible? Although, and as we shall see, there are many
different ways of formulating this question, as well as different answers, it
is perhaps to Marx, Weber and Durkheim that we owe the greatest debt for
the most systematic attempts to set out just how the question might be
addressed; ideas which are of enduring concern and relevance. When
poststructuralists tell us, for example, that ‘authors’ are not really free,
autonomous and creative spirits, but people whose words and thoughts bear
the imprint of the social context in which they live, they are reviving a
theme which was fundamental in Durkheim’s work. When the
postmodernists insist that we must abandon ‘metanarratives’, that is, the
great theoretical schemes which attempt to comprehend vast tracts of
reality, we are hearing echoes of Weber’s contention that such schemes are,
indeed, unsustainable and that all knowledge is limited, provisional and
generated only from a particular point of view. Examples could, we believe,
be multiplied. The point, however, is that the issues confronted by these
classic sociological theorists, and the ideas they developed from them, are
of continuing relevance for the discipline and the world which it tries to
understand.
Despite the often bewildering succession of theoretical fashions which
sociology seems heir to, the ideas of these thinkers continue to exert a
powerful if often unacknowledged influence in the discipline. But what
seems to have been lost, especially on the part of students, is an adequate
sense of what these thinkers were trying to say and, equally important, what
sociological problems they were trying to address. So much so that there is
a danger of losing sight of what current debates within the discipline are
about, where they arose and what continuities and divergences they
represent within the sociological tradition.
It would be quite wrong, of course, to imply that the voices of Marx,
Durkheim and Weber have been silenced. On the contrary. If anything, the
respect accorded to the three of them has increased over the years since they
first wrote. It was not until 1937, with the publication of Talcott Parsons’,
The Structure of Social Action, that Durkheim and Weber became firmly
established among scholars in the English-speaking world. Interest in their
thought gathered momentum with the expansion of academic sociology in
the 1950s and 1960s. Moreover, during the 1960s and 1970s there was an
intense and widespread renewal of interest in Marx’s thought. Indeed, in
preparing this second edition we naturally made a bibliographic search of
an international database of social science publications for the names Marx,
Weber and Durkheim – only of the years since 1999 – which yielded,
respectively, 315, 204, and 124 items. A further search of abstracts, texts
and topics would have inflated these numbers even more. So interest in
these classic writers remains strong if perhaps less focused, certainly as far
as teaching is concerned. We will have more to say on this issue in the
Conclusion.
Marx, Durkheim and Weber are widely, if unfortunately, regarded as the
‘founding fathers’ of modern sociology. Indeed, it would be hard to
underestimate the influence of Marx in fields such as social stratification
and mobility, education, economic development, the state, culture and
media, among others. Even non-Marxist sociologists have adopted concepts
and ideas, such as those of class and class structure, class consciousness and
alienation, in ways that are clearly derived from Marx’s writings. The
influence of Durkheim, too, has been pervasive, though more indirect.
Functionalism, for example, in both sociology and social anthropology
reflects fundamentally Durkheimian assumptions about the nature of
sociology and social life. As we shall see, the whole tradition of structuralist
thought in the twentieth century owes much to Durkheim’s later work.
Furthermore, it was Durkheim who also pioneered the use of quantitative
analysis, using statistical methods, in the investigation of society, driven by
his ambition to develop sociology as a rigorous science in place of the
speculative and impressionistic approaches of most social thinkers before
him. Weber was no less committed to the development of a social science
but, coming from a different intellectual tradition, expressed doubts about
the validity of viewing societies as structures, as wholes which had
properties independent of the elements which composed them. He also
inaugurated a tradition of ‘interpretative’ sociology which takes human
individuals, their ideas and their actions, as the starting point for
sociological analysis. Weber’s rather pessimistic conclusions about the
future of industrialised, rationalised modern societies have echoed
throughout the years, notably in the work of the Frankfurt School of critical
theorists, such as Adorno, Marcuse, Horkheimer and others, and, more
recently, in the thought of Habermas, widely regarded as their intellectual
heir. Indeed, it is from the direct and indirect influence of Marx and Weber,
prominently mediated by the Frankfurt School, that the thriving
contemporary enterprise of cultural studies has derived much of its
inspiration, and many of its themes and techniques of analysis. Further, the
process of ‘globalisation’, which currently gains so much attention and
sometimes meets with fierce opposition, can be viewed as a continuation of
long standing processes of the dynamic expansion of capitalism (as
identified by Marx) and of thoroughgoing ‘rationalisation’ of social
organisation (as emphasised by Weber).
For all these reasons, and more, the sheer extent of the influence exerted
by these three thinkers makes them essential reading for anyone seeking to
understand the nature of modern sociology as a body of thought in which
particular problems, theories and perspectives are established. It is,
however, important to bear in mind, as we have already hinted, that it is not
altogether satisfactory to regard these three as the ‘founding fathers’ of
sociology. Important as their contribution has turned out to be for sociology,
this should not, even unintentionally, obscure the importance of other
scholars. Figures such as Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923) and Herbert Spencer
(1820–1903) were influential in their day even if uncelebrated now. By
contrast, Georg Simmel (1858–1918) and George Herbert Mead (1863–
1931) are beginning to attract greater attention than they ever did in their
lifetimes or at any time since. Yet each of them played a crucial part in the
development of modern sociological thought. We resist, then, the idea that
Marx, Durkheim and Weber are to be regarded as the trinity who created
modern sociology. Nevertheless, because of their influence, and because of
the ways in which the sociological agenda continues to reflect so strongly
many of their concerns, we believe that a presentation of their ideas is a
potent way of understanding the nature of sociological thought. Each, in his
own way, exhibits the difficult analytic problems which arise from the
fundamental insight that human beings are essentially social creatures. It is
not individuals who create forms of society, Durkheim argued, but forms of
society that create individuals. The point is developed in a variety of ways,
in all styles of sociological thinking, from the great generalities of structural
Marxism to the detailed investigation of interpersonal interaction. Even
Weber, who clearly saw the danger of reducing people to mere puppets
whose strings were pulled by invisible social forces, and who wished to
preserve the idea of the autonomous individual, none the less insisted than
the actions and beliefs of such individuals could only be understood by
taking into account the specific cultural characteristics of their social
context. Indeed, one of the fundamental theoretical tasks of sociological
thought has been to try to reconcile the individual and the social, the
personal and the cultural, individual action and social structures. The issues
involved are displayed clearly, and forcefully, in the works of all three of
these thinkers as are a host of problems surrounding the debates about the
nature and form of sociological inquiry.
Of course, we acknowledge the criticism that we should not let the
assumptions and preoccupations of Dead White European Males, or
DWEMs, govern our thinking about contemporary society and social life.
Each of them, from what we know of their biographies, exhibited the
patriarchal attitudes and assumptions which were dominant in their time. It
is also evident that none of them, not even Marx, could pass contemporary
tests of ‘political correctness’ – indeed, as Francis Wheen’s (1999)
biography suggests, Marx might be the worst offender of the three. In the
same year as Wheen’s book became a bestseller, in a ‘cyber poll’ Marx was
voted thinker of the millenium. We take the view, however, that this does
not in itself invalidate their sociological ideas. These need to be judged in
terms of sociological criteria, and should stand or fall by these. However,
there are, in their works, various ideas which have relevance to
contemporary critical social thought, including the feminist critique of
patriarchal society. Marx and Engels, for example, on the way in which
capitalism depends on the unpaid but essential domestic work done by
women, or their reduction to the status of property in the context of
bourgeois family life, are cases in point. Similarly, Weber’s insistence that
not all forms of exploitation are economic, as well as his recognition of the
importance of status in social life, is useful in attempting to understand the
nature and the persistence of ethnic and gendered inequalities.
The works of these classic theorists, then, provides us with a way of
coming to understand fundamental theoretical and methodological issues
within sociology as well as a means of appreciating the intellectual
concerns which give sociology coherence as a discipline. This point is
worth emphasising at a time when several forces are combining to place
this coherence under some strain. The impact of postmodernism, for
example, and the rise of cultural studies has been to fragment sociology so
that a clear sight of its central preoccupations is in danger of being lost. As
we have already noted, one paradoxical consequence of the recent revival
of interest in general social theory has been a tendency to marginalise the
classic authors as ‘writers about modernity’ rather than about the
postmodern world which, it is argued, we currently inhabit. However, and
as we suggested earlier, many of the issues and problems engaged with by
recent theorists were, in fact, originally confronted by Marx, Durkheim and
Weber, often with a greater degree of clarity than has been customary of
late. Further, in asserting the importance of their ideas we wish also to
reassert the validity of the sociological tradition that they did so much to
establish. As we have already seen, it is a persistent, and persuasive, claim
of postmodern theorists that the era of the ‘grand narrative’, which provides
an account of all history, is over and that all knowledge is provisional and
partial. Such a view was shared by Weber. His response, however, was not
to withdraw into relativism, speculation or navel-gazing, but to begin the
elaboration of a programme which would allow for the systematic analysis
of the social world, in all its richness and complexity: a task, incidentally,
which ‘postmodernist’ writers would regard as futile. To do this, he
reasoned, it is necessary to develop a coherent perspective to guide our
investigations, and sociology itself is such a perspective, the distinctiveness
of which owes much to the works of Marx, Durkheim and Weber.
In stressing the idea of a sociological tradition we are not, at the same
time, proposing that there is the equivalent of a sociological canon; that is, a
set of principles which define the discipline and to which all practitioners
adhere. As we are at pains to point out throughout this book and its
companion volume, Understanding Modern Sociology, (Sharrock et al,
2003), sociology is not a unified discipline. If anything it is a collection of
diversified programmes each trying to work out how to undertake the
systematic analysis of social organisation, to put it as generally as we can.
Accordingly, very often the differences between sociological approaches
are about fundamental matters affecting the very nature of the discipline
and about how some of its basic concepts are to be understood – both issues
are prominent throughout the discussions to follow. Sociology has a
tradition in much the same sense we might want to say that Judaism,
Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism, among others no doubt, are part of
the Judeo-Christian tradition. The differences between them are very often
fundamental, regrettably frequently to the point of deadly rivalry, but,
nevertheless, they possess sufficient thematic commonality for us to see
them as part of a religious tradition. It is perhaps best not to take the
analogy too far, though it does capture what we mean in talking about the
sociological tradition. It is not, to reinforce the point, a claim that there are,
or even ought to be, prescriptions as to how sociology is to be done.
For now, we want to prepare for the more detailed discussion which
follows in subsequent chapters by outlining some general themes which
constitute sociology’s distinctiveness.

Sociology’s Intellectual Character

Recognisably sociological ideas have been part of the Western intellectual
tradition for centuries, certainly since the time of the first Greek
philosophers. However, it is not our purpose here to review the complete
history of social thought. What we are about is setting the scene by briefly
summarising some aspects of the European thought to which Marx,
Durkheim and Weber responded. In this respect, our starting point is the
reorientation of European intellectual life in the eighteenth century: the
Enlightenment. The authority of tradition, of religion, of custom, were all
subjected to examination by ‘Reason’ and found wanting as so much
superstition and mystification. Received wisdom was to be replaced by
scientific knowledge obtained through careful and systematically organised
inquiry and experimentation, rather than by means of mere speculation or
the unquestioned acceptance of customary beliefs. The result was the
growth of science and technology from the seventeenth century onwards,
which provided the capacity to control and exploit the environment and the
forces of nature in unprecedented ways. Indeed, it is this spirit of rational
inquiry which, it is argued, typifies the modern world.
Inevitably, it was not long before this new faith in reason and science was
seen as relevant to the organisation of human affairs. Thinkers increasingly
came to regard society and its arrangements not as matters which were
preordained and inevitable, but as things which could be changed for the
better in the interests of the general welfare. For the radical theorists of the
French Enlightenment, it was existing social institutions, notably the church
and the state, which constituted the major obstacle to the liberation of
humanity. ‘Man is born free’, wrote Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78), ‘but
is everywhere in chains’. Meanwhile in Scotland, a remarkable generation
of intellectuals, including Adam Smith (1723–90), John Millar (1735–1801)
and Adam Ferguson (1723–1816), applied their formidable powers to the
analysis of human societies. Ferguson, for example, wrote that society had a
definite structure and the relation of its parts to the whole was the ‘principal
object’ of a social science. Clearly, the development of this social science
would have just as corrosive an effect on established beliefs and ideas as
natural science had on beliefs about the natural world; perhaps more so
since the implications of the new social theorists’ ideas were to challenge
the foundations of the social and political order. The idea of God as the
supreme being was opened to doubt, the rights of monarchs to rule put to
question, and the accepted hierarchies of the traditional social order
increasingly challenged.
Of course, throughout history there have been challenges by the
dispossessed against the holders of power and privilege. These were rarely
conceived, however, as attempts to alter the shape of society itself, a shape
which was typically considered to have been divinely ordained or beyond
human capacity to alter. Such challenges were often directed at reasserting
traditional rights rather than arguing for the major restructuring of society
itself. By contrast, what the eighteenth century generated was a group of
thinkers who argued that social arrangements themselves, rather than
wickedness, ill luck or divine retribution, could be the source of human
misery and inequality. For some, as we have suggested, the conclusion to be
drawn was that society itself required radically restructuring. But how was
this to be brought about? By what principles should the new order be
organised? In order to change society it was first of all necessary to
understand it. For Auguste Comte (1798–1857), who coined the name for
the discipline, sociology was to be the science by which an understanding
of society could be achieved and, thus, provide the basis for its
reconstruction. In this respect, with his emphasis on emancipating social
thought from theological and metaphysical speculation and establishing it
anew on rational, scientific principles, Comte was heir to the Enlightenment
tradition – but with an important difference. He was critical of his French
compatriots who, like Rousseau, had seen social institutions as corrupting
and inimical of the true freedom of the individual. Decomposing society
into an aggregate of individuals would, Comte argued, result in social
breakdown, anarchy and chaos rather than human liberation. For Comte,
some form of coherent social organisation, a more or less integrated system
of institutions, was a precondition for human life, and was the reason why
he so firmly resisted the revolutionary idealism of the earlier French
thinkers, emphasising instead the importance of order and social control.
The details of Comte’s elaborate account of society and of sociology
need not concern us. What is essential to note is his insight that society
cannot be explained in terms of the characteristics of its individual
members. In his Course of Positivist Philosophy (1854) he was insistent
that ‘the scientific spirit forbids us to regard society as composed of
individuals’. In making this point, Comte did not intend to deny the
existence of real human individuals. What he had in mind was the important
notion that if there is to be a scientific sociology which is concerned with
the distinctive and particular characteristics of social life, then it must be
concerned above all with the relationships among individuals, with the
patterns of social organisation which link individuals together and bind
them into some unity. It must be concerned, too, with the ways in which
individuals are, in fundamental and inescapable ways, products of society
rather than the other way around. It is in this sense that sociology may be
regarded as a critique of the individualism which permeated Enlightenment
thought, and which has persisted in many branches of the human sciences to
this day.

Sociology as a critique of individualism

While it is always dangerous to characterise a complex body of ideas in

terms of a single theme, it is not too much of a distortion to describe the rise
of sociology as part of a reaction against the individualism so prominently
displayed in the thought of the Enlightenment during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. Underlying much of this theorising about human
beings and their relation to society is the insistence that it is the individual
who is of ultimate value, and who must not be sacrificed to the claims either
of the state or of society. This was an age in which many thinkers, perhaps
too optimistically, saw the progressive forces of their world as freeing
individuals from the ancient and constraining bonds of feudal obligation
and, through this, releasing the mind from its enslavement to traditionally
accepted ideas. Central to this was the belief in the reasoning individual.
For the philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650), truth was to be sought by
means of natural reason which is possessed by each individual. Indeed, it is
this, he argued, which is the essential characteristic of the human being: ‘I
think, therefore I am’ was the conclusion of his philosophical ruminations
into the source of knowledge. For Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), the
original ‘state of nature’ was one in which aggressively competitive
individuals would simply lead to a constant ‘war of all against all’ in which
life would be ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’. Civilisation, social
order and progress, Hobbes argued, could only occur when thinking
individuals realised the benefits to be gained from accepting the authority of
a monarch, the Leviathan, who would have the power to enforce the rule of
law. As we shall see, this theory of the social contract, as it came to be
known, has been enormously influential in social and political thought.
Here we only wish to emphasise the idea that, for all their differences, both
Descartes and Hobbes took the idea of the reasoning individual as the basis
for their thinking about the human condition.
The period also saw the beginning of what we now refer to as the
discipline of psychology; for many the quintessential subject concerned
with inquiry into the reasoning capacity of the individual. John Locke
(1632–1704), for example, proposed that knowledge is acquired as a result
of the pictures of the world that we form on the basis of the simple
sensations that each of us has. This theory of the empirical basis of
knowledge, in contrast to the rationalist theory of Descartes, once again
placed the reasoning individual as the principal object of philosophical
inquiry, with society regarded as a secondary product of individual
reasoning.
The ideas of Descartes, Hobbes and Locke had a momentous effect on
the course of social thought in the Western world and have their direct
descendants today. The classical economists represented human nature in
terms of homo economicus, an individual whose acts are governed by the
rational calculation of self-interest. Political theorists, as we have seen,
thought of the origins of the state and social order as a consequence of an
agreement reached by reasoning individuals. Philosophers, particularly in
the nineteenth century, saw human action as the result of a ‘utilitarian’
calculation in-which individuals decided what to do on the basis of seeking
pleasure and avoiding pain. It followed that morality, and politics, could be
reduced to the pursuit of the ‘greatest happiness of the greatest number’, as
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) summarised it. In later years, the rise of
scientific psychology was to give a further boost to the belief that the social
world can be understood in terms of the characteristics of individuals.
Examples of the influence of individualistic thought could be multiplied.
Indeed, it is part of the common sense of the modern Western world that
each of us is, or ought to be, a unique, autonomous person, possessing free
will and certain inalienable rights. Yet, even with its rise to some
preeminence, both the theory and the practice of individualism came under
attack. By the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the tide of
individualism had begun to turn. Adam Smith’s belief, expressed in The
Wealth of Nations (1776), that the pursuit of individual self-interest, the
efficiencies of human effort produced by the division of labour, and the
consequent increase in commercial and industrial activity would lead to a
general improvement in the welfare of all was beginning to look more like a
pious hope than a realistic prediction. It seemed to many contemporary
observers that a general improvement in the welfare of all was not evident
in the newly industrialising cities, where they watched, with some alarm,
the growth of a huge working class existing in conditions of abject
deprivation and who knew no loyalty to either sacred or secular authority.
Similarly, the transformation of property under capitalism into impersonal
share-holding created, in the minds of many, an image of an atomised and
fragmented society populated only by the selfish individuals of Hobbes’
nightmare ‘state of nature’.
Such concerns provoked a new wave of thought about the nature of
society and the social order. Although there is a danger of painting too
simple a picture of what were elaborate currents of thought, what became
more distinctive in nineteenth-century thought was a reaction against
individualism. This took many forms. The art and the music of the
Romantic movement, for example, has often been interpreted in terms of a
sense of loss, a quest for a genuine community which had all but
disappeared, and a search for a feeling of belonging in a new social order.
Similarly, the reaction was polarised between conservative thinkers, on the
one hand, who sought to restore the stability and the certainties of the old
order, and radicals, on the other, who urged a programme of fundamental
social reconstruction and produced a series of utopian visions which had
powerful political resonances. What united conservatives and radicals was a
distaste for the industrial order of the time; a loathing for the factory system
which had subordinated, sometimes enslaved, the worker to the dictates of
the machine, abolishing craft and skill, decrying the need for intelligence,
destroying family life, separating the town from the country and the rich
from the poor.
For present purposes, the essential point about these intellectual
reflections, be they ‘conservative’ or ‘radical’, is that in trying to
comprehend the consequences of industrialism they began to identify forces
and processes which were not encompassed by the individualistic
presuppositions of Enlightenment thought. The release of the individual
from the yoke of conformity to traditional institutions and beliefs, as
recommended in their rather different ways by figures such as Rousseau
and Adam Smith, seemed to be producing not a new age of human freedom,
but, rather, new constraints for old – submission to the yoke of ‘market
forces’, for example, or bondage to grinding poverty which was the lot of a
large proportion of citizens. Moreover, the excesses of capitalist
industrialism did not seem to be explicable in terms of the individual
failings of the bad kings and wicked barons of medieval folklore, but were,
rather, consequences of impersonal forces over which no one had control.
From this perspective, the industrial revolution and its aftermath appeared
as a decisive demonstration of the failure of Enlightenment individualism to
generate a sustainable theory of society and social change.
It is in the context of the critique of individualism that we can detect the
emergence and the development of many of the concepts and ideas which
are now central to modern sociological thought. As we suggested above, at
the heart of the sociological enterprise is the notion that individuals cannot
be the starting point for the analysis of society since all individuals are
shaped, influenced and constrained by the social order in which they live. It
cannot be the case that organised society and its values are the outcome of
isolated, antagonistic, self-interested individuals getting together to accept
the authority of social institutions. Such an idea, as Durkheim was to argue,
presupposes just those things, namely a social order and shared values, that
it is supposed to explain. Accordingly, some social and political thinkers in
the nineteenth century began to articulate and develop the idea of the
‘social’ and elaborate a set of concepts which stood in stark contrast to
those of individualism: society, community, nation, group, social class,
social solidarity, social structure, culture and more, all expressing aspects of
the collective rather than the individual character of human experience.
Thus, Marx takes issue with the classical economists in his claim that it is
not acquisitive and competitive individuals who produce capitalist society.
On the contrary, it is capitalist society that produces competitive and
acquisitive individuals. The central theme running through Durkheim’s
work is, as he put it, the priority of society over the individual. Like Marx
and Durkheim, Weber insisted that the concepts of economic thought
assume, but barely recognise, fundamentally sociological presuppositions.
Of course, individualism did not go away and remains entrenched in
many areas of the human sciences as well as in much of the ‘common
sense’ of modern life. Accordingly, in challenging individualistic
assumptions, sociology has developed ideas which are, in some sense,
counter-intuitive to ordinary habits of thought, and often hard to express
clearly and precisely. However, the sociological task was not so much to
eliminate the individual as a focus of intellectual attention as to find a way
of understanding the relationship between the individual and society, to see
human beings, always and inevitably, as part of a wider set of organised
relationships; a domain that, hitherto, had been much speculated about but
little studied. The question of how this new domain could be studied brings
us to our next theme, that is, the nature of sociological knowledge.

Sociology as science

Introductory courses and textbooks often describe sociology as the ‘science

of society’, a term which is particularly unilluminating. There are no
universally accepted definitions of either ‘society’ or ‘science’ and, for
some very good reasons, there has been a great deal of debate about both
concepts at every stage in the development of sociology.
As we have seen, the idea of a science of society was conceived by
Comte as an essential element in his scheme for the total reform of society
and its reconstruction on rational principles. Comte’s early inspiration was
the French socialist thinker Henri Saint-Simon (1760–1825) and, though he
broke with Saint-Simon in later years, Comte remained committed to the
idea of social life as essentially collective, and of society as an organic
whole rather than a simple aggregate of individuals. Although Comte’s
elaborate system of ideas is now largely forgotten, his distinctive
contribution was to insist that society could be understood through the
methods of science, that is, observation, experiment and calculation, and, by
these means, the universal laws which govern society and its workings
could be uncovered. In this way, ‘positive’ knowledge of both the natural
and the social worlds could be used to free humanity from the theological
fantasies and metaphysical speculations that had dominated thought prior to
the rise of science and ‘Reason’. It is largely due to Comte that the term
‘positivism’ has come to be applied, within sociology, to the claim that
objective knowledge of the social world may be obtained by using the same
procedures as those of the natural sciences.
Today, of course, Comte’s ambitious plan for social reconstruction is
regarded as unrealistic and as naive as the metaphysical speculations he
himself so derided. Yet his conviction that a scientific understanding of
society is essential to its renewal was shared, albeit in very different ways,
by both Marx and Durkheim. Marx is well known for his commitment to
the idea that social transformation would be brought about by political,
indeed revolutionary, means. He was equally convinced that such political
action would have to be informed not by pious hopes and utopian dreams
but by a thoroughly scientific understanding and critique of capitalist
society. Like Comte, Marx looked forward to the time when the natural and
the social sciences would be unified and when all the laws of social
development would finally be discovered. Uncovering such laws required
lifting the veil of mystical and religious beliefs which, in all past societies,
had prevented people from realising the truth about their situation and the
sources of their exploitation. Understanding the forces that shape society
requires, first, a ‘demystification’ which restores human beings and the
material conditions of their lives as the principal focus of scientific concern
and, second, research and analysis to reveal the real underlying causes of
social change. At his graveside, Marx’s friend and collaborator, Friedrich
Engels, described Marx’s greatest achievement as the identification of the
laws of motion of human society.
For Durkheim, as we have seen, the social problems created by the
development of capitalist industrial societies were sufficiently acute as to
demand urgent correction. To be effective, however, such remedies had to
be based on a scientifically grounded understanding of the ways in which
societies worked. Here the influence of Comte on Durkheim is quite clear,
particularly in his rejection of individualistic explanations, his conception
of society as a reality sui generis existing over and above its individual
members, and his conception of sociology as a science concerned with
‘social facts’. Moreover, Durkheim developed the notion of society as an
organic whole with its various institutions, as component parts of a system,
contributing to the state of the whole, just as a human body may be
analysed as a system of interrelated parts, each of which contributes to the
functioning of the whole organism. Such a mode of thought was greatly
extended by functionalist theorists in both sociology and social
anthropology. However, the point we want to emphasise here is that
Durkheim saw sociological research as analogous to medical science. Just
as medical knowledge allows doctors to distinguish normal from the
pathological conditions of the body, so, Durkheim reasoned, the sociologist
should be able to diagnose the nature of society’s ills and suggest
appropriate treatment.
 Whereas Marx saw the solution to social problems in terms of direct
political action, Durkheim took a more ‘clinician-cum-managerialist’ view
by emphasising the effective treatment of the pathological conditions which
can afflict society through the deliberate reorganisation of its institutions.
Both, however, believed that their task was to discover the laws which
governed the organisation of the social order and drew parallels with the
ways in which the natural sciences had revealed the laws of nature. Both
also believed that scientifically based knowledge of society could be used to
improve the condition of humanity. In this respect, despite their rejection of
individualism, both were heirs to the intellectual tradition of the
Enlightenment. Weber, on the other hand, was more sceptical about the
possibilities for a social science and its role in human affairs. He could not
accept that there were general laws governing social processes. On the
contrary, he emphasised the importance of contingency and chance in
human affairs. He also denied that the actions of human beings could be
explained in terms of the cause-and-effect sequences of positivist science,
arguing instead that an understanding of action requires a process of
interpretation through which we can relate an act to the values and
subjective meanings which influence the actor. These ideas have stimulated
a whole tradition of interpretivist sociology which rejects positivist precepts
in favour of an understanding of the role of meanings in the formulation of
action. For example, what makes ‘buying a car’ a social action is the whole
complex set of meanings and understandings which makes this a transaction
which is institutional for societies with a particular type of economic
system. For Weber, this centrality of meaning to social inquiry did not
imply an abandonment of scientific ambitions. Any explanation of human
conduct which does not take account of the actor’s own meanings is
spurious and unscientific. A properly scientific sociology must develop its
own appropriate methodology, irrespective of whether this accords with
accepted practice in the natural sciences. Weber denied that the nature of
their subject-matter inevitably made the social sciences ‘softer’ or less
objective than the natural sciences. All human knowledge, he argued, is
generated from a particular point of view and depends on the ideas and
concepts available.
Nevertheless, Weber insisted that the sociologist must always aim to
separate the facts of the matter from the values which make them
interesting in the first place. Sociology is no less rigorous than the natural
sciences in its efforts to arrive at valid explanations. It is, however, a much
more modest enterprise than the grand science of social reconstruction
envisaged by Comte, by Durkheim and by Marx. For while science may
decide on matters of fact, it cannot judge between different values. The gap
between ‘is’ and ‘ought’, between matters of fact and matters of moral duty,
cannot be bridged. It is in the realm of politics, not sociology, that questions
of value must be debated and decided. The dream of a new social order
organised on rational principles was, for Weber, just as much a fantasy as
the religious ideologies that the Enlightenment thinkers so abhorred.
Indeed, he argued that rationality, unquestioningly accepted as the
fundamental liberating principle of the Enlightenment, was itself a value
and, as such, a mixed blessing. It is true that rational inquiry has led to an
unprecedented progress in science and technology but, Weber worried, the
increasing tendency towards the rational organisation of social life was
leading to a soulless, planned, bureaucratised world where spontaneity,
creativity, freedom of thought and expression were being eliminated in
favour of routine efficiency. Rather than offering the hope of social
reconstruction, Weber’s bleak vision is that of the ‘iron cage’ of rationality.

The nature of society

Each of the three authors accepted that, despite all the evident difficulties
and complexities it would encounter, there could be a science which took
the social world as its subject-matter. But what exactly is this subject-
matter? The notion that human life is social, in the sense that human life
involves relationships with others, is not a discovery of sociology. What is
distinctive about the treatment of this idea during the formative period of
modern sociology is the strong intimation that the ‘social’ can be the subject
of disciplined reflection. In such a context the ‘social’ becomes a theoretical
construct designed to draw attention to those features of ordinary social life
which sociologists consider important. Terms such as ‘social order’, ‘social
organisation’, ‘society’ and so forth become central to its vocabulary.
However, though essential to the sociological project, such terms become
problematic precisely because of their centrality. For one thing, and as
pointed out earlier, they seem to fly in the face of common sense. How, to
put it simply, can we conceive of something involved in the course of
human life which is not a characteristic of the real, breathing individuals
who live that life? A ‘something’, moreover, that has a major effect even if
individuals are unaware of it. We have already noted the strong resistance to
sociological ideas in a culture permeated by individualistic presuppositions.
Yet, in another way, the essentially social nature of human life is readily
apparent. The language we speak, to take but one example, is a system of
practices which we learn by virtue of growing up within a particular society.
Language is not innate; we can learn different languages, and in learning
language we not only learn how to communicate but also how to think and
experience in similar ways to others. In the process our individual
characters are deeply imbued with an attachment to conventions, ways of
understanding, ways of expressing ourselves, which reflect the sociality of
much of our lives.
A major problem is determining how social phenomena are to be
conceived of and described. Even Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776),
widely regarded as a celebration of individualism, pointed to the importance
of what we would now call ‘social organisation’ in furthering individual
self-interest. He produced a famous description of pin-making as a simple
task which, when distributed among a number of people through a division
of labour, could be made much more productive than it would be when
carried out by a single individual. Similarly, economic activities can be
effectively co-ordinated through markets which link producers and
consumers to the benefit of all. But how do such patterns of organisation
come about? Smith himself used the metaphor of the ‘invisible hand’ which
guided such activities and shaped them into orderly patterns; patterns which
are the unanticipated consequences of individuals pursuing their own
interests. Though Smith intended this only as a metaphor, from a
sociological point of view it is deficient. It suggests social organisation, but
it fails to explain it. As we have seen, theorists such as Comte and
Durkheim rejected the individualistic assumptions upon which such a
model was based and argued, instead, that the relentless pursuit of self-
interest would not produce social harmony but, on the contrary, a ‘war of all
against all’. Socialist thinkers, too, along with other critics of
industrialisation, argued that the result of unrestrained capitalist competition
was not a free and fair society, but one in which there was a small class of
rich and powerful people and a great mass who lived in miserable poverty.
Smith’s work illustrates some of the difficulties encountered in
attempting to provide an account of ‘the social’. Reacting against this kind
of individualism in seeking to characterise the nature of social phenomena,
Durkheim moved, on some interpretations, to the opposite extreme, seeing
society as something that existed independently of individuals, a reality ‘sui
generis’, as he put it. Like many nineteenth-century thinkers, and as we
mentioned earlier, Durkheim made use of the analogy with a biological
organism, seeing society as a system of interrelated parts with the activities
of individuals generated by the properties and processes of the system as a
whole. Marx’s view is similarly ‘holistic’. Society is seen as a coherent
totality, though one which is full of contradictions. Commentators differ,
however, as we shall see in the exposition of Marx’s thought, on the extent
to which it is to be regarded as an objective reality independent of the
individuals who comprise it. ‘Structural’ Marxists, for example, see the
‘social formation’ as the structural framework which determines the course
of society. Others, however, emphasise the view that the distinction between
the individual and society is a false one. Similar difficulties attach to the
interpretations of Durkheim.
Weber insisted that it is wrong to regard society, or any other collectivity,
as a real entity with an existence independent of the living individuals who
constitute it. Such an error, he argued, has the effect of reifying the concept
of society by treating it as if it were a real thing with the capacity to act as if
it were a person. Only individuals can act; they do not respond or simply
react passively to forces, social or otherwise, which may be thought to
determine their behaviour. For Weber, patterns of social organisation are
rooted in the subjectivities of individuals. He does not mean by this that
their actions can be explained in terms of individual psychology. On the
contrary, Weber emphasises that all actions and interactions occur within
specific cultural contexts and that in formulating courses of actions
individuals not only have to take account of established conventions and
meanings, but actually think in concepts and categories which have their
origin within the culture. From such considerations, as we shall see, there
has emerged a tradition of sociological work which rejects the view of
society as some kind of structure or system which exists independently of
real people, but which concentrates instead on the ways in which patterns of
social organisation are constantly being created and sustained through the
routines of everyday life.

The relevance of history

The last theme we want to address by way of introduction is that of history,
and by this we mean the temporal course of actual human affairs. All three
of the thinkers who are our concern had an acute sense of human history as
well as a strong realisation that sociology would need to say something
about it. Not only were all of them vitally interested in social change, but
they understood this in terms which are familiar to us as the historical
passage of events and people in calendric time. The changes which brought
about industrialism began in a particular period, in particular places and
involved real people living real lives. They all made use of the kind of
materials historians make use of in their studies: reports, statistics,
biographies, records of various kinds and so on. Indeed, as far as Marx and
Weber are concerned, it is difficult to disentangle their sociological from
their historical interests. For Marx, his inquiries were very much about
explaining why actual human affairs had taken the course they had, trying
to show that this was not some happenstance but the working through of a
mighty engine that drives human history. Weber, on the other hand, saw
history as a matter of contingency not determination, but, none the less,
argued for the importance of sociology in enabling us to understand at least
some of history’s immense complexity. Indeed, Weber largely saw
sociology as the servant of historical understanding rather than, as Comte
did, the master science of human life. Even Durkheim, who is commonly
presented as an ahistorical sociologist, developed his theories, in part, to
account for social change, including its ‘pathologies’.
There is, however, an uneasy tension here between the generalising
possibilities of sociology and the particularities of history. It was perhaps
Weber of the three who saw this most clearly. The generalisations which
sociologists produced, he argued, were causal, just like those of natural
science, except they could never attain the status of laws of nature. Instead,
their role was to underpin our understanding of the contingent and the
particular course of historical change. For Marx, by contrast, history was
nothing less than the expression of the ‘invisible’ laws of social
development which, with the abolition of capitalism, would cease to operate
and history itself come to an end. This, as we shall see, has a strong
Hegelian flavour which Marx retained throughout much of his life despite
his philosophical rejection of Hegel’s idealism. Despite their differences,
however, all three of these thinkers attached especial importance to the
relationship between sociology and the history of human life. For them it
would be unthinkable for sociology to regard itself as a discipline with
nothing to say about human history.

Conclusion

It is perhaps hard to appreciate the respective achievements of these three

scholars since so many of their ideas are now part of the standard wisdom
of the discipline, albeit often in a much diluted and unattributed form. The
sheer difficulty of attempting to develop a systematic intellectual apparatus
to address issues about the nature of society meant that they spent the great
proportion of their adult lives writing and thinking about the problems. And
while they were not entirely successful, the enduring character of their
attempts, though in significant respects this is a consequence of hindsight, is
a measure of the tremendous quality of their efforts. Although, to repeat a
point we made earlier, Marx, Weber and Durkheim are not the ‘only
begetters’ of the discipline, they did much to show just how difficult it is to
formulate and address the questions of sociology. It is to them that we owe
much of the contemporary character of sociology with its attention to
society as a whole, to social change, its epochal sweep and its moral and
political sensitivities. This is not, we hasten to add, the whole of sociology.
There are sociologies, symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology
being perhaps the more prominent of these, which pay very different
attentions to the social. Nevertheless, it is the tradition to which these
scholars belong which is the predominant one.
In what follows we have attempted to provide a thorough exposition of
the main ideas of each of these scholars. In this respect our aims are
modest. We are not presenting an extensive, scholarly and weighted
analysis of each of them. There are many books which do just this and we
have, in developing our own expositions, made full use of many of these.
Our objective is to make their main ideas and arguments as accessible as we
can to students of sociology and, in so doing, indicate how and in what
ways these ideas have contemporary relevance. These are not, in other
words, efforts to present the latest scholarly interpretations of the thought of
Marx, Weber and Durkheim. Instead, our aim has been to present, as clearly
as we can, the lineaments of their sociological ideas and, at the same time,
bring out, again as clearly as we can, the contours of their respective
sociological projects.

Select bibliography and further reading

There are many good accounts of social thought since the Enlightenment.
Robert A. Nisbet’s The Sociological Tradition (Heinemann, 1966), though
written some time ago is still worth reading. Jonathan Turner’s The
Structure of Sociological Theory (Dorsey Press, 1974) is a more up-to-date
source. Thomson’s small edited collection of essays, Political Ideas
(Penguin, 1990) is a useful introduction to a range of thinkers of relevance
to the development of sociological thought including Hobbes, Locke,
Rousseau and Hegel among others. Anthony Giddens’ Social Theory and
Modern Sociology (Polity Press, 1987), E.C. Cuff, W.W. Sharrock and D.
Francis’ Perspectives on Sociology (Unwin Hyman, 3rd edition, 1990) and
R. Anderson, J.A. Hughes and W.W Sharrock (eds), Classic Disputes in
Sociology (Allen and Unwin, 1986) are in different ways good introductions
to sociology.
Talcott Parsons’ The Structure of Social Action was originally published
in 1937. The 1968 Free Press edition is in two volumes. Volume 1 deals
with Marshall, Pareto and Durkheim and Volume 2 with Weber. Jean-
François Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition: A report on knowledge
(Manchester University Press, 1984) and his Towards the Postmodern
(Humanities Press, 1993) are the sources of the critiques of the
Enlightenment project and their implications for the nature of sociological
theory.

CHAPTER ONE SUMMARY

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Enlightenment ideas began to erode the
idea that social affairs were natural and immutable, ordained by religion, tradition and
custom and, in their place, the idea that society could be rationally organised for the greater
benefit of humanity.
During this period social thought was dominated by individualism which, after the French
Revolution and the growing awareness of the horrors that industrialism could bring,
increasingly came under question by a ‘conservative’ reaction which, among other things,
pointed out that human life was also motivated by attachments to community, to tradition,
to religion and to family.
A distaste for the growing industrialism united both ‘radicals’ and ‘conservatives’ and
encouraged thinking which rejected the idea that the individual could be the starting point
for the analysis and understanding of society.
An important backdrop to these emerging ideas was the growing success of the natural
sciences. The question was: Could there be a science of society? This, in its turn, raised the
issue of the subject-matter of such a science: What kind of entity was society?
In each of their own ways, Marx, Durkheim and Weber thought long and hard about such
questions and in ways which had enduring impacts upon sociology.
 Karl Marx 2

BEGINNING CHAPTER TWO

It is difficult to overestimate Marx as a social thinker and one who not only has had a major
impact on the discipline of sociology but upon the world beyond. In this chapter we will present
the following aspects of his thought and life:

A brief biography of his life and eventual exile in London.

His intellectual beginnings and his critique of Hegel’s idealism. This will involve a fairly
detailed discussion of Hegel’s ideas since, although Marx rejected Hegel’s idealism in
favour of his own historical materialism, Hegelian themes and ideas remained strong in
Marx’s thought throughout his life.
The development of Marx’s materialism and his critique of the political economy of the
day.
The summary statement of his major ideas as set out in the manifesto written with Engels:
The Communist Manifesto, presents his materialist conception of history which his
subsequent works flesh out in much more detail as his developing theory of society and
social change.
Marx’s thought was dynamic and rarely just concerned with social and philosophical
analysis; his objective was to change the world. Further, his work left a huge legacy to be
debated over, interpreted and revised by supporters and opponents alike. Some of the key
issues of interpretation – such as ‘alienation’, the base-superstructure distinction, ideology,
the theory of surplus value, and changes in the nature of capitalism – are discussed.

Unlike Durkheim and Weber, Marx was not a university professor. He

was a revolutionary as well as a notable thinker, his life’s work dedicated to
the overthrow of the capitalist order, which he saw as responsible for the
degradation and the enslavement of the vast mass of its population. He
spent most of his productive adult life as a refugee from his native
Germany, living for more than thirty years in impoverished exile in London.
His radical ideals were pursued at great cost to himself, and to his family,
and for long periods he was dependent on gifts from friends, most notably
Friedrich Engels, and small earnings from journalism. The whole point of
his work was to provide an understanding of the nature of capitalism in
order that people could regain control of their lives. ‘The philosophers’, he
wrote in 1845 when still in his twenties, ‘have only interpreted the world, in
various ways; the point is to change it’ (Marx, 1845: 158).
It was in the course of his life-long study of the origins, nature and
development of capitalism that Marx formulated some of the ideas which
have become fundamental to a sociological understanding of the dynamics
of modern societies. ‘Class’, ‘alienation’, ‘revolution’ and ‘communism’,
the ‘dialectic’, ‘mode of production’ and many more are ideas which, if not
necessarily original to Marx, have become intimately associated with his
thought. Similarly, and as we shall see, it would be difficult to exaggerate
the influence of his basic proposition that the character of a society’s
institutions and culture depend on the organisation of its economic life – its
‘mode of production’, in Marx’s terms. Many of the ideas which Marx
explored in relation to the economy and society have become conventional
wisdom, and some of his expectations concerning the likely development of
capitalism have a familiar ring to them when we hear of ‘booms’ and
‘slumps’, the global movement of investment capital, the increasing
concentration of production and distribution, unemployment due to the
introduction of new technologies, and so on.
If we consider that his ideas were formulated one hundred and fifty years
ago in a society where capitalist production was small and rudimentary by
modern standards, his achievements are impressive. Quite apart from
inspiring the major political movements which have borne his name, and
which have had, and continue to have, a decisive effect on the history of the
twentieth century, Marx has had an unparalleled influence across a wide
range of the human sciences, including sociology, economics, history,
political theory, philosophy, anthropology, literary criticism, art history and
more. The inevitable result is that an enormous literature has been
generated, encompassing not only Marx’s own life and times, but his ideas
and their vast range of applications and interpretations, as well as an ever
expanding exegesis of his thought. This presents us with obvious problems
of interpretation: it is impossible to offer an introduction to Marx’s thought
which does justice to all the different versions of Marxist thinking which
have emerged. Accordingly, what follows is an account of the ideas which
have had a significant influence on sociological thought.

Biography and Social Background

Although Marx’s name will forever be identified with the ‘workers of the
world’, his own family circumstances were very different from those of a
manual worker or a landless peasant. He was born on 5 May 1818, the son
of Heinrich Marx, a highly respected lawyer in the market town of Trier in
the Rhineland. Both sides of his family had been steeped in Jewish culture
and among his forebears were a succession of rabbis (McLellan, 1980: 28–
9). Heinrich Marx, however, had made a decisive break with Judaism
before Karl was born, when the Prussian authorities enforced the Rhineland
laws which forbade Jews to hold any positions in the state, except by
special permission. In order to retain his senior post in the Court of Appeal
in Trier, Heinrich Marx was baptised as a Christian. The story conveys
something of the repression and intolerance of the time, though it seems
that Heinrich’s conversion caused him little anguish. His intellectual
leanings were away from the Jewish traditions of his background and
toward the French Enlightenment, particularly to Voltaire and Rousseau.
Such thinkers emphasised the progressive power of Reason rather than faith
and it is highly likely that some of these sentiments were formative in
Karl’s own development. What is more certain is that he was considerably
influenced by Baron von Westphalen, a leading figure in Trier society, who,
after 1819, lived next door to the Marx family. The Baron took an interest in
Karl and spent much time with him as he grew up, giving him a life-long
attachment to the works of Homer and Shakespeare, as well as introducing
him to the radical political ideas of Saint-Simon. In 1836 Marx became
engaged to the Baron’s daughter, Jenny, and after their marriage in 1843
they remained together until her death in 1881.
Marx’s early years, then, were spent in a comfortable upper-middle-class
home in an atmosphere of respect for the great achievements of European
culture, especially its progressive thinkers. He was a capable but not
outstanding student. During his first year at the University of Bonn, he
proved a dismal failure as he spent less and less time working and more and
more time duelling, drinking and writing poetry. Before the year was
through, and deep in debt, his father removed him from Bonn in order that
he could make a fresh start at the University of Berlin. This was to prove a
major turning point in his career.
He arrived in Berlin in 1836 to study law, although he was becoming
increasingly interested in philosophy and history. At the time, intellectual
life in Germany was dominated by the vast and ambitious philosophical
system of G.W.F. Hegel (1770–1831) and, after some initial misgivings,
Marx immersed himself in this work. Soon he became a member of the
‘Doctors’ Club’, a group of young intellectuals who provided ‘hard-
drinking and boisterous company’ (McLellan, 1980: 50). For the next four
years, during part of which he wrote a PhD thesis in the hope of gaining a
university post, Marx could be counted among the circle of youthful
intellectuals who, inspired by the teachings of Hegel, came to be known as
the Young Hegelians.
Following the acceptance of his doctoral thesis in 1841, Marx still had
hopes of securing a university position. However, the Prussian authorities
were becoming increasingly intolerant of the radical attitudes and activities
of the Young Hegelians, and his academic prospects disappeared completely
when his friend and mentor, Bruno Bauer, was dismissed from his
lectureship in 1842. By this time Marx was already moving into journalism,
an activity which provided him with some income for the rest of his life.
The Young Hegelians spread their ideas through articles, reviews and
pamphlets, so it was natural that, early in 1842, Marx was invited to
contribute to the Rheinische Zeitung, a newspaper which had started with
financial backing from some business interests in the Rhineland with the
intention of promoting the development of trade and industry. In
representing the interests of the commercial middle class, the paper was
drawn into conflict with the entrenched agricultural and aristocratic
interests which dominated government and politics. The paper was
reforming rather than revolutionary, and even when he became editor, in
October 1842, Marx tried to avoid a full-scale confrontation with the
Prussian censor.
However, his very success as editor brought the Rheinische Zeitung into
conflict with the authorities. As circulation rose it became increasingly
difficult for them to ignore the paper and they were soon to ban it. None the
less, the year he spent as editor had a decisive effect on Marx’s life. It led
him away from the speculative philosophy of the Young Hegelians and
toward a direct confrontation with the practicalities of social and political
issues. He became aware at first hand, for example, of the way in which
changing patterns of trade had all but destroyed the traditional livelihood of
the peasant wine-growers from the Moselle valley around his home town.
Their poverty, he concluded, was not their fault but the inevitable outcome
of relationships ‘which determine both the action of private persons and of
individual authorities, and which are as independent of the will as
breathing’ (quoted in McLellan, 1977: 24). The economic forces which had
sustained their way of life had now so altered as to destroy it.

Paris and Brussels

After the suppression of the paper, Marx travelled to Kreuznach, where he

married Jenny von Westphalen, and began to devote himself to a detailed
study of Hegel’s political thought. In October 1843, Marx and his wife left
for Paris, where they shared a house with other radically minded
intellectuals. At this time, Paris was a magnet for revolutionary thinkers and
Marx took full advantage of this favourable atmosphere. Already familiar
with the works of the French socialists, Marx flourished in his cosmopolitan
surroundings, and began to devote himself to developing ideas which
marked a major break from the thought of his German contemporaries. By
far the most important results of this period are the series of documents
known as The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 or, simply,
the Paris Manuscripts. It is in these that Marx began to apply his own
philosophical perspective to the analysis of economic life and to elaborate a
fundamental critique of orthodox political economy.
Marx finished these manuscripts in August of the following year –
though they were not to be published until the 1930s – and, in the same
month, in the Café de la Régence, he met Friedrich Engels. Also from the
Rhineland, Engels was two years younger than Marx. The pair had met
briefly before during 1842 when Engels was still associated with the Young
Hegelians. Marx, it seems, had been ‘cool towards his future friend and
partner’ (Hunley, 1991: 15). Since then, however, things had changed. Marx
had become increasingly concerned with economic questions and their
social consequences, and Engels had been greatly influenced by an early
communist, and former colleague of Marx, Moses Hess. As the son of one
of the partners in a flourishing textile business based in his home town of
Barmen, with a mill in Manchester, Engels’ conversion to communism was
unusual, to say the least, as he was both an active capitalist and a political
radical.
From the end of 1842 until the summer of 1844 Engels had worked as a
clerk at Ermen and Engels’ cotton mill in Manchester in order to complete
his business training. He had become appalled at the extent of the poverty
and misery of the mill workers. On his return to Germany he wrote of this
in a book which has become one of the great documents of nineteenth
century history, The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845). At
that time England was the richest and most powerful nation in the world,
and yet, as Engels saw it, the English people were being progressively
reduced to conditions worse than those of farm animals.
The respective intellectual contributions of Engels and Marx will be
discussed later, but it is incontestable that Engels’ relationship with Marx
was important in many ways, not least in providing financial support for
Marx and his family in the years following his flight to London in 1849.
Their writings between 1844 and 1848 developed the major ideas which
have come to be regarded as the foundations of Marxist thought, although
much of this work was not published in their lifetimes. Accordingly, later
generations of scholars, including Max Weber, were acquainted with only
fragments of Marx’s thought. Many of the Marxist ideas which influenced
the development of European socialist movements in the latter part of the
nineteenth century were, to a considerable extent, made public by Engels,
with all the problems that this engendered for the ‘correct’ interpretation of
Marx’s thought. While the reduction of any thinker’s work to a number of
ideas, no matter how fundamental or essential they might seem, is always
problematic, such a treatment of Marx is particularly hazardous. We will, of
necessity, have to return to the matter of whether there was, or was not, a
significant divergence between the approaches of Marx and Engels, as well
as to other issues concerning the reading and the interpretation of their
works. Many of these were written, over a lengthy period, as criticisms of
the ideas of many of their contemporaries and, inevitably, it is possible to
find inconsistencies and, some would argue, contradictions in them. It is
hardly surprising, therefore, that a whole range of contrasting
interpretations of Marx have been developed over the years, all of them
claiming the authority of the original texts. Several of these interpretations
will be touched upon in the following discussion, but we should emphasise
once again that our main concern is not with arguing for or against any of
the available versions of Marx’s thought, but to highlight the sociological
themes that emerged in his, and in Engels’, various works.
By the mid-1840s Marx’s radical political activities had become well
known to the Prussian authorities and even in Paris he and his revolutionary
collaborators were kept under surveillance. Eventually, on the urging of the
Prussian government, he was expelled and the next three years were spent
in Brussels. As a wave of revolutionary agitation spread across Europe, his
position became more and more precarious and, in 1848, not long after the
Communist Manifesto had been published, he was deported once more.
Such was the revolutionary clamour that even the Prussian monarchy
seemed threatened, and Marx seized the chance to return to Cologne to edit
a revived version of the Rheinische Zeitung. However, the authorities
reasserted control and early in 1849 Marx was prosecuted for incitement to
armed rebellion. At his trial he defended himself in a speech which cogently
expressed his theoretical perspective:

Society is not based on the law … rather law must be based on society; it must be the expression
of society’s common interests and needs, as they arise from the various material methods of
production …The Code Napoleon, which I have in my hand, did not produce modern bourgeois
society. Bourgeois society … merely finds its legal expression in the Code. (quoted in
McLellan, 1976: 215)

Marx was acquitted, but his fate was already sealed. In May 1849 he was
expelled from Prussia. He returned to Paris still optimistic about the
prospects for revolution, but by this time reactionary forces were in the
ascendant and, in July, his family was expelled. They set sail for England
and were to remain in London for the rest of their lives.

Exile in London

There could hardly have been a better place to study the development of
modern capitalism than the England of the mid-nineteenth century. It was
the world’s preeminent industrial power. In little more than a lifetime,
changes in the nature of the economy had resulted in major social
transformations. By 1851, for example, more people lived in towns than in
the countryside; over one-third of the population lived in towns of more
than 50,000 inhabitants, whereas a century earlier there had been only two
such towns, London and Edinburgh. Such a vast and unprecedented social
transformation, Marx realised, had been brought about by capitalist
industrialisation, and, soon after his arrival, he resumed the study of
political economy that he had started during his time in Paris. Despite an
acute shortage of money, and living in a shabby and overcrowded apartment
in Soho, Marx soon established a working routine which revolved around
lengthy visits to the reading room of the British Museum. By late 1850 he
had reached the conclusion that ‘a commercial and financial crisis would be
the inevitable precondition of any revolution’ (McLellan, 1976: 281), a
view which inspired the economic studies which absorbed him for the rest
of his life.
His original plan was to write a lengthy study which would set out his
ideas and his critique of orthodox economics, but in 1852 he was forced to
resume journalistic work. His enthusiasm was revived in 1857, with the
coming of an economic crisis which he had long anticipated, and in a
frantic burst of activity during the winter of 1857–8 he produced a full-scale
outline of his ideas in a series of notebooks which have come down to us as
the Grundrisse, literally the ‘ground plans’. These were not written for
publication and, in fact, did not become widely available until a German
edition in 1953 and an English one in 1973; it is now one of his most
widely cited works. Most of the Grundrisse deals with Marx’s economic
ideas, often expressed as criticisms of established economic thought.
However, the work also displays the enormous scope of Marx’s intended
project. His plan was for six books, three of which – on the state, foreign
trade and the world market – were never written. The material in the three
volumes of Capital includes much of what Marx intended for the first three
books, although only Volume 1 of Capital was published in his lifetime, in
1867. The others were edited by Engels for publication in 1885 and 1894
respectively. Theories of Surplus Value is an edited version of the
voluminous manuscripts produced by Marx in the early 1860s and intended
as a critical review of economic ideas. It was published by Karl Kautsky
more than twenty years after Marx’s death in 1883.
Marx’s theoretical work was elaborated not for its own sake but as a
guide to practical political action. His reflections on the failure of the
revolutionary movements of the late 1840s led him to conclude that while
incompetent leadership was partly to blame, equally important was the lack
of a clear understanding of what he took to be the basic processes of social
development, processes which were fundamentally economic. His writings
were devoted to providing this understanding, though his great theoretical
project, like his political ambitions, was never realised in anything like a
finished form.

Early Years: the Critique of Hegel’s Idealism

‘Karl Marx was a German philosopher.’ It is with these words that

Kolakowski (1978: 1) begins his three-volume survey of Marx and
Marxism, to make the point that to understand Marx’s work it is essential to
see it as emerging from a particular philosophical tradition, and so retaining
some of the central concepts and themes of that tradition. Yet by the time he
was 30, in a series of essays and commentaries, Marx had come to question
almost every aspect of the orthodox thought of his day and laid the
foundations for his own work.
As pointed out earlier, German intellectual life at this time was
dominated by both the influence of, and reaction against, the ‘idealist’
philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel. In general, idealists have argued that ultimate
reality does not consist of the people, the material objects and physical
environment which surround us, but, on the contrary, it is an immaterial
force or essence which is present in all things (natural and human) and
which has brought them into being. Though a strange sounding idea, and
one which seems to contradict our common-sense experience, it is not
unlike the more familiar Christian idea of God as an all-powerful,
immaterial being who is the creator of the world. For Hegel, ultimate reality
was to be conceived of as Geist, or ‘Spirit’, a being which had brought the
material world into existence and which is expressed in it. ‘The central aim
of Hegel’s philosophy’, writes Dallmayr, ‘was to demonstrate the role of
spirit as the founding agency and animating truth in all reality’ (1993: 23–
4). However, though the notion of ‘spirit’ is undoubtedly associated with
Christian ideas, it must not be thought of as a purely religious or mystical
notion, for in this context it is also closely related to the notion of ‘spirit’ as
it appears in an expression like ‘the national spirit’ or ‘team spirit’, and in
many important respects it is much the same as that of ‘culture’ in the
phrase ‘high culture’. In this sense culture is often also equivalent to
‘mind’, as when we speak of ‘the mind of the Ancient Romans’, or the
‘medieval mind’. Spirit, culture, and mind, then, are all terms which have
been used to describe the ideas and consciousness of people in societies.

Hegel’s idealism and philosophy of history

Hegel’s writings and ideas, whether deservedly or not, contributed much to

the conception of German philosophy as unnecessarily complex, abstract
and obscure, comprising a huge, far-ranging and relentlessly detailed body
of work which resists condensation into a few pages. Nevertheless, it is
important to touch on certain aspects of Hegel’s work since it was a major
influence on Marx’s early writings and, perhaps more contentiously, was a
lifelong influence on Marx’s thought. Above all, it was in opposition to
Hegel’s idealism that Marx worked out his materialist conception of history,
though it must be recognised that Marx’s critique of Hegel was one that
itself preserved many of Hegel’s most basic ideas. Marx challenged one or
two of the central features of Hegel’s doctrines, but the effect of his
objections was to fundamentally change the way the rest of Hegel’s ideas
could be understood. Seen in the right way, many Hegelian ideas could be
used in a much more radical political critique of society than Hegel himself
had envisaged.
The aspect of Hegel’s philosophy which is most relevant here is his
account of history. Hegel was a pioneer in insisting upon the necessity to
understand human life in an historical context, to insist that human
existence is essentially historical in nature. It is only against the background
of a long, and full view of the course of history as a whole that our present
situation can be properly understood that we can come to understand
ourselves. We must not think of ourselves and our way of life as
representing the general nature of human life, for ours is but one of many
different ways that lives have been led during the course of history. Our
way of life could not be the way it is, had not the lives of earlier societies
been the way they were: these earlier periods of history lead up to ours and
make it possible.
Hegel’s initial aim was not to understand the nature of history, but to
solve the problems of philosophy. He came to think that solving the
problems of philosophy could only be done through historical
understanding, recognising that philosophy too has an essentially historical
nature, so that the development of philosophy is only one – although crucial
– aspect of human history generally. As philosophers often do, Hegel
thought that the state of philosophy as one of perpetual, unresolved
disagreement was something of a scandal, and that there was a need to
resolve and rise above all the assorted dichotomies – finite/eternal,
mind/matter, true/false, quantitative/qualitative – around which
philosophers arranged themselves in quarrelling factions. The first thing to
do was to reconsider philosophical thinking, and to ask whether the
accepted way of thinking of these oppositions as eternal and unavoidable
was misconceived, and whether philosophical thought – Hegel’s own
thought – could not show that the opposition is not necessarily eternal, but
only a temporary feature of human thought.

Of course, these divisions are not to be found only in philosophy, for

philosophers think – rightly, in Hegel’s view – that they have identified
features of reality itself. The conflicts that are found in philosophy are
present in the world itself, within the lives and communities of human
beings, whose lives are also divided between conflicting principles that
seemed to confront them with dilemmas that they could not practically
overcome. If Hegel could develop a philosophy that would overcome the
dichotomies that gave rise to philosophical disagreement, then he would at
the same time be finding a way of overcoming the divisions present within
human life, for these are the same divisions. Philosophy, that is, is basically
a form of reflective awareness of the divisions in real life.
It must be said that Hegel was not the all-knowing sage that this might
make him sound. He did not think that he could single-handedly transform
human life in more or less its entirety, he was only developing his belief
that philosophy is a self-conscious awareness, a reflection, of the conditions
of real life. If, then, Hegel could develop a philosophy that disposed of the
fundamental conflicts of principle that disfigure human life, it must be
because reality itself contained the potential to overcome these conflicts:
Hegel’s philosophy will only be making explicit tendencies that are built
into reality itself. Nor is Hegel even so self-regarding as to think that other
philosophers before him could have done this, but that they were less
intelligent than he. On the contrary, like himself, they could only think what
was possible for them in the reality of their own time and place, and if
Hegel could now do what they could not, it is only because the
circumstances of his time make it possible for him to spell out this
possibility in a way that was previously impossible, since the conditions
were not ripe.
Now philosophy can only have this relationship of reflection to the broad
nature reality if the logic of philosophical thought and the development of
reality – of human history – are one and the same. This is the basis for
Hegel’s famed ‘dialectical’ approach. Philosophy is an argumentative
subject: look at its founding classics, Plato’s record of the dialogues in
which Socrates debated with other philosophers and ordinary individuals.
The philosophers lined up on opposite sides of the principled divisions that
marked the discipline and attempted to persuade each other of their
respective points of view. They can often reach some agreement by
recognising that, on the matter in hand, there are merits and faults on both
sides of the argument, and that a combination, or synthesis, of the two
positions provides a better one. Hegel held that things proceed in a
comparable way in real life, where people’s affairs are organised around
opposed positions that come into conflict with each other. The divisions in
society are between the same kind of fundamental principles (i.e. ideas) that
philosophers debate over, such as that between, for example, freedom and
dependence. Any historical period (or epoch) will feature one dominant
division that will run throughout the whole society, affecting all aspects of
its life – for example, the free citizens and slaves of the ancient world, the
aristocracy and peasantry of medieval society, or the employers and wage-
workers of modern times. It is this conflict between fundamental ideas
which drives the affairs of real life, which helps to explain why Hegel
thought that reality consisted in ideas, and that the course of affairs was
driven by the conflict of ideas. But these ideas are not located in some
ethereal realm (or even confined within the realm of thought, as represented
by philosophy) but are enacted in and run through the affairs of people in
the real world, the oppositions being associated with struggles between
social groupings, just as the opposition between ideas of freedom and
dependence can take the form of the division between masters and slaves.
Within historical affairs, then, the same kind of dialectical progression is
to be found as is sought in philosophy, where a solution to the opposition
between principles is attained through the combination of the best elements
from both sides in a new position, i.e. a synthesis. This advances debate to a
new level, but does not end it, for having shown that apparent oppositions
can both be recognised as aspects of one and the same unfolding,
developing reality, as not being really oppositions at all, new oppositions
will develop and the same process of contestation and resolution will occur
again. The history of philosophy, as interpreted by Hegel, is one of
development, in which each synthesis of initially opposed oppositions takes
the debate to a higher level, and the course of history itself follows the same
pattern. In real life, the opposition and synthesis does not take the form of
pure intellectual debate, but of actual social struggles, out of which the
conflict between two opposed ways of life can be overcome by a change in
the organisation of the society as a whole. Thus the ‘synthesis’ can take the
form of a transformation in the nature of the groups making up the society
(as when – in a transition of great importance to Marx – the age of the lord
and serf of feudal society gave way to the employer/wage-worker
relationship of capitalist society). The transformation of society in this way
resolves the conflict between the earlier grouping, and, as such, marks an
advance.
Indeed, for Hegel the course of human history was progressive, in the
sense that each stage brought about an increase in the freedom of
individuals. In the earliest civilisations, the idea of individual freedom was
first established, although large sections of the population remained in
slavery. Thus, the medieval serf was better off than the slave (in respect of
freedom) since the serf was not owned and did not belong to somebody
else. But serfs were nonetheless legally dependent upon someone else (the
feudal lords), and had very limited freedom, being closely restricted by their
obligations. The wage-worker is legally free, and in that respect capitalism
is an advance over feudalism, but that does not put an end to conflict: legal
freedom does not ensure complete freedom. However, for Hegel it was only
in the modern era – and in particular since the French Revolution of 1789 –
that the potential existed to recognise the individual liberty of all citizens by
organising the State in a ‘rational’ manner, that is, in such a way that the
constitution was based on the premise that everyone was legally free. In this
sense, the course of history has led to the realisation of the human ‘spirit’
and the emancipation of humanity. ‘World history’, wrote Hegel, ‘is the
progress of the consciousness of freedom … firstly, that of the Orientals,
who knew only that One is free, then that of the Greek and Roman world,
which knew that Some are free, and finally our own knowledge that All men
as such are free, and that man is by nature free …’ (Hegel, 1975: 54-55). It
should be clear from this that Hegel was not claiming (as some have
assumed) that the Prussian state of his day was perfectly rational, or that the
end of history had arrived. His position, rather, was that the modern era had
brought about the possibility of reconciling individual freedom and political
organisation in the form of the modern state. The challenge for the future
was to make this a reality, and for people to be able to handle their freedom
and the responsibilities which went with it. Individuals in the modern world
must be trained in ‘ethical virtuosity’ – since they could no longer rely on
some ‘master rule’, they now had to make practical judgements about what
was good and right as part of everyday social life (Pinkard, 2000: 480).
The logical development of Hegel’s position led, then, to the belief that
understanding the nature of philosophy is the same as understanding the
course of history, and that history is to be understood as a series of conflict-
driven transformations from one period of human life into a new one of a
quite different kind, each transformation marking an advance. The new era
is not conflict free but introduces a distinctive and dominating conflict of its
own (until the end of history, that is; a point to which we return shortly).
Since Hegel saw ‘spirit’ or ‘mind’ as the driving force, and the growth,
conflict and transformation of ideas in the movement toward self-
knowledge as the essential stuff of historical development, and since ‘spirit’
and ‘mind’ are notions that are also similar to that of ‘high culture’, given
Hegel’s logic, it was natural to suppose that the development of thought was
best traced through those activities that most directly involved the
engagement of thought in the effort to understand reality, most importantly
those of philosophy, religion and the arts.
Until these efforts are successful, until a full and final understanding is
achieved, humanity does not know itself, cannot recognise its own nature.
Such self-knowledge cannot be had instantly, but must be worked toward
over long historical time. When that self-knowledge is achieved, then
complete freedom will also have been attained, for – in Hegel’s scheme –
human self-knowledge and human liberation are one and the same.
Freedom, in Hegel’s understanding, means the absence of all external
limitation. As we have seen, reality and thought have to be basically the
same, otherwise – in Hegel’s treatment – thought could not capture or
display reality, but this is something that thought has not yet, nor prior to
the appearance of Hegel’s philosophy, actually recognised. The point of
Hegel’s philosophy is to deliver the final awareness of this identity between
thought and reality. Thought (humanity) thinks that it is not free because it
is bound by reality, but this is basically an illusion, and one from which it
needs to be rescued (by Hegel’s philosophy). Spirit (through humanity)
creates the real world of history, but humanity is not capable, in the
beginning, before thought has begun to develop, of recognising itself in the
things that it makes: it views them as though they had nothing to do with its
own powers, were the creation of forces beyond spirit’s control (e.g.
nature). This is the famous condition of ‘estrangement’ or ‘alienation’ in
which there is an inability to recognise one’s own creations as that, to
recognise oneself in the things that one has made. Thus, humanity is cut off
from (the understanding of) its own nature, and therefore bound to live in a
way that is false to that nature, unless and until it can overcome this
estrangement. When this recovery takes place, and it is realised that reality
(history) is not something separate from, external to, and therefore limiting
on, humanity, then humanity will realise that there are no external
limitations upon it, that it is, by (Hegel’s) definition, free.
Humanity’s nature is, however, one that initially exists in potential.
Humanity’s nature is not fixed so that it is the same throughout all time and
places. Humanity’s nature is to change, to develop. Essentially, that nature
is to entirely fulfil all that it has the potential to become (just as it is the
nature of a seed to grow into a plant). Thus, at the beginning of history
humanity has only the potential to develop, to fulfil itself in the way that the
plant fulfils the potential of the seed. Humanity initially cannot know its
own nature, cannot understand what it could possibly be. It can only find
this out by developing, and it can only fully find this out by realising all that
it is capable of. The capacity for complete self-knowledge comes with the
final development of humanity’s full potential, for at that point it is also
possible to recognise that the world that has appeared as a constraint upon
humanity’s freedom is, in fact, wholly humanity’s own creation, and that it
is not, therefore, truly external or limiting, meaning that humanity is not
capable of recognising that it is (in Hegel’s sense) completely free. Hegel’s
specific argument about the historical development of freedom assumed,
rather like Durkheim long after him, that the earliest societies must have
been repressive ones in which their members were forced to conform to
tribal conventions and, further, were constantly at the mercy of the forces of
nature. The idea of individual freedom is evident in ancient Greece and in
Rome, but it is still far from realised since, for one thing, slavery persisted.
In modern societies, however, the reconciliation of the idea and reality has
come much closer. As Hegel wrote: ‘the right of subjective freedom is the
pivotal and focal point in the difference between antiquity and the modern
age.’ According to Hegel, it was Christianity which had brought about this
new view of the rights of the individual and established ‘the universal and
actual principle of a new form of the world’ (1991: 151).
Hegel referred to the new modern social order, in which individuals were
free to pursue their own interests, as ‘civil society’, a notion which
anticipates at several points Durkheim’s view of modern societies as held
together by relations of interdependence between their different parts. And,
like Durkheim, Hegel saw that the unrestricted pursuit of interests would
soon lead to disorder, inequality and conflict. The authoritative regulation
of activities was, therefore, necessary. For Hegel, this could only be
provided by the modern state, a state which was not, as in earlier times,
founded on coercion or dominated by powerful interests, but embodied
universal rational principles. The ideas of justice and the equality of all
citizens before the law are such principles and their realisation in the
modern state a further example of the ways in which, for Hegel, the real
world and the ideal could be reconciled. Moreover, as the consciousness of
individuals becomes increasingly rational, the tension between the interests
of the individual and those of the collectivity will also be transcended.

Since the state is objective spirit, it is only through being a member of the state that the
individual himself has objectivity, truth, and ethical life. Union as such is itself the true content,
and end, and the destiny of individuals is to lead a universal life. (Hegel, 1991: 276)

Since it is Hegel’s philosophy that is explaining this to humanity, then this

also means that the production of Hegel’s philosophy is the final stage in
the process of realisation that has been developing over the epochs, that the
philosophy is the vehicle for this full self-recognition: history is shown to
have developed to the point at which it becomes possible for Hegel to
develop this philosophy. Insofar as history has been a struggle toward self-
realisation through self-knowledge, then Hegel’s thought puts an end to that
struggle and, in that sense, brings an end to history.
Hegel’s implication, then, is that the freedom of individuals is actually
realised in their duty of obedience to the state, a conclusion which has led
many to view Hegel’s political philosophy as little more than an apology for
tyrannical regimes of all kinds. Others argue that this is less than fair.
Nevertheless, the belief that Hegel’s doctrine of freedom was paradoxically
a justification for the authoritarian state can be found in the writings of the
Young Hegelians who developed their critical ideas in the years after his
death. As we shall see, it is a view which also found expression in the
writings of the young Marx.

The Young Hegelians and the critique of Hegelianism

Marx was not in Berlin long before he became increasingly engrossed in

Hegel’s ideas as one of the Young Hegelians. They, however, were not
disciples who rigidly adhered to the teachings of their master. In particular
they were sceptical of any claim that the ultimate stage of human liberation
had been reached. It was evident to the Young Hegelians that the world in
which they lived was not the ideal world of freedom and justice which
Hegel had envisaged. Moreover, it also became apparent that a view of
human history as the unfolding struggle of mind for fulfilment brought
about by the ‘cunning of reason’ could be used to justify any act, however
abhorrent, and any institution, however corrupt. All could be explained
away as a necessary stage in the evolution of Mind. The question arose as to
whether Hegel’s conclusions were entailed by his philosophical methods, or
whether the method of theoretical criticism might be used independently of
Hegel’s own conservative conclusions. It was the latter view to which the
Young Hegelians were drawn.
For Bruno Bauer, a young theology lecturer and a close associate of
Marx, history was indeed progressive and driven by the engine of
rationality. But it was not yet complete. ‘History is determined by the
permanent antagonism between what is and what ought to be, the latter
being expressed by the spirit in its quest for self-consciousness’
(Kolakowski, 1978: 89). Bauer’s critical impulses led him to a radical
critique of Christianity in which he used one of Hegel’s own arguments to
show that faith in God did not bring about freedom, but rather its opposite.
Whereas Hegel had spoken of a transient phase in which human beings
projected their own essence onto God as a mythical representation of Mind,
Bauer generalised this conclusion by arguing that the whole idea of God
involved individuals in surrendering themselves to the control of a mythical
character.
Feuerbach and the critique of religion

Marx was impressed by Bauer’s ideas, and by the critique of religion

central to a book which was to become the most influential of all the Young
Hegelians’ work, The Essence of Christianity, by Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–
72). This appeared in 1841 and challenged the accepted view of religion by
its claim that the ‘secret of theology is anthropology’. Instead of God (or
Mind) being the creator of the world, such conceptions are really the
inventions of human beings, ideas that they create as they seek to
understand their lives and the world. As such they are representations of
human qualities and aspirations. The Christian idea of God, for example, is
a personification, in supernatural form, of the ideas of infinite power and
goodness. The belief that God created the world is a myth which explains
how things come to be the way they are. It is human beings who create
God, not vice versa. However, such a myth is a powerful constraint against
people coming to understand their true situation and to transform it. If a
state of affairs is understood as God’s will, and God is believed to be
benevolent and omnipotent, then people will fail to realise that it is only by
action in the real world that the human condition can be improved.
It is in the notion of the ‘real world’ that we can begin to see the extent to
which Feuerbach’s ideas constituted a challenge to Hegel. For Feuerbach,
ultimate reality is the world of people and things, not some abstract notion
of Mind or Spirit. In this respect, he was a materialist rather than an idealist.
Whereas Hegel saw human beings as externalised, or alienated Mind,
Feuerbach saw Mind as alienated humanity. Moreover, in creating mythical
figures, such as God, people mystified their own true nature and abandoned
their capacity to control their own world. If human lives are governed by
the belief that we must do ‘God’s will’, and that it is our duty to obey
‘Him’, they surrender their powers to a wholly imaginary being, one which
they themselves have created. It is this process which, for Feuerbach,
constitutes the essence of human alienation. In externalising ideas such as
that of God, human beings begin to believe that God has a real, independent
existence with power over them. Investing powers in God robs human
beings of them. It is in this sense that the term ‘alienation’ has been used
since, largely as a result of the use that Marx made of it in his writings
during the years following the appearance of Feuerbach’s work.
 For Feuerbach religion was ‘the root of all social evil’ (Kolakowski,
1978: 118). He believed that once its true, mystifying nature had been
understood, people would be able to regain control over the social world
which they had surrendered, and so reorganise society in genuinely humane
ways. A major obstacle remained: Hegel’s philosophical system. In 1843
Feuerbach published his ‘Preliminary Theses for a Reform of Philosophy’,
which also greatly impressed Marx. This ‘reform’, Feuerbach argued,
would involve the abolition of Hegel’s idealist philosophy following the
realisation that ‘the true relationship of thought to being is this: being is the
subject, thought the predicate. Thought arises from being; being does not
arise from thought’ (quoted in McLellan, 1980: 107).

The critique of Hegel’s view of the state

The appearance of Feuerbach’s critique of Hegel was fortuitous for Marx’s

intellectual development. We have already mentioned how his move into
journalism led him away from the speculative philosophy of the Young
Hegelians as he began to pay attention to the social and political issues of
his day. In his first major article as editor of the Rheinische Zeitung he had
discussed the problem of timber theft, which had become a significant
social issue as the courts became full of such cases. Traditionally, people
had been able to collect dead wood from the land, now, however, landlords
were enforcing their rights of ownership. For Marx, it seemed that what had
once belonged as of right to the people in general had now become legally
redefined as the property of the rich. He detected, too, a contradiction in the
way that the law, with its strict and narrow definition of property rights,
paid no attention to the consequent problems of the poor peasantry and their
simple, but vital, need for wood to keep them warm. Instead of the state
acting to improve the condition of the people and defend their interests, the
law relating to timber produced only profit for the few and suffering for the
many.
For Marx the state was acting not as the expression of the general will of
the people in Hegel’s sense, but as the defender of particular, and powerful,
interests. Those who spoke on behalf of the state were motivated not by
ideals of truth and justice, but by specific class interests. In another article,
Marx contrasted this with the Hegelian ideal. A law relating to the press, he
argued, should exist as a guarantee of its freedom in the interests of all
rather than seeking to protect the rich and the powerful. It was the press
rather than the state which could protect the freedom of the people, and to
do this it must be free to criticise the state and its functionaries. Needless to
say, the authorities took a different view and the Rheinische Zeitung was
banned at the end of March 1843.
Marx’s response was to write a critical study of Hegel’s political thought,
and in it to develop some of Feuerbach’s ideas but in relation to the nature
of the state. Just as Feuerbach had argued that, in Hegel, the real
relationship between humanity and religion is reversed, so Marx argued that
the state does not embody the general will. On the contrary:

Hegel starts from the state and makes man into the subjective aspect of the state; democracy
starts from man and makes the state into objectified man. Just as religion does not make man,
but man makes religion, so the constitution does not make people, but the people make the
constitution. (Marx, 1843b: 28)

Whereas Feuerbach had diagnosed the condition of religious alienation,

in which people obeyed ‘gods’ which were nothing but mythical
representations, so Marx identified political alienation as the situation in
which people become subordinate to a state which, though a human
creation, has become independent of them. Far from representing the
general interest, or arbitrating among competing social groups, in reality the
state acted to defend the rich and the powerful few against the claims of the
majority of the people. The idea that the state acts in the general interest, or
is a neutral arbiter, is itself ideological; that is, a belief that serves only to
give legitimacy to an institution which is, in reality, the instrument of
dominant groups. Hegel’s view of the state, argued Marx, was ideological
in the sense that while it claimed to be a true analysis of political
institutions, in fact it mystified them to protect dominating interests.
Moreover, whereas Hegel had regarded the state bureaucracy as a corps
of officials who acted independently and impartially to regulate the
conflicts and competition of civil society in the best interests of all, Marx’s
frustrating experiences with the Prussian censors demonstrated how the
state itself had become a powerful self-interested group which would
defend itself and suppress criticism when it could. In lines which anticipate
his later analyses, Marx characterised the actions of state officials:

Bureaucracy holds in its possession the essence of the state, the spiritual essence of society, it is
its private property. The general spirit of bureaucracy is secret, mystery, safeguarded inside itself
 by hierarchy and outside by its nature as closed corporation. Thus public political spirit and also
political mentality appear to bureaucracy as a betrayal of its secret. The principle of its
knowledge is therefore authority, and its mentality is the idolatry of authority. (Marx, 1843b: 31)

Marx goes on to argue that the ethos of bureaucratic officials, far from
embodying the general will is, in fact, one of ‘passive obedience’,
conformism and careerism. So, not only does the state operate in defence of
powerful interests; it has itself become one.
The critiques of the state and of religion are themes which come together
in Marx’s works during this period, and illustrate the rapidity with which
his writings moved beyond those of the Young Hegelians. One of these was
a response to an article of Bauer’s, in which he had argued that in order to
achieve Jewish emancipation it was necessary for a separation of church
and state, and for both Jews and Christians to realise that it was their
religious beliefs which enslaved them both. Marx agreed with Bauer but
suggested that his analysis did not go far enough. In On the Jewish
Question (1843a) Marx dismisses the idea that the disestablishment of the
church will solve the problem. Relegating the church to the arena of civil
society only served to give people the ‘freedom’ to persist in their
subjection to religious mythologies; it does nothing to alter the conditions
which create their need for religion and their consequent alienation. The
essence of the problem lay in the continuing opposition between the
political institutions of the state, on the one hand, and civil society, the
arena of everyday, individual interests, on the other. Real human
emancipation could only come about when this opposition was transcended
and the spheres of public and private life reconciled.
Marx goes on to pour scorn on the ideals of human liberty inscribed in
the great revolutionary texts of the late eighteenth century. The rights of
man are, for him, only the rights to remain in conditions of subjection to
religion, the state and private property. ‘Man was therefore not freed from
religion; he received freedom of religion. He was not freed from property;
he received freedom of property. He was not freed from the egoism of trade;
he received freedom to trade’ (ibid.: 56). For Marx, the attainment of such
‘rights’ does not realise the condition of human freedom; on the contrary, it
establishes a society of isolated, competitive, alienated individuals which is
the very opposite of what human emancipation should achieve. Thus, the
overthrow of feudal societies, of the ancien régimes, had not brought about
the ideal society in which social institutions were at one with human nature.
As long as the state is separated from civil society, Marx argued, ‘the right
of man to freedom ceases to be a right as soon as it enters into conflict with
political life’ (1843: 54). Above all, the philosophers had confused a
particular historical form of society with the realisation of human
emancipation: for them ‘it is not man as citizen but man as bourgeois who is
called the real and true man’.

Turning Hegel the Right Way Up

In his early thought, Marx’s ‘rejection’ of Hegel was, in many central ways,
a reworking of Hegel’s scheme rather than a wholesale abandonment of it.
In that early thought, unquestionably, and more debatably in his later work,
many of Hegel’s central ideas were retained, but given a very different
application than they had in the original. Marx transformed Hegel from an
idealist into a materialist. He retained Hegel’s general conception of history
as a developmental process, and one that could intelligibly be said to come
to an end, and that that would find its fulfilment in the complete
emancipation of human kind from all external necessity. The developmental
process was also, Hegel had taught, very much a social and collective one:
it was a succession of human communities (nations) and individual thinkers
were to be understood only in the context of their community and the
configuration of conflicts that were distinctive to it. So, also, for Marx,
history was a history of societies, divided by conflict, which was the driving
force of movement that led to their transformation, a transformation that (as
in Hegel) could take place only through a radical break from the previous
form of the society, involving a drastic reconfiguration of the central
conflicts. The development was also one toward self-knowledge, a process
which would, in the end, be expressed through a theory – but that of Marx,
rather than Hegel. Human beings would come to realise that their
unfreedom was entirely of their own creation, the product of the division of
humanity against itself through its division into opposed, conflicting
groups, some of which were dominant over and exploitative of others.
An historical age was defined by a central struggle, but this was not at all
struggle between abstract ideas or principles but between real human beings
drawn into opposed groupings, differentiated by their real material and
practical interests. The sides in the struggle, as Hegel had seen, often
justified themselves by appeal to abstract general principles, but these
principles were not, in Marx’s understanding, the real movers of the
conflict. Hegel’s political conclusions had given the game away with
respect to his philosophy, for the freedom that Hegel proclaimed was
politically unreal: the prisons were full of political prisoners, and this hardly
comprised the real freedom of all humanity. Hegel’s philosophy had
‘proved’ that humanity was free but had achieved nothing. An individual
philosopher cannot change the world, not least because the philosopher
remains in the realm of ideas, and ideas do not move anything real. Idealism
must give way to materialism, which means recognising that it is real,
actual human beings themselves (and not as vehicles of ‘spirit’) that makes
history, and that it is the real needs and interests of those creatures that is
the actual basis for history. Rather than understanding the process of
development through cultural institutions (the embodiment of ‘Mind’ in
Hegel) the process must be seen to be rooted in (basically) economic and
(derivatively) political institutions, and in the creative effort (labour) out of
which all these things arise.
Hegel’s idea of humanity as alienated spirit was reversed: human’s were
alienated, but their alienation was a product of their own situation, through
a process in which the product of their activities, both mental and physical,
come to acquire an apparently independent existence, and then, like God or
the state, come to dominate the lives of real people, who cannot (yet) see
that this apparent independence is only an illusion. These ideas attacked the
two central institutions, the church and the state, of the society in which
Marx lived, and this was more than enough to earn him the reputation of a
dangerous radical. Also, he was moving beyond the critical ideas of
Feuerbach, Bauer, and other Young Hegelians: religious tolerance still
leaves religion intact, and the achievement of political constitutions still
presupposes a separation between the state and civil society, in which the
former dominates the latter. Those who hold that religious tolerance and
political constitutions represent the attainment of human freedom were
regarded by Marx as apologists for societies in which people are still
fundamentally alienated from a genuinely communal existence in which the
opposition between the state and civil society has been overcome.
The attainment, then, of the so-called ‘rights of man’ was for Marx not
enough to overcome religious and political alienation. Religion was not the
source of human oppression, but a symptom of it. To overcome the effects
of religion it was necessary to remove the human suffering which gave rise
to them. In a famous passage, Marx argued that:

Religious suffering is at the same time an expression of real suffering and a protest against real
suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the feeling of a heartless world, and the
soul of soulless circumstances. It is the opium of the people … the abolition of religion as the
illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. (Marx, 1844a: 64)

As far as the state was concerned,

none of the so-called rights of man goes beyond egoistic man, man as he is in civil society,
namely an individual withdrawn behind his private interests and whims and separated from the
community. Far from the rights of man conceiving of man as a species-being, species-life itself,
society appears as a framework exterior to individuals, a limitation of their self-sufficiency.
(Marx, 1843a: 54)

Marx not only deplored the separation between state and civil society, but
saw the latter as perverting the real essence of humanity by replacing
communal values with competitive, individualistic ones. For him, then, the
state was neither a neutral arbiter between contending interests, as in the
social contract theories of Hobbes and Rousseau, nor an integrated whole,
as in Hegel’s version of the state as the expression of the General Will.
What is at stake here is a contrast between two different modes of
conceptualising society and the role of the state within it. From Hegel’s
point of view society is a more or less integrated totality, greater than the
sum of the individual and groups which make it up. In this image the state
appears as an institution which serves to control the operation of the system
as a whole. For Marx, however, society is the outcome of the struggle of
real people, or, more precisely, classes of people, pursuing their interests
with the state as one highly effective means by which dominant groups can
exercise control over the mass of the people, and is all the more effective
for being perceived as embodying the interests of society as a whole and
acting impartially.
Increasingly, the fundamental idea which emerged in Marx’s work at this
time is that the root causes of human misery and alienation are not religious
or political, but economic. What was needed was a revolution by
transformation of the mode of production, and this could only be achieved
through direct action. Because of its relative economic and political
backwardness compared to Britain and France, Germany would need a dual
revolution, the first to bring it to the level of the more politically and
economically advanced of the nations, and another to take it to the ‘human
level that is the immediate future of these peoples’. Marx was optimistic
about such prospects, since the country was productive, of ideas: ‘In politics
the Germans have thought what others have done.’ What was necessary was
a union of theory and practice in which ‘theory … will become material
force as soon as it seizes the masses’ (Marx, 1844a: 68–9). The vehicle of
revolution would have to be a class of people who were excluded from the
benefits of civil society, whose suffering was the direct result of the
establishment of civil society, and whose emancipation would be that of all
humanity. The limited extent of industrialisation in Germany meant that
such a class had as yet barely formed. But in France and Britain, it was
made up of ‘those who have their origin in society’s brutal dissolution and
principally the dissolution of the middle class’ (1844a: 73). This class, Marx
believed, was the proletariat.
His concern for revolution was a fusion of theorising and practical action.
‘As philosophy finds in the proletariat its material weapons, so the
proletariat finds in philosophy its intellectual weapons’ (1844a: 73). As
Kolakowski points out, the idea that the proletariat, in seeking to liberate
itself, is destined to bring about universal human emancipation is a
‘philosophical deduction rather than a product of observation’ (1978: 130).
But by the time Marx had begun to write about the proletariat, he had left
Germany and settled in Paris, where he encountered not only revolutionary
intellectuals like himself, but also, for the first time, groups of socialist
workers who had already developed a body of ideas critical of the existing
social order.

The Critique of Political Economy

Paris, as we noted above, was a magnet for radical thinkers, and Marx was
already familiar with the French socialist tradition. Indeed, it has been
suggested that his use of the term ‘proletariat’ is derived from his studies of
the French Revolution (McLellan, 1980: 156). As we have seen, in the
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Marx began to apply his
philosophical perspective to the analysis of economic life. In contrast to
Hegel’s idealism, Marx presented a materialist view in which the point of
departure was the conception of real people in a real environment.
Religious alienation was not, as Feuerbach supposed, the cause of human
misery but its consequence, and it was necessary to extend the critique to
the fundamental level of human life, namely, economic activity. ‘Religious
alienation as such’, Marx wrote in the Paris Manuscripts, ‘occurs only in
the realm of consciousness, but economic alienation is that of real life; its
transcendence therefore covers both aspects’ (1844b: 96). Just as he had
poured scorn on the political theorists who had failed to realise that the
‘rights of man’ could not be attained in civil society, so he became bitterly
critical of economic doctrines which confused, he argued, a particular
historical situation for the natural, universal condition of humanity.

The elements of political economy

The dominant economic theories of the day were those of Adam Smith
(1723–90) and David Ricardo (1772–1823). In The Wealth of Nations
(1776), Smith had argued that the unrestricted pursuit of commerce was the
means by which countries could achieve prosperity, and that the productive
capacity of economic activity was increased with the progressive division
of labour. Such ideas, familiar enough today, were radical in their time,
challenging the ‘mercantilist’ view which argued for the regulation of trade
through the granting of state monopolies or imposing protectionist customs
duties. The main object of trade was seen as the accumulation of wealth in
the form of precious metals. For Smith, the real source of wealth was not
gold and silver but the production of commodities for sale on the market. In
place of regulation by tradition or political authority, Smith’s view was that
the ‘invisible hand’ of the market should be allowed to determine the
conduct of economic affairs. Individuals are motivated to sell commodities
on the market as a means of increasing their own wealth, and so will
produce what others want. At the same time, the prices they charge will be
kept down through the inevitable competition among rival producers and
there will be an incentive to improve both products and the production
process in order to gain a competitive advantage. Prosperity and social
harmony, then, will arise out of the pursuit of individual self-interest in
‘civil society’, and the less state interference, the more effectively the
market will operate.
 In his political philosophy, Hegel had made use of Smith’s distinction
between ‘civil society’ – the sphere of self-interest – and ‘political society’
– the sphere of collective interests – arguing that the two could only be
reconciled by strong institutions, such as the Prussian monarchy, which
were above particular and sectional interests. It is hardly surprising,
therefore, that Marx began to develop a thorough critique of the ideas of
Smith and the other political economists; thus, his own thinking on
economic matters was influenced in important ways by his reading of the
political economy of his day. He accepted, for example, the distinction
between the ‘use value’ of a commodity, that is, its practical utility, and its
‘exchange value’, the price it could command on the market. Clearly, the
two are distinct: gold and silver have, for example, a low utility value, but
have a high exchange value. This was something of a problem for the
political economists, and they sought to discover the ultimate source of the
value of commodities in general. Smith’s solution, which Marx adopted,
was that the exchange value of goods was set by the amount of human
labour involved in their production. For Marx, however, the workers whose
efforts gave commodities their value ought to be entitled to the full
proceeds of the sale of those commodities. Thus, the profits extracted by the
capitalist from the sale of commodities was nothing less than exploitation.
For the present, the essential point to note is that the political economists,
according to Marx, failed to see that human labour was capable of
producing ‘surplus value’, that is, the excess of the value of the product
over the value of the wages which are paid to the workers. Marx was
critical of Ricardo in particular for failing to see that it was this ‘surplus
value’ which is the source of the capitalists’ profits.
The failings of the political economists’ theories, Marx argued, arose
because they simply took for granted ‘the actual fact of capitalist
production’ rather than seeing it as one particular and historically specific
form of production. Thus, they presumed the universal validity of concepts
which were, in fact, culturally specific, such as that of ‘private property’.
Private property, Marx stressed, is not part of the natural human condition.
It does not occur in all societies and is only maintained in ours by an
elaborate system of laws supported by the power of the state. For the
political economists the acquisition of private property motivated people to
produce wealth, but for Marx it was precisely this which resulted in the
breakdown of genuine social relationships. One person’s ownership of an
object denies its benefits to another, creates a basic conflict between them
and produces a competition over resources. When this property is actually
the product of another person’s work this is, for Marx, the ultimate
condition of human alienation in which those who work create an external
world which then appears ‘alien’ to them and operates so as to dominate
them.
In the Paris Manuscripts Marx subjects the basic concepts of political
economy, such as ‘private property’, ‘wages’, ‘labour’, ‘capital’, ‘land’,
‘profit’, ‘rent’, ‘the division of labour’, ‘exchange value’, ‘competition’ and
so on, to detailed and critical scrutiny. As we have said, his main complaint
against the political economists was their presumption of the general
validity of what were, in fact, historically specific economic relationships.
Moreover, his reading, his experience of life in Paris, and his conversations
with radical and socialist thinkers had made him increasingly aware of the
social effects of capitalist industrial production as it was developing in
Britain and France. Although his fuller analysis of capitalism came later, he
anticipates it by noting what, for Marx, is an obvious and inhuman paradox:
as capitalist production vastly increases the wealth of society, so the
workers themselves are impoverished:

the worker sinks to the level of a commodity and becomes indeed the most wretched of
commodities … the wretchedness of the worker is in inverse proportion to the power and
magnitude of his production … the necessary result of competition is the accumulation of
capital in a few hands … finally the distinction between capitalist and land-renter, like that
between the tiller of the soil and the factory worker, disappears and … the whole of society must
fail apart into two classes - the property owners and the propertyless workers. (Marx, 1844b: 64)

In these remarks Marx introduces many of the themes which were to

preoccupy him for the remainder of his life. Their original purpose was to
indicate the social consequences of ‘alienated labour’, a condition which
reached its most highly developed form within capitalism.

Alienated labour Marx considers four aspects of alienated labour. The first
occurs when the things workers produce become the property of someone
else, in this case the capitalist employer, and so contribute to the creation of
an ‘alien’ world: ‘the more objects the worker produces, the fewer he can
possess and the more he falls under the domination of his product, capital’
(1844b: 66). The end result of the workers’ efforts is to enrich and empower
those who oppress them, the capitalists, and to impoverish themselves.
Marx’s second point follows on from this. If the products of labour
contribute to the degradation of the producers, then labour itself becomes an
activity directed against itself; it is, as Marx puts it, ‘self-alienation’.
Workers do not enjoy their work or, more important for Marx, confirm their
real human nature in it. It is forced drudgery which negates their personal
feelings and their objective interests.
It is here that we see the extent to which a materialist perspective has
replaced Hegelian idealism in Marx’s thought. Alienated labour, argues
Marx, not only separates people from the products of their work and from
their true selves, it also separates them from the very essence of humanity.
People live in a natural world and depend upon its resources for survival,
for food, for shelter, for clothing, and so on. All human life depends on this
vital relationship. Of course, other species also depend on this natural
environment, but what distinguishes human beings from other species is the
way in which we produce the means of life. Other species must survive on
what they can find in their environment or adapt themselves to it, whereas
human beings work on their environment, transforming it rather than
themselves. The range of variation in the physical characteristics of people
throughout the world is relatively small, yet human beings have created
cultures which allow them to live in extremely diverse environments, from
the Arctic to the deserts. The history of human civilisation is, thus, a history
of human ability to act on the environment to transform it to meet their
needs. Hunting, then agriculture, then industrial production, are all human
inventions which have increased the human capacity to control the
environment and create wealth from it. We no longer shelter in caves but
build houses. If we wish to cross the oceans we do not evolve into fish but
build boats. If we wish to fly we do not grow wings, we build aircraft.
There is, then, in Marx’s view, a decisive difference between the ways in
which humans and other animal species relate to their environment: ‘In
creating an objective world by his practical activity, in working-up
inorganic nature, man proves himself a conscious species being’ (1844b:
71). It follows, according to Marx, that the activity of work has a special
significance as the affirmation of our essential nature as human beings.
However, under conditions of alienated labour, this is denied:

The object of labour is … the objectification of man’s species life: for he duplicates himself not
only, as in consciousness, intellectually, but also actively, in reality, and therefore he
 contemplates himself in a world he has created. In tearing away from man the object of his
production, therefore, estranged labour tears from him his species life. (ibid.: 72)

So under conditions of alienated labour, work, which should be the ultimate

fulfilment of human life, is degraded to a process by which people are
enslaved and impoverished. Work, which should be an end, becomes a
means.
The final aspect of alienation Marx identifies extends this idea. As well
as separating humans from their essential nature, alienated labour separates
them from each other, so destroying the possibility of experiencing a
genuine community with one’s fellow beings. The product of labour
becomes the property not of oneself, or the ‘gods’, but of another person:
‘The relationship of the worker to labour engenders the relation of it to the
capitalist, or whatever one chooses to call the master of labour’ (1844b: 75–
6).
From a sociological perspective this is an argument of considerable
importance. What Marx is proposing is an understanding of society in
which a fundamental economic relationship, that between labour and
capital, brings about a definite pattern of social relationships. Alienated
labour not only destroys the possibility of a genuine human community
based on co-operation and fellow-feeling, but also creates social
arrangements which are conflictual. There is an inherent clash of interests
between workers and capitalists. There is also, as we shall see, antagonism
between workers who must compete with each other for jobs, and hostility
between capitalists who have to compete for profit in the market. Alienated
labour in the context of capitalist production had brought about the
replacement of human cooperation by conflict as the basic organising
principle of society, and gave rise to a fundamental social antagonism
between the majority of the people who work to produce wealth and the
minority who are able to appropriate this wealth as private property.
In direct contrast to the political economists, Marx argued that the
acquisition of private property could not be the original impulse motivating
people to engage in productive activity; rather, it is the consequence of
alienated labour ‘just as the gods in the beginning are not the cause but the
effect of man’s intellectual confusion’. More generally, the theorists of
political economy had not created a science of economic life propounding
universally valid principles, they had merely ‘formulated the laws of
estranged labour’ (1844b: 76). From this point of view, economics was not
a science at all but had to be understood as an ideology, as Marx was soon
to call it; that is, a set of ideas which, though claiming to express general
truths, in fact only express the ideas which legitimate the dominance of a
class. Just as Hegel’s philosophy came to be seen as an expression of
alienation, and needed to be turned upside down in order to restore human
beings to their proper place at the centre of things, so Marx had come to
view political economy in the same way. The proper purpose of economic
activity was not the production of profits for a few, and the consequent
impoverishment of the many, but the satisfaction of human needs and the
production of general well-being. In political economy God had been
replaced by Capital: an apparently independent entity which dominated
people’s lives. And just as Hegel’s philosophy had been the subject of a
sustained and necessary critique, so Marx embarked on a critique of
political economy and an elaboration of an alternative, non-alienated
account of economic life.
However, as always with Marx, there was a direct link between this
academic critique of political economy and his practical political
commitments. The conclusion that it was private property that was
ultimately responsible for the degradation of the workers implied that by
freeing themselves from their enslavement to private property they could
bring about a general emancipation of humanity from its alienated
condition:

the emancipation of society from private property …from servitude, is expressed in the political
form of the emancipation of the workers … because the whole of human servitude is involved
in the relation of the worker to production, and every relation of servitude, is but a modification
and consequence of this relation. (1844b: 77)

Marx could never be included among those like the Young Hegelians
whose critique of society remained theoretical and academic. For him, the
intellectual task of demystifying orthodox political economy was a
counterpart to his practical political activities in support of workers’
movements. This commitment, in its turn, was sustained by the theoretical
conclusion that by freeing themselves the workers could liberate humanity
from its alienation.
The idea that a working-class movement could produce a revolutionary
transformation of society as a prelude to universal human liberation is only
one of the themes which Marx develops in the Paris Manuscripts. The
emphasis on labour and economic activity as the fundamental way in which
human beings produce the conditions of life and the basis for the
organisation of other relationships has already been discussed. Important,
too, is the idea of the opposition between the producers of wealth and those
who expropriate the products of this labour: the fundamental conflict which
gives rise to particular patterns of social organisation. Of major
consequence also is the conception of political economy as an ideological
representation which serves the interests of the dominant class, rather than
being a neutral scientific analysis of economic activities. And, above all,
there is the belief in the fundamentally alienated nature of human existence
under capitalism. People become dominated by Capital both in its legal
form as private property and in its symbolic form as money. The goal of the
system is the creation of capital rather than the satisfaction of human needs.
The ambition of individuals is to accumulate money rather than achieve
well-being. Thus the doctrines of political economy turn means into ends:
‘Self-denial, the denial of life and of all human needs, is its cardinal
doctrine… The less you are, the more you have; the less you express your
own life, the greater is your alienated life – the greater is the store of your
estranged being’ (1844b: 110).

The Partnership with Engels

In August 1844, as we mentioned above, Marx met Friedrich Engels. Both

had come to break with their earlier attachment to Hegel’s idealist
philosophy and stressed, instead, the importance of material factors. Later,
Engels was to write that ‘while I was in Manchester it was tangibly brought
home to me that economic facts, which have so far played no role or only a
contemptible one in the writing of history, are, in the modern world at least,
a decisive historical fact’ (quoted in Rigby, 1992: 39).
It was during his first period in Manchester that Engels wrote the
Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy, which evidently made a deep
impression on Marx; he acknowledged his debt to the book in the Paris
Manuscripts. In his essay, Engels developed many of the themes which
were to play a major role in the thinking of both men. Political economy is
portrayed as the ideology of the advocates of free trade as they sought to
destroy the old mercantilist system and its monopolies. The success of the
free traders, however, only brought about the greatest monopoly of all,
namely private property. For Engels, trade carried out ‘under the
domination of private property’ is no more than ‘a developed system of
licensed fraud’ (Engels, 1844: 166, 161) in which people are motivated only
by self-interest and inevitably placed in antagonistic relations with others.
The result is the destruction of established social institutions. Nationalities
are dissolved as humanity is transformed into a ‘horde of ravenous beasts
(for what else are competitors?)’. The factory system of work tears families
apart and turns familial bonds into economic transactions. However, what
the political economist did not realise was that ‘by his dissolution of all
sectional interests he merely paves the way for the great transformation to
which the century is moving – the reconciliation of mankind with nature
and with itself’ (ibid.: 168).
In the course of his denunciation of political economy, Engels indicates
at various points that modern capitalism is doomed. The domination of
humanity by private property is the final stage before the ‘great
transformation’ which will restore a genuine community of human beings –
a clear echo of Hegelian thought. However, this final, transcendental state
of affairs will only come as a result of material economic activity which
will transform ideas. Intense and incessant competition among capitalists
will lead to trade crises, cycles of booms and slumps with each increasingly
severe crisis eliminating the weaker competitors. As time goes by capitalist
production will become concentrated in fewer and fewer large firms. The
social structure is also transformed: ‘The middle classes must increasingly
disappear until the world is divided into millionaires and paupers, into large
landowners and poor farm labourers’ (Engels, 1844: 188).
The similarities between the analyses of Marx and Engels are clear
enough. What is less clear, however, is the precise nature of the intellectual
partnership between the two, who were to remain firm friends and
collaborators up to Marx’s death in 1883. As Engels himself saw it, he was
very much the junior partner and, as a result, has been held responsible for
the simplified versions of Marx’s ideas which became prominent after the
latter’s death. In particular, in contrast to Marx, Engels was accused of
holding a deterministic view of history in which social and political change
could be explained in terms of general laws, as well as a radically
materialist view of the world in which everything could be understood as
‘matter in motion’, thus denying the possibility of mind and consciousness.
He has been blamed, too, for the ‘vulgar Marxism’ which, it is claimed,
influenced the European socialist movements toward the end of the
nineteenth century, and the version which became the official doctrine of
the Communist Party in the Soviet Union during the twentieth. Therefore
some commentators have argued that there were very considerable
differences between the positions of Marx and Engels. ‘Engels’ doctrines
owed little or nothing to Marx’, writes one, and his version of Marxism
‘had an improperly scientistic aspect that is at variance with what we can
now identify as Marx’s approach, method and subject matter’ (Thomas,
1991: 41).
Other authors, however, have sought to restore Engels’ reputation and
contribution. Collins (1985: 56–62), for example, argues that Engels was a
‘thinker of considerable originality and breadth – in some respects more so
than Marx’ and often provided the leads which Marx then followed; he was
much the more sociologically aware of the two. Two recent biographers of
Engels have tried to steer a middle course. Hunley (1991: 114) argues that
Marx and Engels were ‘in fundamental agreement’ on all important matters,
but since both were inconsistent in their views either of them could be
interpreted in various ways. Similarly, Rigby concludes that it is ‘pointless
to counterpoise Marx against Engels when the individual works of each of
the two men are so internally contradictory’ (1992: 236). This debate as to
the relative merits and contributions of each to Marxist thought is far from
concluded (see Carver, 1983).
Whatever the details of his intellectual contribution, Engels’ relationship
with Marx was an extremely important one. The two friends, after their
meeting in Paris, individually and jointly produced a series of works in
which they developed the fundamental themes of Marxist thought.
Characteristically, they did so by subjecting the ideas of others, particularly
their former Young Hegelian friends, to rigorous and often withering
criticism as the basis for the formulation of their own alternative ideas.
Thus, in The Holy Family (1845) their target is the lingering Hegelianism of
Bruno Bauer and, in the same year, in his Theses on Feuerbach Marx
crystallises his differences with Feuerbach. Feuerbach is also the first target
of The German Ideology, written in late 1846 and early 1847. In this work
Marx and Engels present what was the fullest exposition of their own
perspective at that time, an approach which has come to be known, largely
due to Engels, as the materialist conception of history.

The Materialist Conception of History

Marx’s next work was an attack on the French socialist Proudhon, who had
published a book called The System of Economic Contradictions: The
Philosophy of Poverty. In his vehement riposte of 1843 entitled The Poverty
of Philosophy, Marx criticised the Hegelian elements in Proudhon’s work,
and denounced the political economists as ‘the scientific representatives of
bourgeois production’. But, most importantly, he produced a statement
which he himself saw as the first systematic presentation of the link
between patterns of economic production and the forms of social
organisation which they generate. Finally in this period, Marx and Engels
collaborated on writing a policy statement for the Communist League, a
workers’ party with which they had become involved. This eventually
appeared in 1848 as The Communist Manifesto, a document widely
accepted as the clearest and most concise statement of their position, and
probably the most influential political manifesto of all time.
The works produced by Marx and Engels during the period 1845 to 1848
amount to a comprehensive and coherent analysis of history and human
society, and one which has had an enormous effect on the ways in which
these matters are now thought about. In a famous passage, written a decade
later, Marx summarised the major ideas they had developed:

In the social production of their life men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and
independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of
development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production
constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation on which rises a legal and
political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The
mode of production of material life conditions the social, political, and intellectual life process
in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary,
their social being that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development,
the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of
production or – what is but a legal expression for the same thing – with the property relations
within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive
forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the
change of the economic foundations the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly
transformed. (Marx, 1859: 38)
As a guide to Marx and Engels’ fundamental ideas, it is useful to consider,
in turn, the various claims encapsulated in this passage.

The Priority of Society

In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and
independent of their will …

Human beings are essentially producers who must work in and on their
natural environment in order to survive. Production is not a solitary activity:
it is carried out in the context of an organised human group. People are
social animals and societies cannot be understood simply as aggregates of
individuals. Membership in a society means that individuals’ characters are
shaped and moulded by its culture or, as we would say now, they are
socialised into the ways of society. Thus, Marx emphasises the historical
priority of society. As he put it: ‘The more deeply we go back into history,
the more does the individual, and hence also the producing individual,
appear as dependent, as belonging to a greater whole … an animal which
can individuate itself only in the midst of society’ (1973: 84).

The Material Basis of Social Organisation

…relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material

productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic
structure of society, the real foundation on which, rises a legal and political superstructure and
to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.

Here we approach the heart of historical materialism. Marx claims that the
pattern of social organisation in any society is linked to, indeed depends on,
‘productive forces’. Forms of social life are ultimately shaped by material
economic processes, and as these latter change so do the culture and the
institutions of society. By ‘material productive forces’ Marx means more or
less what we would understand by technology. This can be very simple,
such as the axes and spears of hunting and gathering societies, or as
complex as automated factories or satellite communications. For Marx, it is
technology which is the crucial link between humans and the natural
environment, and as technology changes so too do the forms of society.
While we shall have more to say on this aspect of Marx’s position later, it is
worth emphasising that Marx offers a theory of society which claims to
have identified the basic forces which give rise to particular patterns of
social organisation. The economic base generates a particular form of
‘superstructure’ and a corresponding mode of ‘social consciousness’. In
more contemporary terms, the idea is that both the institutions and culture
of a society take their form from underlying economic processes.

Economic Production and Social Organisation

The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political, and intellectual life
process in general.

This states the connection between economic production and social

organisation: the former ‘conditions’ the latter. The interpretation of the
word ‘conditions’, however, is fraught with problems. Does it mean, as
some have assumed, that the characteristics of culture and social institutions
are determined by the nature of production technology, or does it mean that
it sets limits to the range of variation in patterns of social organisation? Or
does it simply suggest that the nature of economic activity will always exert
some influence on the rest of social life? This is an issue to which we shall
return.

The Shaping of Consciousness

It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social
being that determines their consciousness.

Once again here Marx emphasises the connection, as he sees it, between the
social situation in which people find themselves, which is, as we have seen,
‘conditioned’ by the ‘relations of production’, and the kind of ideas and
beliefs they develop. In short, human cultures are shaped, ultimately, by the
nature of the economic processes which sustain them, and human
individuals themselves formed by the cultures into which they are born.
Human experience is, in other words, profoundly social.
 The way Marx puts this is intended as a counter to those who, like the
Hegelians of his day, believed that human consciousness exists in an
independent and autonomous realm which cannot be explained in terms of
social or economic forces. The life of the mind or of consciousness, they
believed, is free and undetermined: human beings have the capacity to think
and believe what they may. For Marx, however, this is an illusion. As
thinking beings, we are deluded into believing that we can think
independently of our social circumstances. In reality, the very concepts and
categories which allow us to think at all are themselves derived from ‘the
ongoing confrontation between man and the intrinsically practical problem
of sustaining his own existence’ (Poggi, 1972: 94).
As we shall see, there are all kinds of difficulties associated with Marx’s
view of the social origins of consciousness. However, it is undeniable that
the view has been enormously influential in the human sciences,
emphasising, as has already been suggested, both the ways in which
humans are socialised into culture and society, and the ways in which
cultures themselves may reflect specific modes of economic production. As
a more general sociological perspective, it offers an approach to
understanding why the knowledge, beliefs and institutions of the range of
human societies can be so different. From the materialist point of view, the
source lies in the mode of production and in its transformations.

The Sources of Social Change

At a certain stage in their development, the material productive forces of society come into
conflict with the existing relations of production or – what is but a legal expression for the same
thing – with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto.

Here Marx moves from a concern with the fundamental organising

principles of societies to a consideration of how social change occurs. Once
again, the ‘material productive forces’ are at the heart of things: human
history is seen as essentially the process by which productive forces
develop. Marx held that there was no fixed limit to human wants. Once one
need has been satisfied, another arises: consider the invention of the
automobile, which created new demands for raw materials, new inventions,
new techniques of manufacture, new research, and so on. Thus, there is a
persistent pressure to develop productive forces which, in capitalism,
reaches its apogee as firms are compelled by competition to constantly
innovate and rationalise their productive processes.
Inevitably, changes in the ‘material productive forces’ create a pressure
for wider social changes, or, as Marx puts it, the forces of production come
into conflict with the ‘existing relations of production’. As we have seen,
the argument is that for any particular production process, at any level of
technological development, there will be a corresponding set of social
relationships, a division of labour generated by the requirements of the
process itself. Thus, the earliest automobiles were largely hand-built by
small teams of craftsmen, much as horse-drawn carriages had been built.
The craftsmen were largely displaced by the invention of mass-production
and its requirement for large numbers of relatively unskilled workers. In
turn, they may also disappear as production becomes more and more
automated. Recently, we have become familiar with the effects of ‘new
technology’ displacing old skills and jobs as new ones emerge. Sometimes
such changes can be catastrophic, as in the notorious case of the English
hand-loom weavers of the eighteenth century who were reduced to
starvation by the introduction of powered looms in factories. On the other
hand, new inventions can create wholly new areas of economic activity, as
in the case of electronic information and communications technologies.
Whatever the effects, however, a degree of social disruption is involved
which, in Marx’s terms, may be understood as the persistent conflict
between changing productive forces and established social relations.
It is clear, however, that in talking of the social relations of production
Marx meant much more than simply the division of labour, the
specialisation of tasks which accompanies any productive activity. To this
must be added the ‘property relations’ linked to the productive forces. In
conditions of ‘primitive communism’, for example, both the division of
labour and the change due to technical innovation were minimal.
Accordingly, production was genuinely communal and, he argued, private
property did not exist. With the development of the division of labour,
however, and the increased productivity which ensued, this situation was
irrevocably altered. For Marx, the progress of the division of labour goes
hand in hand with the processes already referred to and through which the
modern notion of the individual emerges from the ‘sheep-like or tribal
consciousness’ of social existence in primitive society. The ‘division of
labour’ and ‘private property’ amount to no more than different ways of
looking at the same process, Marx argues, with the former referring to
productive activity, and the latter to the product of that activity. As the
division of labour progresses, stimulated by increasing population, new
human wants, as well as its own productivity, it is accompanied by the
growth of private property and the ability of some to appropriate the labour
of others. In The German Ideology Marx and Engels speculated on the
origins of the division of labour, locating it initially in the ‘sexual act’ and
in the male-dominated family with its ‘latent slavery’ in which the father
controls the activities of his wife and children. As with all slaves, they are
the property of their master (1974: 51–3).
One of the most celebrated passages in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations,
using the example of the manufacture of pins, extolled the benefits of the
division of labour in terms of the vastly increased productivity which could
be achieved and the consequent advantages for both individuals and society.
For Marx and Engels, however, the very notion of such advantages was
itself ideological, serving to justify the domination of the many by the few.
Marx and Engels preferred to speak of the exploitation and the degradation
of human beings which occurs when, through the division of labour, they
are reduced to performing elementary tasks, endlessly repeated, and they
thereby become mere appendages to machines. Marx’s reference to
‘property’ in the context of the ‘relations of production’ is intended to
convey the idea that the whole process in which economic activity is
fragmented and property created is socially divisive. As social production is
turned into the appropriation of private property and then into the
production of commodities for the market, there is an increasing separation
between the interests of individuals and those of the community as a whole.
Initially, it may have been simple physical advantages which enabled men
to achieve a position of dominance in relation to women, but other forms of
social division followed whenever an economic surplus was generated. In
any territory it would be inevitable that some families or tribes would
acquire more property than others, and that such inequalities could be
reinforced through inheritance. Economic surplus also allowed for the
emergence of a priesthood which, by virtue of its claim to speak with the
authority of the sacred, could also ensure a position of dominance for itself.
It is in this context that Marx and Engels speak of the ‘division of material
and mental labour’, with priests as the ‘first form of ideologists’ (1974: 51),
which eventually led to the false belief on which idealist philosophy came
to be based, that is, that ‘consciousness’ or ‘spirit’ is independent of the
material world.
An historically important basis of social division occurs whenever a
specialised group of warriors emerges. Initially formed to protect a tribe and
its territory, and supported by the labour of others, this group, by its access
to weapons and the means of coercion, is in a favourable position to
dominate the rest of society, especially if it can also secure the support of
the priesthood. With the development of agricultural production based on
the regular cultivation of a settled territory, the social role of the military
becomes even more important, both in protecting existing land and in
conquering that of others. It is in such activities, Engels argued, that we can
detect the origins of the modern state. State power develops not as a means
of defending the community as a whole, even though it may legitimise itself
in this way, but out of the efforts of dominant groups to protect their land
and economic interests in a situation where class divisions are developing
(Engels, 1884: 205–6). An important aspect of this argument is the
assumption that social power is a result of control over the forces of
production, which in this case are agricultural. The organisation of society
will reflect the division of labour necessary to carry out effective farming,
whether this is animal husbandry, cultivation or whatever. But these
technical relations of production are themselves formed in the context of a
more fundamental relationship between the mass of people who simply
work on the land and the relatively small number who are in a position to
control its use. Land, the most important factor in the production process,
has become property, and there is an inherent conflict of interest between
those who produce wealth and those who live off the surplus the producers
generate. The social relations of production are, above all, relations between
dominant and subordinate social classes; between those who own or control
the forces of production and those who do not. As the forces of production
develop they transform the relations between classes.

The Nature of Social Change

From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters.
Historical change has its source in the development of the forces of
production, and the growing incompatibility between these and existing
social relations of production. The latter, though at one time promoting
economic and social development, inevitably become more and more
anachronistic. In real societies, the increasing tension between the forces
and relations of production is experienced as a conflict between social
classes; between a dominant class which controls the existing forces of
production, and a subordinate but challenging class which draws its
growing strength from the new developing forces. The idea of class conflict
is, thus, at the heart of the materialist conception of history and is expressed
forcibly at the beginning of The Communist Manifesto: ‘The history of all
hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.’
In The German Ideology Marx and Engels had already put forward an
analysis of the course of human history in terms of ‘stages of development
in the division of labour’ which, in their view, were ‘just so many different
forms of ownership’. In tribal forms property in the modern sense did not
exist. In the ancient city-states the division of labour was more advanced
and the gradual development of private property gradually eroded
communal sentiments and institutions. Major social division arose, based on
conflicts of economic interests, such as those between town and country,
between manufacture and maritime commerce, between citizens and slaves,
and there were the beginnings of the transformation of peasants into
wageworkers. In feudalism the nobility dominated the peasants through
their possession of landed property. In the towns, small-scale production
was carried on by guilds.
These stages of the division of labour are marked by a gradual increase in
the significance of private property with its corrosive effect on communal
life and the intensification of class conflicts. Marx and Engels’ account of
the process of social change, however, is best exemplified in their
discussion of the transition from feudalism to the fourth form of the
division of labour, capitalism. In their analysis, the major institutions of
feudalism, which were once appropriate to a predominantly agricultural
society, come to be ‘the fetters’ inhibiting the development of new forms of
production which, eventually, will break them asunder. The essence of
capitalism is the dominance of private property in the production process,
and thus of society as a whole. Its origins lay in the craft production and
commercial activities typical of the medieval towns, and carried on by the
‘bourgeoisie’.
In The Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels provide a dramatic
account of the expansion of commerce and manufacture and the resulting
destruction of feudal society. The commercial activities of the ‘chartered
burghers of the earliest towns’ were, at first, limited in scale. Nevertheless,
they constituted the ‘revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society’.
Gradually, stimulated by increasing population, access to raw materials,
precious metals and overseas markets, better communications and new
inventions, commerce became more and more significant. With this
development of the forces of production came corresponding changes in the
relations of production. The medieval guilds could no longer meet the
expanding demand and were an obstacle to the growth of free markets.
Eventually, the ‘guild masters were pushed to one side by the
manufacturing middle class’, who, in their turn, had to give way to the
‘industrial millionaires, the leaders of whole industrial armies, the modern
bourgeois’. It is this latter class who become dominant in capitalist society,
owning and controlling the forces of production which have been
revolutionised by ‘steam and machinery’ to become the most powerful and
productive technology ever available in human society.
There are strong echoes here of Engels’ awe at the sheer productive
capacity of the immense new factories he saw in Manchester, an experience
which fed both Marx and Engels’ realisation of the enormous social
consequences of industrial production. For them the history of the modern
period was one in which the bourgeoisie sought and achieved a political
power commensurate with their growing economic dominance. By contrast,
and as a direct result, the institutions of feudal society, which at one time
had been the ‘fetters’ – the monarchy, the church, the guilds and so on –
restricting economic development, were no longer the authoritative forces
they had once been. Although they might remain in place in one form or
another, the economic basis of their power had gone forever, dissolved by
the transition from agricultural to industrial production. Historically,
particular momentous events symbolised the transformation of social
power, notably the French Revolution of 1789, which temporarily put an
end to the monarchy, and the British Reform Bill of 1832, which gave
parliamentary representation to men who owned substantial property.
 Once again we see the rejection of Hegel. The modern state does not,
cannot, embody the whole society and the general interest. On the contrary,
the state’s role in actuality is to pursue and defend the interests of the
dominant class. The point is bluntly stated in The Communist Manifesto:
‘The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the
common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.’
What we have here is Marx and Engels’ account of how the development
of the forces of production brings them into conflict with the existing
relations of production. The conflict is expressed as a conflict between
dominant and challenging social classes; a conflict in which established
institutions protecting the property and the power of the dominant class
become ‘fetters’ inhibiting the growth and development of the challenging
class. But not for long. Simply by acting rationally in pursuit of their
economic interests, individual members of the bourgeoisie bring about the
development of its triumph as a class and, as a consequence, capitalist
society. The activities of the class bring about a revolution:

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal,
idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his
‘natural superiors’, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked
self-interest, than callous ‘cash payment’. (ibid.: 223)

Social Revolution

Then begins an epoch of social revolution.

For Marx, social change occurs as a result of the growing tension between
the forces of production and the relations of production. Taken together, the
forces of production and the relations of production constitute the mode of
production of a society. Change is regarded as the normal condition of
human society, and the great events of human history are the revolutionary
transformations in which modes of production, no longer able to contain the
increasing contradictions within them, collapse and give way to new ones.
As we have seen, this is how Marx and Engels account for the transition
from feudal to capitalist modes of production, with the growing power of
the bourgeoisie making it the revolutionary agent. But, just as the
contradictions within feudalism eventually led to its demise, so, they
argued, will capitalism sow the seeds of its own destruction. Although the
bourgeoisie is dominant in the capitalist mode of production, simply by
continuing to pursue their individual interests its members will collectively
bring about capitalism’s downfall, since these interests stimulate the rise of
a new revolutionary agent, the proletariat: ‘What the bourgeoisie produces
above all, therefore, is its own gravediggers. Its fall and the victory of the
proletariat are equally inevitable’ (ibid.: 231).

The emergence of the working class One of the important preconditions

for the development of modern capitalist industry was the emergence of a
class of labourers no longer tied to the land by feudal custom and tradition,
legally free of any bonds to the landowners and so available for hire for
wages. Such a class had begun to develop during the Middle Ages, swelling
the population of the towns. In England, during the eighteenth century this
group grew rapidly in size. New techniques of agricultural production had
greatly increased productivity and enhanced the profitability of producing
for a market rather than for local consumption. Open fields were enclosed
by landowners and, by the practice of ‘engrossing’, several small farms
were combined into larger units. Some contemporary observers worried that
now only the relatively rich could be independent farmers: ‘Now only men
with capital could provide the stock and meet the rent demands for large
undertakings. All others were forced downwards into the pool of wage-paid
labourers’ (Langford, 1989: 453).
It was this group of wage labourers, Marx believed, that would become
the revolutionary class of capitalist society. The proletariat and the
bourgeoisie confront each other as the embodiment of the social relations of
production; a confrontation which will eventually lead to the destruction of
capitalism:

In big industry and competition the whole mass of conditions of existence, limitations, biases of
individuals, are fused together into the two simplest forms: private property and labour. (Marx
and Engels, 1974: 91)

The imperatives of capitalist competition would lead to the concentration

of wealth and power in the hands of a small bourgeoisie, with the
simultaneous creation of a much larger class of propertyless wage workers
whose interests were contrary to those of their capitalist masters. A growing
awareness of their true situation, encouraged by political activity, would
lead to a revolutionary class consciousness and the transformation of the
proletariat from a class ‘in itself’ to a class ‘for itself’.
The ‘era of social revolution’ is the period in which the dominant class is
overthrown and replaced by another. However, according to Marx, the
proletarian revolution will be the final, ultimate transformation ushering in
the last phase of human development, the non-alienated, non-antagonistic
communist society in which the separation between the individual and
community is transcended. Initially, the revolution would involve the
workers’ seizing power from the bourgeoisie and establishing ‘a
dictatorship of the proletariat’ in which the priorities of the people would be
imposed. This would give way to a period of socialist reconstruction, but,
eventually, with the abolition of private property and the reconciliation of
individual and collective interests, the institutions of capitalism would
disappear. In particular, the state, seen by Marx as the means by which
capitalist domination was secured in the guise of representing the interests
of all, would ‘wither away’. Human beings would once again be able to
realise their essential humanity.
Marx’s conclusion that the proletarian revolution would be the final one
is derived from his conviction that each stage of human history represents a
progressive increase in the division of labour, a corresponding increase in
the importance of private property in determining the social relations of
production, and a consequent growth in the extent of human alienation as
people become dominated by ‘things’. This process, he contends, reaches
its limit in capitalist society, where all is decided on the basis of the
calculation of profit. The ‘cash nexus’ determines everything and everyone.
Social life is dominated by market forces. The worker, though legally a free
agent, is forced to work for the capitalist or starve. The capitalist is
compelled to obey the dictates of the market. Production is determined not
by the use value of what can be produced, but by the exchange value of
objects in the market. People are sacrificed for profits. Human freedom
gives way to enslavement by capital. Thus, in liberating itself, the
proletariat brings about the emancipation of all humanity.

All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interests of

minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the
immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum
of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent
strata of official society being sprung into the air. (Marx and Engels, 1948: 230)
The Economic Sources of Social Change

With the change of the economic foundation, the entire immense superstructure is more or less
rapidly transformed.

In this and other passages, Marx explicates the relationship between

economic activity and social organisation in terms of the metaphor of
‘foundations’ and ‘superstructure’. What seems to have been intended is a
conception of the structure of society as composed of two levels: the
economic base, that is, the stage of development reached by the forces of
production and the relations of production, and the social superstructure,
that is, the institutions and cultural forms which correspond to the mode of
production. The essential point is that the metaphor locates the fundamental
organising principle of society in its economic foundations: as these change
so will the social superstructure.
It would be difficult to underestimate the influence which this metaphor
has had as a means of understanding the transition of European societies
from feudalism to capitalism. As the economic base changes from
traditional agriculture to capitalist industrial production, so the culture and
the dominant institutions of the societies are also transformed. The political
power of the monarchy and the nobility is destroyed and replaced by the
modern bureaucratic state with its representative democratic institutions.
The power of the church also declines in the face of the ‘cash nexus’ and
the secular values it embodies. The traditional division between nobility and
peasantry gives way to a class structure determined by the relation to the
means of production, that is, whether people are owners of capital or
whether they must sell their labour to survive. The extended family
appropriate to subsistence agricultural production gives way to the small,
independent nuclear family more compatible with individualistic patterns of
work and their separation from the home. Education becomes more
formalised and, with increasing industrialisation, is provided on a mass
scale, inculcating the populace in the skills and compliance that capitalist
production requires. The message is reinforced, in modern times, by the
various media of mass communications which, from a Marxist perspective,
are seen as effective means of producing passive workers and eager
consumers, respectful of employers and loyal to the system which exploits
them. It is through the activities of such institutions that the ‘ideas of the
ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas.… The class which has the
means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time
over the means of mental production so that, thereby, generally speaking,
the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it’
(Marx and Engels, 1974: 64).

Historical materialism and the critique of Hegel

This development of a materialist conception of history starts from the

premise that individual human beings are the creations of their societies. It
relates the organisation of society to the ways in which human beings
secure their conditions of life in their natural environment. It relates human
culture, patterns of ideas and beliefs to the ways in which such economic
activities are conducted. It lays claim to explain the interrelationships
among the institutions of society in terms of its economic base and to show
how social change is not random or haphazard but systematically related to
this base.
It was also the outcome of Marx and Engels’ comprehensive criticism of
Hegelian philosophy. Although their aim was to reveal the errors and
delusions of idealism, and replace them with what they regarded as the
objective analysis of materialism, important elements of Hegelian thought
remained. Marx’s view of social development, like that of Hegel and most
social philosophers of the period, was that historical change had a pattern
and that societies developed from ‘lower’ to ‘higher’ forms. But Hegel and
Marx differed from most of their contemporaries in their insistence that this
movement was not a simple process of evolution but one of successive
conflicts and contradictions which can be understood as a dialectical
process. Marx’s interpretation of the transition from feudalism to
capitalism, to take the most obvious example, involves a conflict between
the feudal nobility (thesis) and the rising bourgeoisie (antithesis) which is
resolved by the victory of the latter in a new social order which retains the
progressive elements of the old (synthesis). In turn, the new bourgeoisie,
now dominant (thesis), is challenged by the proletariat (antithesis) and the
eventual revolution transcending this opposition in the emergence of a
classless society (synthesis) which will, nevertheless, incorporate
progressive elements of past eras, not least the techniques of agricultural
and industrial production. Without this implicitly Hegelian framework, it is
difficult to understand quite why Marx and Engels regarded revolution as
inevitable, or even historically necessary, and why, in The German
Ideology, they described the proletariat as the ‘universal’ class which would
liberate humanity. Such a conclusion follows from Marx’s analysis of
capitalist society as the total negation of genuine human social life and its
overthrow as the ‘the negation of the negation’. As he put it in one of his
last works, the posthumously published third volume of Capital, human
freedom ‘cannot exist of anything else but of the fact that socialised man,
the associated producers, regulate their interchange with nature rationally,
bring it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as some
blind power’. The less people are ruled by this ‘realm of necessity’, says
Marx, the more they can experience the ‘true realm of freedom’ (1909:
954–5).
This passage also indicates another Hegelian theme, namely, the
overcoming of alienation. We have seen how Marx, following Feuerbach,
inverted and extended Hegel’s notion of alienation, applying it not only to
religion but also to the state and, above all, to economic production. As the
division of labour proceeds, so too does the creation of private property and
the domination of people by things. This is the essence of Marx’s notion of
alienation, what he was later to call the ‘fetishism of commodities’, in
which inanimate objects come to control the lives of real people. The
ultimate form of alienation is capitalist society in which ‘market forces’
both pervade every area of social life and determine how people live and
what they do. Profits come before people, exchange value before use value,
as people obey the dictates of the market, however destructive they may be
of human life and the natural environment. We have lost control of our
lives; we must do what the market tells us, just as we once believed that our
purpose on earth was to do God’s will.
While many later social theorists have shared Marx’s bleak assessment of
life under industrial capitalism, not all have had his faith in the
emancipatory potential of dialectical change. Max Weber, as we shall see,
firmly rejected the idea that history had some ultimate end and seriously
doubted the possibility of human liberation through a socialist revolution.
For him, the ‘iron cage’ of bureaucracy, itself the result of industrialism,
would stifle distinctively human qualities, irrespective of whether the
society was capitalist or socialist. Weber’s contemporary, Georg Simmel
(1858–1918), argued that the very process of creating human social life
involved a form of alienation, since we must conform to the established
cultural and institutional forms of life. How could we communicate, for
example, if not in a language which confronts us, as individuals, as an
objective reality, and which influences the very processes of our thought?
This, for Simmel, was the ‘tragedy of culture’ from which there is no
escape. Similar pessimism is evident in the works of the much later
Frankfurt School of Critical Social theorists, who shared Marx’s belief in
the alienated character of modern life, but lost his faith in the possibility of
revolutionary social change. Adorno and Horkheimer, for example,
emphasised a ‘dialectic of alienation’, namely, the process by which the
powers of science and technology, originally offering the possibility of
liberating societies from material want and intellectual darkness, had turned
into forces which imposed a mindless, conformist existence on the mass of
the population in the interests of rationally planned production and
consumption. The project which began with the Enlightenment had become
a means whereby humanity oppressed humanity (Adorno and Horkheimer,
1979). However, like Marx, and Hegel before them, such theorists
maintained a distinction between a possible free and fulfilling human
existence, and the alienated conditions of life as experienced in most
present societies.

Issues of Interpretation

The writings of Marx and Engels between 1844 and 1848 developed the
major ideas which have come to be regarded as the foundations of Marxist
thought. It is important to recall that much of this work was not published
during their lifetimes. As we earlier pointed out, later generations of
scholars, such as Max Weber, were acquainted with only a fragmentary
version of Marx’s thought. Not unnaturally, as more and more of the works
became available, issues of interpretation became more pronounced. The
‘conservative’ view can be represented by Kolakowski, who concludes that
with the appearance of The Communist Manifesto in 1848, ‘Marx’s theory
of society and his precepts for action had attained completion in the form of
a well-defined and permanent outline. His later work did not modify what
he had written in any essential respect’ (1978: 233).
 Others, however, reject such a conclusion, stressing, instead, the
development of Marx’s thought from an early phase, in which his concerns
were primarily humanistic and philosophical, to a later, more mature period,
in which his commitment was to economic analysis. The most prominent
advocate of this view was the French Marxist philosopher, Louis Althusser
(1918–90), who spoke of an ‘epistemological break’ between the thought of
the early Marx, with its Hegelian concern with human alienation, and his
later development of the science of historical materialism (Althusser, 1969).
This view is drawn upon by Rattansi, who also speaks of an ‘early stage’
when Marx was concerned with alienation and human emancipation, a
‘transitional stage’ represented in the Poverty of Philosophy of 1847, and
the ‘mature writings’, beginning with the Grundrisse, in which Marx
focused on the analysis of the production process and the development of
the theory of surplus value (Rattansi, 1982: 59).
Acknowledging the dynamic aspects of Marx’s thought does help resolve
some of the inconsistencies and other problems of interpretation which have
emerged. It has been suggested, for example, that Marx’s assumption of a
human essence from which, in capitalist society, we are alienated is
inconsistent with his more sociological observation that people are, above
all, the products of the societies in which they live. This disappears if it is
argued, as Rattansi does, that ‘the concept of alienation … loses its
centrality in his discourse when Marx’s more sociological ideas are read as
a criticism of his own earlier humanism (1982: 73).
Similarly, critics of Marx have detected an incompatibility between his
emphasis on the ‘two great classes’ and the simplification of the social
structure in the Manifesto and in the German Ideology and, on the other
hand, his recognition in Volume 3 of Capital that ‘middle and transition
stages obliterate … all definite boundaries’ (Marx, 1909: 1031). There is
also the recognition, most notably in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis
Bonaparte (1852), of the role which could be played in the political process
by social groups and interests not directly reducible to the ‘two great
classes’, such as the ‘lumpenproletariat’ of Paris, the financial aristocracy,
the industrial bourgeoisie, the state bureaucracy, the army, the peasantry,
and so on. Once again, the apparent contradiction between the two-class
model and the range of social interests which could coalesce in any real
society is removed if the first is regarded as part of Marx’s earlier phase and
the latter a product of his more ‘mature’ thought.
 The case for a separation of an early and a later Marx rests, to a
considerable extent, on Marx’s increasing preoccupation with economic
analysis from the 1850s onwards and the disappearance of Hegelian terms
from his writings. Yet, despite this, it is not so easy to conclude that these
represent any fundamental reorientation of his thought. Consider the
following passage:

The capitalist mode of appropriation, the result of the capitalist mode of production, produces
capitalist private property. This is the first negation of individual private property, as founded on
the labour of the proprietor. But capitalist property begets, with the inexorability of a law of
Nature, its own negation. It is the negation of negation. (Marx, 1954: 715)

The language here is definitely Hegelian, as is the idea of the ‘inexorability’

of the contradictions which will eventually bring about the collapse of
capitalism. Indeed, the passage could fit comfortably into the Paris
Manuscripts. In fact it occurs near the end of Volume 1 of Capital, first
published in 1867 and regarded, by those who stress the distinction, as the
great work of Marx’s ‘mature’ period. Such passages do not convey much
sense of a basic change in Marx’s ideas.
Indeed, it seems that both Marx and Engels displayed a renewed interest
in Hegel in their later years (Rigby, 1992: 97ff). This is most evident in
Engels’ development of what came to be called dialectical, as opposed to
historical, materialism; a perspective which saw dialectics as ‘the science of
the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society, and
thought’ (Engels, 1878: 180). Marx, too, made his respect for Hegel
explicit, notably in the ‘Afterword’ to the second German edition of Capital
in 1873, where he makes a sharp distinction between the method of
dialectical analysis and the mystification which it suffered ‘in Hegel’s
hands’. His own task, Marx goes on, was to extract the ‘rational kernel’
from the ‘mystical shell’; all the same, he declares himself still a pupil of
Hegel, ‘that mighty thinker’ (1954: 29).
As we have pointed out, historical materialism departed from the
speculative metaphysics which constituted most social philosophy up to that
time. However, it generated its own problems as well as drawing a great
deal of criticism. It is to some of these that we now turn.

The material foundations of social life and ideology

We have seen how Marx and Engels explained the nature and the
development of societies in terms of economic activity, the ‘social
production’ which sustains human life, and the levels of technological
development which progressively bring about social change. We have also
emphasised that this materialist conception of history was formulated as a
critique of contemporary idealist philosophy and political economy. Against
the political economists, Marx argued that people were not naturally
competitive individuals but were, above all, shaped by their society. It was
capitalism that made competitive individuals. This claim about the
essentially social nature of human consciousness, along with its criticism of
individualistic theories of social order, has been an important theme of
subsequent sociological thought. However, historical materialism goes
beyond this, arguing that the cultures into which people are socialised are
themselves shaped by the processes-of production. Taking these points
together we arrive at the proposition that human consciousness is ultimately
a reflection of economic processes, of the ‘pragmatic confrontation of man
with reality’ (Poggi, 1972: 94).
Clearly, the primacy given to economic factors has to be understood as a
counter to the German idealists with their mystical notions of Mind or
Being as the origin of human existence. However, for some, Marx and
Engels’ materialism goes too far in reducing mind to matter and giving
human ideas no independence from determination by the forces of
production. Even some who would not accept the grandiose Hegelian
scheme argued, with Hegel, that what is distinctive about human beings is
their ability to engage in creative mental activity. Only humans, for
example, can engage in the symbolic communication which makes
language possible, and it is language which is an essential condition for
culture. It is one thing to assert that our thoughts and ideas may be
powerfully influenced by the mode of production, but quite another to say
that they are conditioned or determined by it. This issue forms an enduring
debate in the interpretation of Marxist thought. Many critics have
interpreted Marxism as offering a deterministic explanation of all aspects of
history and culture. But both Marx and Engels, and many later Marxists,
deny this, stressing that their main objective was to criticise idealist
explanations while recognising that, in any real situation, there will be an
interplay between cultural and material factors.
 The notion that the ideas and beliefs which become established in a
society are, ultimately, a reflection of its predominant mode of production
has been a highly influential one. Religion, legal codes, philosophic and
artistic productions, for example, have all been examined in such terms.
Critics, however, have pointed out that there are a range of different
religious belief systems, for example, evident in societies with very similar
modes of production. Others, Max Weber being the most prominent, have
argued that certain kinds of religious belief can contribute to the process of
economic change rather than simply reflecting it. Others have claimed to
detect a confusion in Marx’s notion of the forces of production as the
motive power of social change, not least because their development
requires, above all, the application of ideas and reason to the process of
production. In which case, it becomes difficult to give explanatory priority
to material forces.
Much debate has also been stimulated by the claim that the ‘ideas of the
ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas’ (Marx and Engels, 1974:
64). The idea here is that members of the dominant class are likely to accept
ideas which reflect and promote their material interests and so ‘regulate the
production and distribution of ideas’. Thus, in modern societies, it has been
argued that by virtue of their possession of television networks, news
media, the entertainment industry and so on, the dominant capitalist class is
in a position to create a cultural climate which legitimates its interests. This
need not occur through direct coercion, censorship or interference, but
simply by encouraging some ideas and trivialising or marginalising others.
In such ways, it is argued, the ruling class can establish and sustain a
dominant ideology which will inhibit members of the subordinate class
from developing an awareness of their real interests. However, the concept
of a coherent ‘dominant ideology’ has been criticised, partly because its
proponents have as yet been unable to specify how it works in practice, and
partly because ‘it tends to produce an over-integrated view of society, in
which ideology forges a seamless whole’ and which ‘underestimates the
power of oppositional or subordinate cultural patterns’ (Abercrombie et al.,
1980: 159).
A related notion is that of class consciousness, through which, in Marx’s
view, members of social classes come to have an awareness of their real
collective interests through the experience of conflict. Thus, bourgeois
consciousness was forged in the long struggle with the aristocracy, just as
the class consciousness of the proletariat will develop as the basic
contradictions of capitalism become more evident. In this way, a class ‘in
itself’ becomes a class ‘for itself’ as the distortions of ‘false’ consciousness
give way to a more accurate reflection of its interests. The problem here,
however, is the apparent failure of a working-class consciousness to emerge
in the mature capitalist societies of the West. Moreover, many theorists have
pointed to the persistence of powerful but non-economic influences on
collective action and the formation of individual identities: gender,
ethnicity, religion, nationality and so on, remain significant sources of
social differentiation which are not easily reconciled with the basic class
division of Marxist theory.

Base and superstructure

The metaphor which depicts society as having a fundamental economic

base on which its social and cultural institutions rest is an important one.
Inevitably, this image has been much criticised for reasons we have already
outlined, namely, that it may lead to a deterministic view of social life and
social change, denying the autonomy of human consciousness. Some
theorists, notably Althusser, have also rejected the image on the grounds
that it presents a rigid and oversimplified version of what is a subtle and
complex theoretical perspective. Nevertheless, the conceptualisation of the
relationships between economic and social factors remains an issue. As we
have suggested, in his analysis of actual social situations, Marx did allow
for the importance of non-economic factors in contributing to the course of
events, most notably in his interpretation of Louis Napoleon’s coup d’état
in France in 1851, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.
In this he offers an explanation of ‘how a nation of thirty-six millions can
be surprised and delivered unresisting into captivity by three swindlers’
(Marx, 1852: 304). He emphasises not only long-term economic trends, but
also the independent and unpredictable sequence of political events which
allowed Louis Napoleon to draw support from such diverse sources as the
Paris lumpenproletariat, the ‘financial aristocracy’, as well as the
unorganised mass of peasants. Some have regarded this analysis as
evidence of the need to draw a clear distinction between, on the one hand,
Marx’s purely theoretical writings and the political polemics in which he
emphasises economic factors and the inexorable destiny of the proletariat,
and, on the other, his subtle and sensitive interpretation of real sequences of
events which allow for the independent effects of political, cultural,
personal and even contingent factors. The Eighteenth Brumaire has also, as
we have seen, been read as an indication of Marx’s move away from
historical materialism and class reductionism, toward a recognition of ‘the
relative autonomy of superstructures, and especially of political
bureaucracy’ (Rattansi, 1982: 107).
Certainly the analysis of the Eighteenth Brumaire seems far removed
from, say, some of the famous passages in The Poverty of Philosophy,
written some five years earlier, in which Marx claimed that the ‘hand mill
gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill society with the
industrial capitalist’ (1847: 95). However, the replacement of the base-
superstructure metaphor by the notion of ‘relative autonomy’ brings its own
problems. How autonomous are such elements? And if the ‘superstructure’
can influence the ‘base’, what is the point of the distinction? Engels, in an
attempt to overcome such difficulties, denied that he and Marx saw the
former as determined by the latter, and spoke, instead, of a dialectical
‘interaction’ between them in which economic factors prevail only ‘in the
last resort’ (Rigby, 1992: 167).
Neither Marx nor Marxists have an agreed commitment to a simple
model in which the economic ‘base’ determines the social ‘superstructure’.
Indeed, much attention has been paid to their reciprocal effects, in particular
to the influence of the state, and the effects of ideological factors on
economic activity. What is less certain is whether such analyses have
overcome the problems just identified. As Rigby puts it:

The dilemma for Marxism is to maintain a middle course between the perils of an economic
reductionist philosophy of history on the one hand and, on the other, an analysis which gives so
much autonomy to the social superstructure that it ceases to be recognisably Marxist. (1992:
177)

In emphasising the fundamental importance of a society’s mode of

production, Marx and Engels made an immense contribution to sociological
thinking, but the precise nature of the relationship between economic and
other institutions remains a problem for sociology more generally as well as
for Marxist social thought. It is also a problem that preoccupied Max
Weber, as we shall see.
 A final question concerning the ‘base’ and ‘superstructure’ metaphor, and
historical materialism more generally, is the idea that ultimately social
change is the consequence of technological change. We have already noted
the argument that since technological developments are normally the result
of intellectual work, the distinction between the ‘material’ and the ‘ideal’
may be hard to sustain. It has also been objected that, historically speaking,
many of the social institutions and cultural developments which Marxists
have seen as consequences of capitalist industrialisation were in fact
evident prior to it. MacFarlane’s (1978, 1986) influential analysis of parish
records, for example, shows, contrary to some established beliefs about
feudal society, that not only were ‘modern’ patterns of marriage and kinship
much in evidence by the thirteenth century, but even at this time there was a
widespread market in land.
The implication here is that the individualistic, economically rational
orientations which are held to have been the result of competitive
capitalism, and the antithesis of feudal life, were well established some time
before the ‘industrial revolution’. As we shall see, Max Weber viewed the
transformation of religious ideas in Europe from the sixteenth century not
as a consequence of economic change, but as a coincident factor which had
a significant part to play in allowing the development of capitalistic
economic activities. Others have suggested that, far from industrialisation
being the driving force propelling capitalism forward, capitalist institutions
were well developed before the industrialisation of production. Braudel, for
example, concludes his massive study of everyday life in fifteenth- and
eighteenth-century Europe by warning that it is a ‘mistake’ to see the
development of capitalism as a series of ordered stages – mercantile,
industrial, financial, and so on – with ‘true’ capitalism emerging ‘only at the
late stage when it took over production’: ‘The whole panoply of forms of
capitalism – commercial, industrial, banking – was already deployed in
thirteenth-century Florence, in seventeenth-century Amsterdam, in London
before the eighteenth century’ (Braudel, 1984: 621).
Moreover, when, as a result of increased competition, the first great
profits ‘boom’ attributable to industrial production came to an end in the
early nineteenth century, there was a ‘return’ of the finance capitalism
which had characterised earlier periods with market speculation, trading,
colonial exploitation and so on (ibid.). From this perspective, the
connection between capitalism and industrialism is a great deal more
complex than Marx’s historical materialism allows. The relationship is even
more uncertain if we accept the arguments of economic historians that
during the first great phase of the ‘industrial revolution’ the rate of
technological change was in fact quite low.
In general, what emerges from these debates is the conclusion that the
capitalist was around before the steam mill, and that the social relations of
capitalist society may well have developed prior to the transformation of the
‘mode of production’. It may be that as a theory of history which sees
technological change, expressed as class struggle, as the ultimate source of
social change, historical materialism is ‘unsustainable’ (Kolakowski, 1978:
369), though most Marxists would reject this. None the less, as we know
from our ordinary experience, it is not unreasonable to hold that the patterns
of social life are shaped in some fundamental ways by the mode of
production and technological change. The sociological problem is how to
specify the connections. This is a theme which is also, of course, of
considerable concern for Durkheim and Weber.

Historical change as a dialectical process

The dialectical method was one of the elements of Hegel’s thought which
remained central in Marx’s work. History is seen as a dialectical process in
which humanity is first subject to the power of nature, then struggles to
overcome it, and finally achieves liberation by gaining control over nature.
Within each of these stages, there is conflict between opposing classes and
through this a transcendence to the next stage. Not surprisingly, one of the
main objections is that this dialectical pattern does not fit the historical
record: history cannot be reduced to a pattern of contrasting stages.
Moreover, there are scholars, again Weber is one of these, who reject the
idea that history reveals any pattern at all, progressive or otherwise.
Other critics see Marx’s, and particularly Engels’, account of history as
involving a deterministic view of social change in which the major events,
and the path of history itself, are determined by economic forces. There are,
as we have seen, Marx’s own references to the ‘inexorability of a law of
Nature’ in his discussion of social development. Such a view, it is claimed,
is a denial of free will, just as the materialist account of human
consciousness denies the autonomy of the mind. On the other hand, many
Marxists deny that historical materialism has such an implication and claim
textual support in Marx and Engels’ writings.
The significance of the role of revolution in social change has also been
disputed. As we have pointed out, the notion that a total transformation of
society will bring about a transcendent era of human liberation derives from
the dialectical account of history. But why should history reach an ultimate
stage, and why should it have a happy ending? There can be little doubt of
the appeal of such a vision to oppressed and impoverished people in much
the same way that religions have so appealed by promising redemption in
the next world, liberation at the millennium and so on. But it has been
suggested that this belief in the inevitability of revolution is more of an
article of faith than a rigorous implication of the theory (Kolakowski, 1978:
373). Marx and Engels were, moreover, vague about just when and how a
revolution would occur; certainly their early belief that it was imminent
faded in later years. Showing that capitalism is an inherently unstable
economic system does not entail that its collapse is inevitable or that such a
collapse would lead to the establishment of a communist society.
But even if the inevitability of capitalism’s collapse is granted, it is not
clear what kind of society would succeed it. Marx’s vision of communist
society was not that of a bureaucratic state controlled by a single party: on
the contrary, he envisaged a reconciliation of the individual and the
communal interest, and the kind of free existence where people, largely
freed from the drudgery of work, would be able to express their own
authentic selves. Critics have, however, regarded this picture as just as
utopian as those of the socialist thinkers whom Marx bitterly attacked.
Others have questioned the practicality of a society in which the division of
labour has ceased, the state has ‘withered away’ and private property has
been eliminated. How would production and distribution be carried out?
How would such a society be organised? Who could ensure that the
principle ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’
was actually adhered to? For Marx, all these things would come about with
the cessation of human alienation; a notion which derives from a prior
philosophical commitment rather than an empirical analysis.

Capitalist society
During the winter of 1857–8, in London, Marx produced an outline of his
projected critique of political economy, the Grundrisse. Although not
written for publication, it is an important document providing not only a
link between the more philosophical concerns of his early work and the
economic ones of the later, but also a plan of Marx’s intended magnum
opus. The introduction to the Grundrisse contains some of Marx’s most
sociologically significant writing as he forcefully contrasts his own
approach with that of the orthodox political economists. He begins by
emphasising the social nature of all production and, in doing so, attacks the
political economists for taking for granted such basic concepts as that of the
independent, individual worker. This is a theoretical fiction as well as an
historical impossibility. Other concepts, such as capital, private property,
wage labour, prices, exchange, and so on, are neither objective nor universal
but relate only to a particular mode of production, namely, capitalism. All
such ‘abstract categories’, Marx concludes, despite their apparent
generality, must be understood as ‘a product of historic relations, and
possess their full validity only for and within these relations’ (1973: 105).
The ideas of the political economists were products of a particular time
and place, and a specific form of society, namely, capitalist. By the 1850s, it
is clear that the nature of Marx’s interest in capitalism had changed. The
early concern with alienation and its consequences had given way to an
increasing preoccupation with exploitation, though, as we have seen, there
is some debate about the significance of this shift. For Marx the
fundamental feature of a capitalist economy is that it involves the
production and exchange of commodities; that is, goods are produced so
that they can be sold on the market. The measure of their value is money:
commodities of equivalent value can be sold for equal amounts of money,
their exchange value. It is exchange value which distinguishes commodities
under capitalism from the kind of useful objects produced in other societies.
Exchange value presupposes certain sets of social relationships, such as
organised production, markets and so on. In capitalism, considerations of
exchange value will come to outweigh those of use value, as production is
dictated by the demands of the market, rather than what people actually
need or want.

The theory of surplus value and exploitation What determines the

exchange value of objects on the market? As we have seen, in general Marx
accepts the solution of the political economists of his day: the source of the
value of a commodity is the amount of human labour that is required for its
production. This presupposes a set of social relationships through which
production can take place and, once again, Marx detects in capitalist
production a tendency for the real relations between people and things to
become reversed: ‘the social character of men’s labour appears to them as
an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour’ (1954: 77).
Although it seems that commodity prices express their intrinsic values, in
fact their value reflects the social relations of production. It is for this
reason that Marx speaks of the ‘mysterious’ and ‘mystical’ qualities of
objects once they become commodities; ‘a definite social relation between
men … assumes … the fantastic form of a relation between things’ (ibid.:
76–7). The situation is analogous, Marx continues, with the world of
religion in which the creations of the human mind become treated as living,
independent beings which must be obeyed. There is, in fact, a parallel here
between his early ideas about alienation, formulated in response to
Feuerbach’s critique of religion, and his discussion, at the very start of
Capital, of the ‘fetishism of commodities’ (ibid.: 77). Once commodity
production is established, people ‘consent to be enslaved by human power
instead of wielding it’ (Kolakowski, 1978: 277). The market is allowed to
dictate what, when and how things get produced, and rational human
activity comes to be defined in terms of obedience to market forces. By
allowing such forces to operate unhindered, human beings surrender control
of their lives and societies.
In capitalist production, then, the source of the value of commodities is
the ‘socially necessary’ labour which they embody even though it appears
to be intrinsic and independent of human activity. Further consequences
follow once it is realised that labour itself has become a commodity. As
with all commodities, there is a market in labour in which the demands of
the capitalists are met by the supply of the workers. The price of labour is
the wages paid by the former to the latter in return for specified services.
For the orthodox political economists, the wage-bargain is a market
transaction like any other, in which case, if what the capitalist buys and
what the worker provides are of equal value, what is the source of profit? It
is here that Marx departs from the political economists, arguing that the
‘use value’ of labour, its particular and specific property, is its capacity to
produce new value to add to the value of the raw materials through the
production process (Mandel, 1983: 191). But the exchange value of labour,
like that of all commodities, reflects the cost of the socially necessary
labour taken to produce and reproduce it. Workers must be born, raised, fed
and clothed, housed, educated and so on before their labour can be of any
value to the capitalist. All this is paid for out of the wages received by the
worker. However, and this is perhaps the crux of Marx’s economic theory,
the ‘use value’ of labour, its capacity to add value in the production process,
is typically greater than its exchange value as represented by its price, or
wage. There is a difference, then, between the cost of hiring workers and
the value of what they produce. Marx calls this difference the surplus value
and points out that it is all appropriated by the capitalist, since whatever is
produced becomes the private property of the capitalist.
Through the theory of surplus value Marx believed that he had identified
the source of profit in capitalist production. Clearly, surplus value is not the
same as profit, since the goods produced must be sold on the market, with
inevitable costs of distribution, advertising, administration, and so on.
Moreover, the goods may not fetch the desired price, or remain unsold.
Nevertheless, in general products will yield a profit on the market which is
taken by the capitalist. Just as in his earliest writings, Marx assigns a special
place to human labour in the theory. Now, however, his principal objection
to capitalist production is not only that people are dehumanised, but that the
relationship between capitalist and worker is inherently exploitative, since
the surplus value created by the labour of the proletariat becomes the
property of the capitalist. The political implications are summed up in
Proudhon’s slogan ‘property is theft’.
In capitalism, exploitation is, therefore, seen as an inherent element in
any wage-bargain, irrespective of the actual level of the wage or salary in
question. So the theory does not simply suggest that exploitation is a matter
of the capitalist keeping the workers in poverty, though this may well occur.
The point is that even highly paid managers and professionals are, from this
point of view, being exploited because they are paid less than the value of
their labour. Furthermore, the wage-bargain is not a contract freely entered
into. Quite simply, workers whose only property is their labour power must
sell it to the capitalist or face starvation. The basis of economic life, and
hence of social organisation, is not free choice but, though often covert,
coercion and alienation.
The hidden dynamic of the structure of capitalism Inevitably Marx’s
model of the economic basis of capitalist society has attracted much
criticism. His techniques of analysis are widely regarded by more recent
economists as outmoded and suspect. The distinction between use value and
exchange value, for example, is hard to maintain in practice. It rests, like
the labour theory of value, on a presumption that things have a real or
essential value. Just because two commodities have the same market value,
it does not follow that they share some common quality of which that value
is an expression. It simply means that under certain particular social
conditions people are prepared to exchange them for equivalent amounts of
money. Kolakowski, for example, suggests that the very idea of ‘real value’
is an echo of medieval thought, and metaphysical in the sense that ‘it claims
to reveal the “essence” hidden beneath surface phenomena, but provides no
way of confirming or refuting what it says’ (1978: 327).
Others, however, have been attracted by Marx’s distinction between the
appearance of capitalist society, as depicted by bourgeois economists and
political philosophers, as a society of free and fair exchange, individual
liberty and human fulfilment, and the reality as revealed by his analysis
which strips off capitalism’s ‘mystical veil’ to reveal exploitation, coercion
and dehumanisation (Marx, 1954: 84). If things were as they appeared to
be, Marx remarks elsewhere, there would be no need for science to discover
the truth: it would just be apparent to us. So it is with human society. The
implication, which has been highly influential in twentieth-century social
thought, is that in order to understand the workings of society we must go
beyond immediate experience and seek the real, underlying structures and
processes which determine its appearance and form. As Godelier has put it:
‘For Marx, the scientific understanding of the capitalist system consists in
the discovery of the internal structure hidden behind its visible functioning’
(1978: 78).
The best and most important example of this contrast between
appearance and reality is the wage-bargain through which capitalist
employers pay for the workers’ labour. As we have seen, the appearance –
taken for granted by the bourgeois economists – is of a fair exchange, with
each class taking, in the form of profits or wages, what it is entitled to. For
Marx, of course, the reality is quite different. The social relations of
production involve the systematic exploitation of the workers by the
capitalists through the appropriation of ‘surplus value’. The concepts of the
orthodox political economists are shown to be mystifications obscuring the
real social relations, and ideological in that they serve to sustain the
interests of the dominant class.
The idea that there is a hidden, inner logic or underlying structure to
social life has given rise to a whole school of social thought. ‘When Marx
assumes that structure is not to be confused with visible relations and
explains their inner logic, he inaugurates the modern structuralist tradition’
(Godelier, 1978: 80). The first major manifestation of this tradition, and still
one of the most influential, was Ferdinand de Saussure’s study of language,
published in 1916. From linguistics, structuralist ideas spread gradually,
though persistently, to anthropology, literary theory and cultural studies, and
among Marxist scholars there was a significant revival of structuralist
thought in the work of the French philosopher Louis Althusser during the
1970s. As mentioned earlier, Althusser insisted that there was a clear
division, an ‘epistemological break’, between the work of the earlier and of
the later Marx; the first humanistic and speculative, the second properly
scientific. It was in this second, mature phase, Althusser believed, that Marx
began to develop the principles of the scientific analysis of society, or
‘social formations’. These principles involved the identification and
examination of the deep structures which are held to govern the formation
of patterns of social life. Thus, for Althusser and the structuralists, the
reality which is the object of study of the social scientist is not human
beings and their familiar everyday world, but rather the underlying, hidden
structures which produce the familiar world of appearances.
A number of major theoretical consequences follow from this. First,
emphasis is firmly placed on the notion of society as a totality, a complex of
interrelated parts, the form of which is determined through their interaction
with each other. Second, scientific interest is directed at the whole, and at
the structures that generate it, rather than individual human beings. Indeed,
the individual ‘subject’ of Western social, political and philosophical
thought is seen as the consequence of rather than a cause of ‘social
formations’. As social beings, we are the products of social formations.
Third, in Althusser’s formulation of structuralism our actions and thoughts
are determined by those underlying structures of social life.
Althusser’s idea of the social totality, however, moves significantly away
from that of Hegel, who saw social wholes as the expressions of an essence.
For Althusser, there is no single core, and he rejects those readings of Marx
which give ultimate priority to the ‘base’ over the ‘superstructure’ in giving
precedence to economic factors in the explanation of social life. Rather,
Althusser’s view of society is a conception of the ‘totality’ as a multi-
layered complex of structures, which may well not be consistent with each
other, in which the form of each is affected by the action of all the others,
or, to use a term which Althusser borrowed from psychoanalytic theory,
‘over-determined’. The social formation is, then, ‘decentred’. However, at
any particular time there will be a ‘structure in dominance’, and in modern
capitalist societies the most effective structures are the economy and the
state. The state controls by means of a ‘repressive state apparatus’, such as
the army, the police and the courts, and an ‘ideological state apparatus’, in
particular the church, the family and, above all, the educational system,
which does not simply transmit knowledge but does so in a way which
‘ensures subjection to the ruling ideology or the mastery of its “practice”’
(Althusser, 1971).
An example of the kind of analysis generated by structural Marxism is
provided by Nicos Poulantzas’ work on the state. Opposing both the
bourgeois notion that the state in capitalist society is a neutral referee
ensuring fair play among competing interests, and the Marxian contention
that it simply reflects the interests of the capitalist class, Poulantzas (1973)
argued that the function of the state is to ensure both the political unity of
capital, which is always threatened by a tendency toward fragmentation,
and the corresponding disorganisation of the proletariat by counteracting
the class consciousness which might occur as a result of the increasing
concentration of production. To achieve this, the state must be relatively
autonomous from the capitalist class. That is, in order to protect the general,
long-term interests of capital, it must not be too closely linked to the
immediate, short-term interests of particular individuals or groups within
the class. In Poulantzas’ analysis there is a distinction between the
‘objective’ character of the state, that is, its functioning to protect the
capitalist mode of production, and its ‘subjective’ aspects, the particular
people who operate and control the state agencies, their class origins and
affiliations, and so on. In this respect, the theory is dismissive of those, such
as Miliband (1969), who sought to explain the pro-capitalist nature of the
state in terms of the social background of its top officials, interpersonal
links between elite members and so on.
 For some critics, the emphasis on structures reproduces idealism by
holding that reality is ultimately to be found in intangible, invisible
‘structures’ to the neglect of the purposive actions of real people
(Thompson, 1978: 196). Indeed, in much of this criticism there are echoes
of Marx’s own impatience with the Young Hegelians for their preoccupation
with ideas and theories and their failure to engage with issues of the real
world: ‘the Althusserians’ navel-gazing seldom led theory to engage with
actual history, past or present. In the end, their theory of history as science
produced neither (Merquior, 1986: 155). In dismissing the actions and
beliefs of real people in real societies as, at best, secondary in the analysis
of social formations, the approach devalued or ignored real political
struggles, conflicts and contradictions. Moreover, the emphasis on
structural ‘over-determinations’ and the reproduction of social classes, it
was argued, resulted in an essentially static model of society. It was hard to
see where social change, let alone revolutionary transformation, would
come from. In this respect, argued Thompson, structural Marxism had,
ironically, come to resemble the functionalist sociology of the late 1950s
and early 1960s, which was strongly criticised as an ideologically loaded
perspective which served to justify the existing social order with all its
injustices and inequalities. The source of social change, says Thompson,
lies not in either self-regulating systems or ‘over-determined’ structures, but
in the actions of real people as they pursue their interests. What the
structuralists had done is reduce class, ‘a self-defining historical formation,
which men and women make out of their experience of struggle’, to a
‘static category, or an effect of an ulterior structure, of which men are not
the makers but the vectors’ (1978: 238).

The development of capitalism Marx retained his firm belief in the

transformation of capitalism, with class playing the major role in bringing
this about. In capitalist production, he argued, the general relationship
between money and commodities is reversed. In pre-capitalist production,
producers would bring goods to the market, sell them for money, and then
spend the money on other goods to sustain themselves and their families in
a recurring circulation of commodity>money>commodity. Money does not
function as capital; it is simply a means of exchanging commodities of
equivalent values. In capitalism, however, the relationship is the other way
around. Money is advanced by the capitalist to produce commodities which
are sold at a profit to produce more money; a cycle of
money>commodity>money. In the capitalist mode of production, and hence
its name, money is capital since it is invested in the production process in
the expectation of yielding profit, that is, increasing itself. This is the
incentive and motive for the capitalist. This profit involves, as we have
seen, the appropriation of surplus value; a unique consequence of the
capacity of labour to produce a value greater than the cost of its own
reproduction.
In the process of realising profits, however, capitalists are inevitably
drawn into two fundamental conflicts. First of all, they are faced with the
inevitable competition with other capitalists and, second, they are involved
in an equally unavoidable conflict with workers, the providers of the labour
on which they depend.

Competition among capitalists For orthodox political economists the

dynamism of capitalism was one of its strengths, ensuring that consumers
could expect an increase in their standard of living through improvements
and innovations. For Marx, however, the situation was much less benign.
When investment in production is governed solely by the criterion of
profitability, there is always the possibility that the production of certain
commodities will outstrip the capacity of the market to absorb them. It is
the first producer who will tend to have the advantage as far as profits are
concerned, but this is only temporary. Once more competitors enter the
market, the average rate of profit for the commodity concerned will tend to
fall. So rather than seeing the market as an effective regulator ensuring that
human needs are met, Marx viewed it as ‘anarchic’. The direct link between
producer and consumer is broken, with production controlled only by the
search for profit. Thus, as we have seen, in a capitalist economy exchange
values will drive out use values; what is produced depends simply on
profitability rather than need.
The capitalist economy is also prone to overproduction. The search for
profits will draw producers toward particular sectors of the economy. Given
the scale and the productivity of modern enterprises, demand is soon met
and, accordingly, producers must either become still more competitive or
look elsewhere for their profits. In this way, according to conventional
political economy, supply and demand are generally kept in equilibrium.
Marx scorned this idea, viewing it as no more than a theoretical possibility
which usefully legitimised the capitalist market. In real-world capitalist
economies, crises of overproduction are inevitable, and an excess of supply,
and the consequent collapse of profits in one sector of the economy,
produces instability and loss of demand in others. The result is a general
reduction in economic activity – a ‘slump’. Just as with the tendency of the
rate of profit to fall, the occurrence of successive crises of overproduction is
not, from the Marxian viewpoint, a departure from normality or the result of
the capitalist’s greed or incompetence, but an inevitable result of the normal
operation of the system as capitalists make rational decisions about
investment for profit.
It is this relentless drive to remain competitive that sows the seeds of the
system’s destruction. Chief among the consequences of the declining rate of
profit and the periodic crises of overproduction is the concentration of
capital. From its earliest stage, when large numbers of individual
entrepreneurs carried out their activities more or less independently, the
logic of capitalism has been to reduce the number of individual capitalists
while greatly increasing the amount of capital owned and controlled by
each. The process of competition eliminates the weaker and less successful
enterprises, so giving larger shares of the available market to fewer
producers. The losers are reduced to the condition of propertyless
proletarians with only their labour to sell, and the development of
capitalism progressively eliminates the ‘petit bourgeoisie’ as an
intermediate class between capital and labour.
Competitive capitalist production favours larger producers who can
achieve economies of scale, and thus lower unit costs. The increasing scale
and technical complexity of production encourages, indeed necessitates, the
formation of large-scale enterprises in order to carry out ‘those immense
industrial undertakings which require a previous centralisation of capital for
their accomplishment’. Such undertakings are only possible with the
corresponding development of large-scale banking and associated financial
institutions, or, as Marx referred to it, the ‘credit system’. Originally formed
as a means of facilitating commercial transactions, the credit system as ‘the
humble assistant of accumulation’ soon becomes a ‘new and terrible
weapon in the battle of competition and is finally transformed into an
enormous social mechanism for the centralisation of capitals’ (Marx, 1954:
587). For Marx, competition and the credit system were ‘the two most
powerful levers of centralisation’, that is, the ‘concentration of capitals
already formed, destruction of their individual independence, expropriation
of capitalist by capitalist, transformation of many small into few large
capitals’ (ibid.: 586).
The history of modern societies demonstrates, according to Marx, that
new methods of production almost invariably involve the deployment of
more capital, and less labour, than old ones. Agriculture, for example,
which once employed virtually the whole population, now yields vastly
more with only a tiny fraction of the previous workforce. In the twentieth
century, the demand even for industrial manual labour has shrunk as people
are replaced by machinery. Clerical and administrative work, too, which
once absorbed millions of ‘office workers’, is increasingly handled by
computerised systems. From Marx’s point of view, this is all in accordance
with the rationality of capitalist production: if the cost of labour is the
highest single item of expenditure, then it makes sense for a firm to replace
people by machines to lower production costs. As the level of wages and
salaries rises, the incentive to mechanisation and automation is greater. In
the economic terms in which Marx expressed it, the process is one in which
there is a relative increase in the amount of constant capital, that is, plant
and machinery, employed in production, and a relative decline in the
amount of variable capital, or labour, so named because it is capable of
producing surplus value (1954: 202). That is to say, there is a change in the
ratio of constant to variable capital employed in production as the former
increases at the expense of the latter; a change in the ‘organic composition
of capital’ (ibid.: 574).
The increasing ratio of constant to variable capital, widely observed as a
feature of industrial capitalism, has momentous consequences, if we accept
Marx’s claim that human labour is the ultimate source of surplus value. If
the proportion of labour, as variable capital, in production is decreasing,
then so is the source of surplus value and, eventually, profit. This
conclusion Marx expressed as the law of the falling rate of profit.

Since the mass of the employed living labour is continually on the decline compared to the mass
of materialised labour incorporated in productively consumed means of production, it follows
that that portion of living labour, which is unpaid and represents surplus value, must also be on
the decrease compared to the volume and value of the invested total capital. Seeing that the
proportion of the mass of surplus-value to the value of the invested total capital forms the rate of
profit, this rate must fall continuously. (1909: 249)
This is the basis for Marx’s claim that capitalism, as an economic and social
system, was doomed. Simply by pursuing their own interests, the capitalists
would bring about its collapse.
Clearly, Marx’s conclusion depends upon accepting the proposition that
human labour power is ultimately the sole source of profit; a proposition
which, as we have seen, a number of critics doubt. It is equally clear that
Marx’s apocalyptic conclusion about the final collapse of capitalism is
consistent with his earlier, and more philosophical, judgement that a
revolutionary transformation would inevitably bring an end to human
alienation and usher in a new, and final, era of human liberation. Despite
the considerable differences between the earlier, more philosophical
analyses and the later, economic phase of Marx’s work, both point to the
collapse of capitalism through revolution and the establishment of a new
social order. To Marx and Engels, it may have seemed that this coincidence
of their critical philosophy and their economic science could only
strengthen their case: for many, it is this promise of social transformation
which has given Marxism such a powerful appeal as a political ideology
and crusade.
Certainly, it would be hard to find a more influential doctrine in the
twentieth century than Marx’s account of how the demise of capitalism
would come about. It is an account which, in broad terms, outlines the main
forces which, he believed, would shape the development of entire societies.
As such, it is hardly surprising that it is mistaken in some respects and
inadequate in others. What is impressive, however, is how clearly he
grasped, even at a comparatively early stage in the development of modern
capitalism, the fundamental forces it would generate. More than a century
after his death, his ideas still provide a framework for the analysis of both
modern and modernising societies.

Changes in the Nature of Capitalism

Not surprisingly, Marx’s conclusion about the inevitable self-destruction of

capitalism has been disputed. Few, however, doubt the tendency towards the
concentration of capital in ever larger enterprises controlled by an ever
smaller number of huge business corporations and financial institutions.
These ideas were significantly developed by the Austrian economist Rudolf
Hilferding in his book Finance Capital (1910), in which he argued that the
banks and finance houses, once the servants of industrial production, had
now become their masters. This suggested the emergence of a new phase in
the development of capitalism, in which banks and financial institutions
rather than manufacturing entrepreneurs had come to dominate economic
life. Through their involvement with financing commerce, they could
generate vast profits and make significant investment decisions. Moreover,
with the development of joint-stock companies in the latter part of the
nineteenth century, banking and financial institutions came to be
increasingly represented on the boards of industrial companies.
The influence of Hilferding is apparent in Lenin’s influential book
Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916), in which he argued
that finance capitalists had replaced entrepreneurs at the heart of the
capitalist class, and that competition was giving way to monopoly as the
inevitable consequence of centralisation. Moreover, and as Marx envisaged,
capitalist exploitation had now become global in scale as the leading
capitalist states, increasingly militarised, sought to secure by conquest new
territories as sources of raw materials and labour. Such themes have been
echoed in much of Marxist thought during this century. Indeed, in some
accounts, the original emphasis on the exploitation of the proletariat by the
bourgeoisie has given way to a primary focus on the conflict between the
few rich nations of the developed world and the mass of the world’s
population in the impoverished countries of the ‘Third World’.
Subsequently considerable attention has been paid to the nature and
consequences of the development of ‘finance capital’ as, first, family
businesses gave way to joint-stock companies in the leading sectors of the
economy and, second, the latter were themselves swallowed up by national
and multinational corporations. Some authors have argued that the character
of capitalism was radically changed by the decline of individual
entrepreneurs who owned and controlled their own firms, and the rise of
salaried managers who exercised control on behalf of an often anonymous
group of shareholders. Whereas the former were primarily interested in the
maximisation of short-term profitability, the latter saw the long-term
prosperity of the firm as more important in securing their own careers and
prosperity. The effects of this ‘managerial revolution’ were considered by
Burnham (1941), who originally coined the phrase, and by Berle and Means
(1991). Others, however, have argued that the ‘separation of ownership and
control’ has involved no fundamental change in the operation of capitalist
economies. Managers, after all, are accountable to boards of directors who
are legally required to pursue the best interests of the shareholders, and such
boards often include directors placed there by banking and financial
interests whose major concern is to secure a maximum rate of return on
capital invested. In short, and consistent with Marx’s basic argument, both
independent entrepreneurs and salaried managers are subject, directly or
indirectly, to the disciplines of the market. From this point of view, it is
misguided, or at least premature, to conclude that the ‘managerial
revolution’ has ushered in a post-capitalist era.
There is more agreement among Marxist and non-Marxist theorists that
the centralisation of capital has led to a decline in competition. For Baran
and Sweezy (1968), for example, the salient characteristic of modern
capitalism is the tendency towards monopoly, that is, a few very large
enterprises effectively dominating whole sectors of economic production,
progressively eliminating small firms and preventing new competitors from
getting a foothold in the market.

Today, the typical economic unit in the capitalist world is not the small firm producing a
negligible fraction of a homogeneous output for an anonymous market but a large-scale
enterprise producing a significant share of the output of an industry, or even several industries,
and able to control its prices, the volume of its production, and the types and amounts of its
investments. The typical economic unit, in other words, has the attributes which were once
thought to be possessed only by monopolies. (ibid.: 19)

If huge corporations can eliminate competition, they are also freed from
the disciplines of the market and can, as Baran and Sweezy suggest, set
their own price levels. The implications for orthodox Marxian theory are
clear: if large corporations can effectively set their own prices, they can
extract ever higher profits and the ‘law’ of the declining rate of profit begins
to look suspect. In a situation where only a few large enterprises provide
goods and services, the competitive pressures which Marx regarded as
relentlessly driving profit margins down no longer have this effect. The
‘price war’ is replaced by ‘tacit collusion’ in which the large corporations
agree to set price levels. Thus, it becomes ‘relatively easy for the group as a
whole to feel its way toward the price which maximises the industry’s
profit’. If this occurs, ‘we can safely assume that the price established at
any time is a reasonable approximation to the theoretical monopoly price’
(ibid.: 71). Although strictly speaking the situation is one of oligopoly, that
is, a situation in which there are a few large players rather than a single
monopolistic one, Baran and Sweezy’s conclusion is that the result is the
same. Marx’s arguments about the declining rate of profit are not so much
mistaken as outmoded, since the competitive market economy on which it
was based has been replaced by monopoly capitalism (ibid.: 80–1).
For Baran and Sweezy, and some more recent authors, capitalism has
entered a new phase in which gigantic, often multinational, corporations
dominate whole sectors of the economy and are no longer responsive to the
disciplines of the market. The economist J.K. Galbraith, for example, has
described the ‘new industrial state’ in which the technical and
administrative complexity of production, its sheer scale and the vast
amounts of capital required to finance it mean that large corporations can no
longer take the risks involved in producing for markets, and so use all
available means to remove such uncertainties. His thesis, in brief, is that
planning replaces the market (Galbraith, 1967: 26). Indeed, some projects
are so large that they must be financed or guaranteed by states rather than
by individual corporations. This is particularly the case in respect of
military production, where national governments are the only customers.
Others have followed the lead of C. Wright Mills (1956: 224) in viewing
modern industrial economies as dominated not by a market but by a ‘power
elite’ based on the tightly interlocking relationships between industrial
corporations, the military and the state bureaucracies.
It has also been suggested that the state itself has changed in modern
capitalist societies, and it is no longer, if it ever was, the neutral referee of
liberal theory, guaranteeing the free operation of the market. Nor is it
simply the partisan committee for managing the affairs of the bourgeoisie
that Marx depicted. States have become by far the most important actors on
the economic stage as significant producers in their own right, often the
largest providers of services, and the largest employers and consumers. In
these circumstances, the state’s combination of political and economic
power may be sufficient to outweigh market forces, replacing decisions
about the investment of capital by bureaucratic planning.
In democratic countries, such planning is, in theory, controlled by
politicians responsive to the electorate. However, it has been argued that in
practice the scale and complexity of these processes means that effective
power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of state officials who are
closely linked to the senior managers of large corporations. In Britain, for
example, Scott has argued that the power of the traditional and informal
‘establishment’ – the economic, political and cultural elite which coalesced
with the rise of Britain as a capitalist power – has been supplanted by a
more formal and more formidable combination of interests. In the 1970s
formal bodies facilitated regular consultation and negotiation among
industrial leaders, financial institutions, government departments and, to an
extent and variously, trade unions (Scott, 1991: 148). This ‘corporatism’
seemed to many Marxists only to confirm their view of the extent to which
the state and monopoly capitalism are now inextricably linked. Corporatism
was also denounced by the radical right, precisely because it represented the
elimination of market forces (Friedman, 1962; Hayek, 1949). The Thatcher
governments in Britain during the 1980s, for example, declared their
intention to ‘roll back the frontiers of the state’. However, efforts to reduce
the state’s role in the economy produced relatively modest results. For some
this is evidence of the extent to which the corporatist state has become the
political expression of monopoly capitalism.
A great deal has been written about the transition from competitive to
monopoly capitalism and the rise of the corporatist state. For present
purposes, however, we wish to emphasise the implications of these
developments for Marx’s account of the development of capitalism. As we
have seen, it was fundamental to his economic analysis that enforced
competition among capitalists would, ultimately, lead to a decline in the rate
of profit and, finally, to the collapse of capitalism. If, on the other hand, the
claim is correct that market-oriented competition has been replaced by
monopoly capitalism, and if the institutions of the corporatist state have
developed as a consequence, then the process depicted by Marx will no
longer be as effective. In this case, far from being doomed by its inherent
contradictions, the capitalist system might well be self-sustaining. This is a
point to which we will return.

The conflict between capital and labour

We now want to turn to one of the other processes which Marx argued
would bring about the collapse of the capitalist system, namely, the
fundamental conflict between capital and labour.
 Consistent with his method of analysis, Marx held that the development
of the conflict between capital and labour was the outcome of underlying
economic processes. In the process of realising profits, capitalists must
resist the claims of workers for higher wages, for the higher the wage bill,
the less the surplus value that will be created, and the lower the eventual
profit. To this end, capitalists will seek to maintain a ‘reserve army of
labour’, as Marx put it, of unemployed people whose availability for work
will act to restrict wage demands. This ‘reserve army’ is likely to increase
as production becomes more mechanised. In general, firms will always seek
new sources of cheaper labour, to the extent of encouraging immigration
and ‘guest workers’ who will take low-paid jobs, or relocating production to
regions or countries where wage rates are low. Such processes have been
much in evidence since the 1950s with the increasing ‘globalization’ of
capital. The essential point at present, however, is that in Marx’s view there
is an inherent conflict of interest between workers and capitalists arising
from the exploitation of the former by the latter.
It was also part of Marx’s argument that the very conditions of capitalist
industrial production would transform an unorganised mass of propertyless
labourers into a politically conscious class which would eventually rise up
and overthrow its bourgeois oppressors. These conditions included
increasing urbanisation which crowded workers together in huge cities, and
the increasing scale of factory production. Both processes served to make
the workers more aware of the collective nature of their oppression and
exploitation. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels had written of
the way in which ‘collisions between individual workmen and individual
bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two
classes’ (1848: 228). Gradually, the workers organise themselves to resist
the capitalists by forming trade unions, using the instabilities of the system
as a lever to win some political and economic advances and, in so doing,
begin to develop a revolutionary consciousness. During times of economic
‘boom’, for example, when labour is scarce, the workers may achieve better
conditions. Such successes will, however, be only temporary for the
inherent tendency of capitalism is to reduce the mass of workers to poverty.
The real benefit of such struggles is only apparent in the longer term,
namely, as the ‘ever-expanding union of workers’, itself facilitated by
advances in communications, and leading to the emergence of an organised,
politically experienced working class, fully prepared to assert itself ‘when
the class struggle nears the decisive hour’ (ibid.: 229).
By pursuing its own interests, as it is forced to do by the logic of its
economic situation, the bourgeoisie will inevitably bring into being the
class which is destined to bring about its downfall, and the final liberation
of humanity from domination by private property. ‘All previous historical
movements’, wrote Marx and Engels, ‘were movements of minorities, or in
the interests of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious,
independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the
immense majority’ (ibid.: 230). The logic of capitalist development, then,
results in the ‘polarisation’ of society into two opposed classes. The
remnants of the old feudal order, such as peasants, craftsmen, small
tradesmen, and so on, are forced into the ranks of the proletariat, as are the
artisans, self-employed and the proprietors of small businesses who might
have flourished in the early days of capitalism. With the rise of large-scale
production such persons cannot compete. Their response is to cling to
conservative political ideas as they try to ‘roll back the wheel of history’.
However, the vast majority are doomed, like their feudal predecessors, to be
reduced to the ranks of the propertyless.
From an historical point of view, of course, their fate is only temporary
since the ultimate victory of the proletariat is ‘inevitable’. It is important to
note, however, that Marx and Engels stipulated two conditions necessary
for the development of a revolutionary situation: first, the development of
class consciousness among the proletariat, that is, an awareness of
collective oppression and a realisation that all workers have common
political interests which override individual, sectional and local ones;
second, the fullest development of the capitalist forces of production. As
Marx wrote later: ‘No social order ever perishes before all the productive
forces for which it is broadly sufficient have developed’ (1859: 4).

The problem of class consciousness

Inherent in Marx’s thesis is the idea that there is a ‘growing polarisation of

society between a declining number of buyers of labour power and a
constantly growing number of sellers’ (Mandel, 1983: 199–200), and that
this economic relationship will lead to the formation of social classes and,
further, a revolutionary class consciousness among the proletariat.
However, it was argued as long ago as 1899 by Eduard Bernstein that,
rather than disappearing, the middle class, intermediate between capitalist
and workers, was in fact expanding in advanced capitalist countries.
The rise of the ‘new’ middle class has been a preoccupation of Marxists
and their critics ever since. It is clear, however, that Marx himself did not
subscribe to any simple version of the ‘polarisation thesis’. As we indicated
earlier, in a now famous passage at the very end of the third volume of
Capital, he refers to the ‘middle and transition stages’ which obliterate
definite class boundaries, although adding, significantly, that ‘this is
immaterial for our analysis’ (1909: 1031). Elsewhere in the same volume,
and in Theories of Surplus Value, there are passages which make it clear
that ‘Marx was aware that the “middle classes” would increase in size, both
absolutely and relatively’ (Abercrombie and Urry, 1983: 50). The ever
increasing size and complexity of industrial production necessitated the
employment of greater numbers of administrative and managerial staff
whose work did not conform easily to the image of the unskilled proletarian
manual worker. Marx was much too shrewd an analyst to have missed these
developments which have continued apace as the numbers of managers,
administrators, scientists, teachers, technicians and professionals of all
kinds has expanded to the point where manual workers are now in a
minority in advanced industrial countries. It has been argued, accordingly,
that instead of polarisation, increasing industrialism has entailed a
convergence around the middle of the class structure. Moreover, the
expansion of the non-manual sector of the labour force, it is suggested, has
produced a sizeable proportion of the population who, although employees
dependent on selling their labour, are relatively affluent and secure in their
work, and who have both formal qualifications and skill. Such groups are
unlikely to develop a common class consciousness with the proletariat; on
the contrary, the evidence suggests that the middle classes are likely to
support right-wing or centrist political parties. In which case, the economic
development of capitalism has produced not an inexorable march toward
class polarisation and revolution, but a relatively stable social structure.
Marxist theorists have, in various ways, tried to reconcile Marx’s ideas
with the evident failure of a class-conscious proletariat to emerge in modern
Western economies. For a time it was argued, following some remarks of
Engels, that most workers live in a state of ‘false consciousness’ in which
alternative, erroneous beliefs prevent them from realising the true nature of
their exploitation. Later work has sought to understand the relationship
between social position, belief and action in more sophisticated ways. In
this respect much attention has been given to the ideas of the Italian scholar,
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937).
Gramsci was imprisoned by Mussolini’s regime in 1926, and between
1929 and 1935, while still in prison, he produced a series of notebooks
which, on their posthumous publication, did much to reorient Marxist
thought on the nature of advanced capitalism. For Gramsci such societies
could not be understood simply in terms of a small capitalist class subduing
a hostile proletariat by sheer economic power or physical coercion. On the
contrary, it seemed that the dominant class ruled by the consent of the
majority. Their rule needs to be understood as hegemony, that is, and in
simple terms, a combination of power plus the organisation of consent.
While the capitalist state enacts and enforces the law which upholds the
social order, and can use physical force if necessary, for most of the time
this exercise of power is unnecessary because people have been led to
accept the prevailing ideas, values and beliefs which include, above all,
beliefs about the rightness of the prevailing social order. The implication is
that the dominance of a ruling class derives not only from its control of
material production but also, and crucially, from its ability to control
cultural production, so echoing Marx and Engel’s claim that the ‘ideas of
the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas’ (1974: 64).
Gramsci’s ideas also anticipate some of the ideas of the Critical Theorists
of the Frankfurt School and their claim that the ‘culture industry’ turns
workers into docile and pliable consumers. Althusser drew on Gramsci in
his analysis of the role of ‘ideological state apparatuses’, particularly
educational institutions, in ensuring the conformity and quiescence of the
working class. Gramsci’s ideas have also had an influence beyond the small
circle of Marxist theorists in providing a stimulus for much sociological
research in the field of culture, broadly defined, and focusing on institutions
and practices not normally considered specifically economic or political.
‘Privately owned television stations, the family, the boy scout movement,
the Methodist Church, infant schools, the British Legion, the Sun
newspaper; all of these would count as hegemonic apparatuses which bind
individuals to the ruling power by consent rather than coercion’ (Eagleton,
1991: 113–14). The general idea is that our taken-for-granted ideas and
beliefs are permeated by notions which implicitly give sanction to the
existing social order. It follows that to challenge and change that order
would involve more than bringing about changes at the level of material
production. ‘What must also be contested’, writes Eagleton, ‘is the whole
area of “culture”, defined in its broadest, most everyday sense’ (1991: 114).
In recent years such ideas have been influential in stimulating a range of
sociological investigations into the impact of mass culture on working-class
lives, lives that are not necessarily poverty-stricken. For Marxists, of
course, the question has remained as to ‘how the working class might retain
the resistance that was at least a potential of class difference’ (Nelson and
Grossberg, 1988: 4). Thus, for example, rock and roll music has been
interpreted as inherently oppositional, with a capacity to expose the
‘alienation’ of contemporary everyday life (Bradley, 1992: 174), and, more
generally, working-class youth cultures have been seen as organised around
‘resistance through rituals’ (Hall and Jefferson, 1976).
Other studies of the mass media have argued that they present people
with a selective image of reality which has the effect of legitimating the
political and economic status quo. Analyses of television news, for
example, have emphasised the ways in which the production of ‘news’
marginalises and excludes ideas and issues which might challenge the
dominant ideology (Glasgow University Media Group, 1980). During the
1980s there was a notable increase in the attention paid to the cultural, as
opposed to the economic, aspects of Marxian thought. The most general
effect of the renewed interest in Gramsci’s work was the abandonment of
the assumptions, first, that cultural practices and forms are always to be
regarded as dependent on or secondary to basic economic processes, and,
second, that beliefs and values can ultimately be reduced to class interests.
This focus on ‘ideological struggle’, or the politics of meaning, has inspired
work in the field of cultural studies which examines, on the one hand, the
ways in which dominant institutions, aided by the mass media, attempt to
organise the consent of the masses and, on the other hand, ways in which
aspects of ‘popular’ culture express resistance to the dominant symbolic
forms.
We have been considering some central aspects of Marx’s argument that
the inherent economic logic of capitalism would lead towards disintegration
and collapse, and that the social consequences of this process would bring
about the formation of a revolutionary working class. These developments
need not be regarded as automatic. On the contrary, Marx’s analysis
remains consistent with the principle he and Engels laid down in The
German Ideology, namely, that the process of history is nothing more nor
less than the actions of real people in pursuit of their interests. What his
analysis identifies are the conditions which, he believed, would lead
rational people to behave in ways that would lead to the collapse of the
system. Even capitalists, who have most to lose, are forced into competition
with their fellows, a process which, according to Marx, would in the long
run lead to their eventual ruin. Workers, too, are compelled by their
impoverished conditions to enter into conflict with their capitalist
employers and, thus, initiate the process which leads to the emergence of a
revolutionary proletariat.
It is possible, however, that capitalism does not engender these
conditions; that competitive capitalism has been replaced by monopoly
capitalism; that instead of an angry and hungry proletariat, there is an
acquiescent middle class and a mass culture which inculcates consumerism
and sells escapist fantasies. Certainly, more than a century after Marx’s
death, capitalism seems more securely established than even in his time.
Though aware of developments such as the ideological power of the ruling
class, and the rise of the new middle class, Marx never lost his conviction
that capitalism would eventually collapse through the pressure of its own
internal contradictions. In a passage in Volume 1 of Capital, he outlined
these processes in terms similar to those of The German Ideology and The
Communist Manifesto written two decades earlier:

That which is now to be expropriated is no longer the labourer working for himself, but the
capitalist exploiting many labourers. This expropriation is accomplished by the action of the
immanent laws of capitalist production itself, by the centralisation of capital. One capitalist
always kills many. Hand in hand with this centralisation, or this expropriation of many
capitalists by few, develop, on an ever-expanding scale, the co-operative form of the labour
process, the conscious technical application of science, the methodical cultivation of the soil, the
transformation of the instruments of labour into instruments of labour only usable in common,
the economising of all means of production by their use as the means of production of
combined, socialised, labour, the entanglement of all peoples in the net of the world market, and
with this, the international character of the capitalist regime. Along with the constantly
diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolise all advantages of this
process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation,
exploitation; but with this too grows the revolt of the working class, a class always increasing in
numbers, and disciplined, united, organised by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist
production itself. The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter in the mode of production, which
has sprung up and flourished along with it, and under it. Centralisation of the means of
production and socialisation of labour at last reach a point where they become incompatible with
 their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private
property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated. (Marx, 1954: 714–15)

Conclusion: Marx’s Legacy

Marx died in London on 14 March 1883. He had been in poor health for
some time and his energies ebbed away following the death of his wife,
Jenny, in 1881. The subsequent death of his first daughter, also named
Jenny, in January 1883, aged 38, was a blow from which he never
recovered. While these sorrows and some disillusionment marked his last
years, he retained his belief in the inevitability of revolution and his
commitment to its cause. In the years that followed Marx’s death, until his
own death in 1895, Engels was energetic in editing Marx’s papers for
publication and in responding to the enormous wave of interest in Marx’s
ideas which developed with the growth of the socialist movements at the
end of the nineteenth century. There are those, as we have seen, who believe
that the version of Marxism which flowed from Engels’ pen was
considerably at variance with Marx’s ideas. What is not in dispute is that in
the years after his death Marx became much more famous than he had ever
been in his lifetime.
Whether or not it is accepted that there were fundamental differences
between Marx and Engels’ interpretation, and most recent commentators
have been dubious about this, any general assessment of Marxist ideas must
take account of the fact that during the period when these were first
popularised much of the writing which is now considered central to Marx’s
theories was either undiscovered or unpublished. This is important, as we
have already noted, because the relatively simple form of historical
materialism which came to be regarded as fundamental to Marx’s thought is
not easily reconciled with the more sophisticated and certainly less
materialistic arguments of the Paris Manuscripts or The German Ideology.
Neither of these was published until well into the twentieth century.
Moreover, there seems little doubt that, as Rigby (1992: 8) argues, the vast
writings of both Marx and Engels contain enough inconsistencies and
contradictions to support a whole range of interpretations. While it is no
longer plausible to regard Marx as having identified the ‘laws’ of history, it
is not particularly useful to regard Marx’s ideas as simply a theory which
has been falsified by subsequent events, as Dahrendorf (1959) did. In the
present context, our main concern must be to identify those elements which
have proved durable in the sociological analysis of modern societies.
Accordingly, it is important to emphasise Marx’s view of human beings
as social producers; social because there is no such thing as an isolated
human being totally independent of society, and producers because human
beings act to create both material and cultural objects. Without these there
would be no society. Indeed, as Marx himself pointed out, what we call our
consciousness is itself the result of our social being. This basic perspective
has become central to modern sociological thought, and serves, in important
ways, to distinguish sociology from the other human sciences, which have
often presupposed an independent, pre-social individual, existing prior to
social experience. Following Marx’s lead, most modern sociologists accept
that the acting individual must be the starting point for any understanding of
social order, and also seek to show how such an individual always acts
within the context of existing institutions and cultural patterns which,
although they are the outcome of the actions and interactions of many
people, nevertheless seem objective and immutable. As Marx put it,
‘circumstances make men just as men make circumstances’ (Marx and
Engels, 1974: 59). In other words, it is people who make history, but they
do not make it as they please.
The question of making history, however, has figured prominently in
many debates about Marx’s analysis of the dynamics of capitalist societies.
The persistent failure of a class-conscious proletariat to appear, and the
absence of signs that a revolution is imminent in advanced capitalist
societies, have given rise to many attempts by Marxist authors to revise the
original ideas in an effort to make them more compatible with recent
historical developments. Their claim is that Marx’s fundamental perspective
retains its validity even though the forces of production, and capitalism
generally, have developed in all kinds of unforeseen ways since Marx’s
time. This view had considerable influence among sociologists during the
1970s and 1980s. An important contribution then was Braverman’s
argument in Labour and Monopoly Capitalism (1974) that the labour force,
in conditions of monopoly capitalism, was not, as was conventionally held,
becoming increasingly skilled and differentiated. On the contrary,
Braverman’s contention was that economic rationalisation and the
automation of production had contributed to a general deskilling, just as
Marx had implied. It is true that there are more technical, scientific and
engineering specialists at the heart of industrial production in advanced
capitalist societies, but such groups constitute only a small percentage of
the whole workforce (1974: 242). And while new skill requirements have
emerged, many of the old ones, such as crafts of various kinds, have been
virtually destroyed. Above all, the great majority of the working population,
whatever their level of skill, income or lifestyle, remain employees at the
mercy of the labour market and, as such, are in the ‘dispossessed condition
of a proletariat’ (ibid.: 403).
Earlier theorists had talked of a process of ‘embourgeoisement’ in which
working people were increasingly adopting the values and consumer
lifestyles of the middle class, thus explaining the frequent failure of left-
wing political parties to win majorities in Western democracies.
Sociological studies, however, found little evidence of embourgeoisement
and, following Braverman, it was argued that the class structure of
advanced societies is undergoing a process of proletarianisation; a notion
that seemed consistent with the evident effects of the ‘electronic revolution’
in which not only factory work, but also office and administrative work of
all kinds was increasingly carried out by machines, particularly the
computer. There was, it seemed, no need for the army of clerical workers
which had once formed the core of the ‘new’ middle class. Those who
remained in such jobs were reduced, just as Braverman, and earlier Marx,
had predicted, to the status of ‘appendages to the machine’. So not only the
working class but the middle class, too, were vulnerable to the relentless
processes of economic rationalisation and technological innovation.
Objectors to Marx’s analysis have often pointed out that the workforce of
modern capitalist economies is becoming increasingly educated, and
differentiated in terms of its formal credentials. Capitalist production, it has
been claimed, has produced not a mass of mindless machine-tenders but a
well-educated population equipped with the knowledge and skills
demanded by the increasingly sophisticated methods of production. The
implication of Braverman’s analysis, however, is that education in capitalist
societies primarily serves as a means of social selection rather than training;
a case developed in relation to American society by Bowles and Gintis in
Schooling in Capitalist America (1976). For these scholars, as for Althusser,
the main function of schools and colleges is to reproduce the existing class
structure rather than to encourage a meritocratic matching of individual
talents to occupational requirements. As evidence they point to the well-
established and persistent finding of sociological studies that there is a
strong positive correlation between students’ social class background and
their final level of educational attainment. This is not, they argue, a matter
of schools reflecting differences in individual abilities but the result of a
system which appears to be fair and equal, but which is, in practice, far
from this.
Just as Braverman argued for the continuing relevance of the idea of the
proletariat, others have suggested that the kind of bourgeoisie envisaged by
Marx does, in fact, retain ownership and control of the dominant sectors of
the economy. It is a relatively small group which, by virtue of its wealth and
location at the heart of economic decision-making, exercises power and
influence out of all proportion to its numbers. ‘Britain’, writes John Scott,
‘is ruled by a capitalist class whose economic dominance is sustained by the
operations of the state and whose members are disproportionately
represented in the power elite which rules the state apparatus. That is to say,
Britain does have a ruling class’ (1991: 151; for international comparisons
see Bottomore and Brym, 1989).
In the present context our purpose is not to enter into the debate about
whether modern capitalist societies do or do not conform to the model
outlined by Marx. Rather it is to emphasise the persistence of this
framework as a basis for debate and research and, for some, as a theoretical
method intended to inform praxis. It remains a vital agenda for research and
theorising about the nature of contemporary societies. Both the
‘embourgeoisement thesis’ and the idea of ‘proletarianisation’, for example,
with their widely differing perspectives on the nature of modern industrial
societies, are nevertheless formulated in terms of Marx’s ideas and
concepts. Moreover, many of the developments which have often been
argued as invalidating Marx’s perspective – the rise of the ‘new middle
class’, for example – are processes which may be understood through the
application of his basic method, namely, seeing changes in the forces of
production as producing changes in the social relations of production. In
this case, briefly, the introduction of advanced technologies and larger-scale
production encourages the growth of specialists and administrative staff,
and a decline in the need for manual workers.
More recently, Marxist analyses, drawing on the distinction between
appearance and reality, have argued that apparent differences between the
middle class and the working class, such as income, attitudes and lifestyles,
are essentially secondary in comparison to the fundamental fact that they
are both employees of capitalists or dependent on the system for their
livelihood. As Marx himself argued, the existence of ‘middle classes’ and
‘transition stages’ was ‘immaterial for our analysis’ since the fundamental
‘tendency and law of development of capitalist production is to separate the
means of production more and more from labour’ (1909: 1031). This
process, Marxists argue, will continue to operate despite the apparent
affluence of sections of the middle class, who also are ultimately dependent
on the vicissitudes of the market. Moreover, as the global economy, another
development foreseen by Marx, stagnated in the early 1990s, many
observers, not by any means Marxist in outlook, commented on the ways in
which not only individuals and their families but also governments and
whole nations were at the mercy of the international money markets and the
search for profit out of currency movements. The young Marx would have
described all this as the condition of alienation. It is also consistent with the
older Marx’s expectations about the likely centralisation of capital and the
increasing power of the ‘credit system’.
We have suggested that there are major fields of sociological inquiry in
which Marx’s ideas have stood the test of time and continue to provide a
framework for research. There are, of course, various ways in which Marx’s
expectations have not been fulfilled by subsequent events, but even here it
would be unwise simply to dismiss the body of his work. As Carver has
argued, Marx’s ideas, like those of Darwin, may be regarded as ‘general
hypotheses’ rather than specific, testable propositions. They are no less
scientific for that since they act as general and productive guides to
research.

These views or theories function as hypotheses in the most general sense, in that they define
entities for study and suggest in general terms what relationships are likely to obtain between
them. Whether or not such relationships exist in any particular case is precisely the point to be
investigated. (Carver, 1982: 35)

Furthermore, there can be little doubt as to the range and the utility of
Marx’s work:

The grand themes of modern sociology – industrialisation, urbanisation, secularisation,

rationalisation, individualisation, state formation - are all addressed by Marx.… So is the darker
face of modernity: the ephemerality and insecurity of modern life, the disintegration of
 community and susceptibility of society to its ideological substitutes, the anomic isolation of the
rootless individual, the ‘disenchantment’ of the world, the iron cage of an enveloping rationality
in which means usurp ends. (Sayer, 1991: 12–13)

For the sociologist what Marx provided was a coherent perspective and a
powerful method of analysis which has served as a guide to significant
research traditions in the discipline. It is a model rather than a set of
falsifiable hypotheses about the empirical world and, in this respect, closely
resembles that created by the classical political economists whom Marx so
derided. There never was, and never will be, a society with free markets and
perfect competition, populated by wholly rational individuals consciously
seeking to maximise their returns. But much useful theory may be based on
such a model. As we have seen, Marx rejected the economists’
individualistic assumptions and replaced them with much more sociological
ones and, in doing so, elaborated a body of theory which has not only
shaped our understanding of capitalist societies but also confronted us with
‘the darker face of modernity’.

Select Bibliography and Further Reading

There is a vast literature on Marx and Marxism which cannot be fully

represented here. What follows is a selection of accessible texts which
should be of interest to the sociologically minded.
There are a number of short introductions to Marx’s life and thought,
including the long-established Karl Marx: His life and environment by
Isaiah Berlin (Oxford University Press, 1963, 3rd edn). More recent works
are Peter Singer’s Karl Marx (Oxford, 1980), Peter Worsley’s Marx and
Marxism (Tavistock, 1982) and David McLellan’s The Thought of Karl
Marx: An introduction (Macmillan, 1980). Jon Elster’s An Introduction to
Karl Marx (Cambridge University Press, 1986) presents a reading of Marx
influenced by ‘rational-choice theory’.
Leszek Kolakowski’s Main Currents of Marxism (3 vols, Oxford
University Press, 1978) is a comprehensive account of the origins and
development of Marxist thought. Volume 1: The Founders places the central
ideas of Marx and Engels in the context of European philosophical
traditions. Peter Singer’s Hegel (Oxford University Press, 1983) is a clear
introduction to the main themes in Hegel’s thought, while Fred R.
Dallmayr’s G.W.F. Hegel: Modernity and politics (Sage, 1993) contains a
sympathetic reading of Hegel’s political philosophy. Charles Taylor’s Hegel
and Modern Society (Cambridge University Press, 1979) is also a clear
introduction. Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right (Cambridge
University Press, 1991) is worth a try. Karl Popper’s The Open Society and
its Enemies, Vol. 11 (Routledge, 1945) is a very unsympathetic reading of
Hegel and Marx. Friedrich Hayek’s Individualism and the Economic Order
(Routledge, 1949) and Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom
(University of Chicago Press, 1962) represent celebrations of the capitalist
market system that Marx attacked.
Marx’s social thought is also considered in Shlomo Avineri’s The Social
and Political Thought of Karl Marx (Cambridge University Press, 1968),
Raymond Aron’s The Main Currents in Sociological Thought, Vol. 1
(Pelican, 1968), Terrell Carver’s Marx’s Social Theory (Oxford University
Press, 1982) and Anthony Giddens’ Capitalism and Modern Social Theory
(Cambridge University Press, 1971), which also considers Durkheim and
Weber. Others worth looking at include G.A. Cohen’s Karl Marx’s Theory
of History: A defence (Oxford University Press, 1978) and P. Thomas’
‘Critical reception: Marx then and now’, in Terrell Carver (ed.), The
Cambridge Companion to Marx (Cambridge University Press, 1991).
David McLellan’s Karl Marx: His life and thought (Macmillan, 1973) is
a thorough intellectual biography, while S.H. Rigby’s Engels and the
Formation of Marxism (Manchester University Press, 1992) is useful on the
contribution of Engels. A contrasting interpretation of their relationship is to
be found in Terrell Carver’s Marx and Engels: The intellectual relationship
(Wheatsheaf, 1983), where it is argued that the standard interpretations of
Marx’s thought, for example its Hegelian aspects, are largely the
construction of the elderly Engels. J.D. Hunley’s The Life and Thought of
Friedrich Engels: A reinterpretation (Yale University Press, 1991) is useful
because it focuses on Engels.
There are various relevant selections from the works of Marx and Engels,
most notably David McLellan (ed.), Karl Marx: Selected writings (Oxford
University Press, 1977), which is a good source for the following writings
by Marx referred to in the chapter: ‘On the Jewish Question’, ‘Critique of
Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’, ‘Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of
Right: Introduction’, ‘Theses on Feuerbach’ and ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire
of Louis Bonaparte’. Also important in this collection is Engels’ ‘Outlines
of a Critique of Political Economy’ and, with Marx, ‘The Holy Family’ and
‘The Communist Manifesto’. A shorter collection is Lewis Feuer (ed.),
Marx and Engels: Basic writings on politics and philosophy (Anchor
Books, 1959). Tom Bottomore and Maximilian Rubel (eds), Karl Marx:
Selected writings in sociology and social philosophy (Penguin, 1963)
arranges key extracts according to topic, as does Derek Sayer (ed.),
Readings from Karl Marx (Routledge, 1989).
Tom Bottomore (ed.), Dictionary of Marxist Thought (Blackwell, 1991)
contains authoritative discussions of important people and ideas. Useful
surveys of current academic thinking are to be found in Terrell Carver (ed.),
The Cambridge Companion to Marx (Cambridge University Press, 1991)
and Bob Jessop and Charlie Malcolm-Brown (eds), Karl Marx’s Social and
Political Thought: Critical assessments (Routledge, 1990). Critical surveys
of modern Marxist thought can be found in Leszek Kolakowski’s Main
Currents of Marxism, Vol. 3: The breakdown (Oxford University Press,
1978) and J.G. Merquior’s Western Marxism (Paladin, 1986).
Ferdinand Braudel’s Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–I8th Century (3
vols, Collins, 1984) is a broad historical examination of everyday life,
economic forms and perspectives in Europe prior to the nineteenth century
and is a useful perspective against which to judge the historical basis of
much of Marx’s writings. Alan Macfarlane’s The Origins of English
Individualism: The family, property and social transition (Blackwell, 1978)
illustrates the existence of capitalist economic forms prior to the nineteenth
century.
Sources for the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory include David Held’s
Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas (Hutchinson,
1980), Susan Buck-Morss’ The Origin of Negative Dialectics (Harvester,
1977) and Martin Jay’s The Dialectic Imagination: A history of the
Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923–1950 (Little
Brown, 1973). Theodor W. Adorno and Martin Horkheimer’s Dialectic of
Enlightenment (Allen Lane, 1979) and some of the work of Jürgen
Habermas, such as Knowledge and Human Interests (Heinemann, 1971)
and Legitimation Crisis (Heinemann, 1976), are also important sources.
The recent influence of Marxist ideas on literary and cultural studies
owes much to Terry Eagleton’s Marxism and Literary Criticism (Methuen,
1976), Raymond Williams’ Marxism and Literature (Oxford University
Press, 1977) and Gary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (eds), Marxism and
the Interpretation of Culture (Macmillan, 1988). See also Stuart Hall and
Tony Jefferson (eds), Resistance Through Rituals (Hutchinson, 1976).
Gramsci’s writings are published in Selections from the Prison Notebooks
(New Left Books, 1971). Nicholas Abercrombie, Stephen Hill and Bryan
Turner’s The Dominant Ideology Thesis (Allen and Unwin, 1980) explores
the idea of a dominant ideology.
Structuralist interpretations of Marx are to be found in: Louis Althusser’s
For Marx (Allen Lane, 1969), and ‘Ideology and ideological state
apparatuses’, in his Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (New Left
Books, 1971, pp. 121–73), Martin Godelier, ‘System, structure and
contradiction in “Capital”’, in D. McQuarie (ed.), Marx: Sociology, social
change, capitalism (Quartet Books, 1978) and Nicos Poulantzas’ Political
Power and Social Classes (New Left Books, 1973). Counters to this
interpretation include Ralph Miliband’s The State and Capitalist Society
(Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969) and E.P. Thompson’s The Poverty of
Theory (Merlin Press, 1978).
There is, of course, no substitute for reading Marx and Engels in their
own words. Newcomers could start with their The German Ideology, The
Communist Manifesto and passages from the Paris Manuscripts. These are
available in various editions and there are edited versions of each in David
McLellan (ed.), Karl Marx: Selected writings (Oxford University Press,
1977). Marx’s major works, including the Grundrisse: Foundations of the
critique of political economy and the three volumes of Capital, are
published by Penguin (1973 and 1976).
References relevant to the development of Marxist and Marxist-
influenced analyses of modern industrial societies include Rudolf
Hilferding, Finance Capital (Routledge, 1910) and Adolf Berle and
Gardiner Means’ The Modern Corporation and Private Property
(Macmillan) which, though published first in 1932, is still worth reading, as
is Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy’s Monopoly Capital (Penguin, 1968). James
Burnham’s The Managerial Revolution (Doubleday, 1941) was a classic
attempt to update Marx’s analysis in light of the managerialist
developments in the large corporation. J.K. Galbraith’s The New Industrial
State (Hamish Hamilton, 1967), though not a Marxist account is a useful
resource in the context of the Marxist analyses of industrial society, as is C.
Wright Mills’ The Power Elite (Oxford University Press, 1956). Ralf
Dahrendorf’s Class and Class Conflict in an Industrial Society (Routledge,
1959) was an important attempt to blend Marx’s analysis of class with that
of Weber. Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis’ Schooling in Capitalist
America (Routledge, 1976) applied a Marxist framework to the educational
system in capitalist society. Henry Braverman’s Labour and Monopoly
Capital (Monthly Review Press, 1974) eloquently developed a Marxist
analysis of the erosion of skill in work under capitalism. More recent efforts
to address the issue of class are Olin Wright’s Classes (Verso, 1985), Frank
Parkin’s Marxism and Class Theory (Tavistock, 1979), Gordon Marshall,
David Rose and Howard Newby’s Social Class in Modern Britain (Unwin
Hyman, 1989) and, for international comparisons, Tom Bottomore and
Robert Brym (eds), The Capitalist Class: An international study (Harvester,
1989). John Scott’s Who Rules Britain? (Polity Press, 1991) is a relatively
recent analysis of interests and power in Britain.

CHAPTER TWO SUMMARY

Marx was a profound thinker and his work, though often seemingly highly abstract, was
nevertheless, devoted to the emancipation of humanity from the ‘dehumanising’ grip of
capitalist economic production. This could only be achieved by destroying the capitalist
order through revolution.
Marx’s thought emerged and continued to develop throughout his life. His earliest ideas
were forged by his engagement with Hegel’s idealism although Hegelian themes remained
strong throughout Marx’s life, such as the notion of alienation and the dialectic of history,
even though now wedded to Marx’s historical materialism.
The dynamic nature of Marx’s thought meant not only that his ideas changed during his
lifetime but also that it left much room for interpretation on the part of later scholars, some
by way of support and some by way of critique.
Marx’s legacy is an enduring one in sociology, despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, a
state explicitly established in his name. His influence upon understandings of industrial
societies extended into contemporary sociological debates about culture, globalisation, and
the emerging forms of post-industrial society.
 Max Weber 3

BEGINNING CHAPTER THREE

Compared to Marx and Durkheim, Weber was much less optimistic about the capacity of
sociology to contribute to the continual progress of society and about the possibility that
sociology could provide ultimate knowledge of social reality. In this Chapter we will review the
following aspects of Weber’s social thought:

Weber’s work can be usefully separated into ‘substantive’ and ‘methodological’ strands
though it is important to bear in mind that the distinction is somewhat artificial in that both
are essential to understanding Weber’s stance on sociology and what it could achieve.
His ‘substantive’ historical and social studies were motivated by two preoccupations: first,
the emergence of capitalist business as the dominant form of organisation in the West;
second, the relationship between ideas and action.
Weber was a reluctant methodologist but often vigorously engaged in one of the
dominating questions of the time: can the social and cultural studies ever be true sciences?

Both Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim were relatively optimistic about the
prospective achievements of social theory; by comparison, Max Weber was
a pessimist. Both Marx and Durkheim were inspired by the theoretical
achievements of the natural sciences into envisaging social sciences that
could match the former in their scope and power by providing a general
theory of human society and history. Indeed, in his youth Marx had
compared his own intellectual ambitions with the achievements of
Prometheus who, in legend, had stolen fire from the Gods. Both Marx and
Durkheim were convinced that the development of scientific knowledge
would provide unparalleled opportunities for social improvement. Marx, for
example, supposed that his work would contribute to the complete
emancipation of the whole of humanity; somewhat more modestly,
Durkheim’s interests were in directing social scientific knowledge toward
the amelioration of some of the ‘pathologies’ of modern society. Weber,
however, while confident that sociology could develop as a sound science,
had far lesser expectations than Marx and Durkheim as to what this could
amount to, and certainly did not expect that it could overcome the basic
conflicts in human life, let alone achieve the emancipation of all
humankind. It need not even necessarily ameliorate the condition of modern
society. Sociology might develop generalisations, but it could not expect to
develop general theory in the way that natural science (or at least physics)
has, and it would, in many ways, have its main role in supporting historical
inquiries.
Though Weber believed that scientific knowledge was of practical value
and that social science could provide such knowledge, he also argued that
expanding scientific knowledge did not automatically bring benefits; it
could also produce disillusionment. As Weber saw it, the practical value of
scientific knowledge depends not upon the quality of the knowledge itself,
but upon the purposes and the spirit in which it is applied, and there was no
guarantee that the application of scientific knowledge would be benignly
motivated. Indeed, there was much to fear from the experts, who often
believed that their intellectual pre-eminence entitled them to a privileged
position in deciding human affairs. Though Weber opposed what we might
nowadays characterise as ‘technocrats’, he did not thereby dismiss the value
of expertise, but demurred, rather, at the idea that the possession of
expertise is any kind of qualification for political leadership. When it comes
to political questions, the scientific expert is no more qualified than the rest
and is not, therefore, entitled to any privilege in these matters.
So, Weber was much more sceptical than either Marx or Durkheim about
the capacity of sociology to contribute to the continual progress in society
and was less optimistic about the possibility that sociology could provide
ultimate knowledge of social reality. He repeatedly emphasised the
limitations upon the capacity of the human mind to know reality, a view
that, as we shall see, derived from his philosophical inheritance, which
insisted that reality can never be known ‘in itself’. Weber maintained that
external reality is far more complex and detailed than our thought is capable
of apprehending, and that, therefore, the latter can never represent the
former in other than a highly selective and, therefore, partial way.
 Though Weber was ‘pessimistic’ in these respects, this does not mean
that he was offering only a counsel of despair with respect to either social
science or politics; far from it. Weber saw both value and purpose in the
pursuit of scientific work and political engagement, but also insisted that
the difference between the two must be kept clearly in mind. In Weber’s
eyes, the pursuit of knowledge was worthwhile for its own sake, and a life
seriously devoted to scholarship could be a worthy and dignified one.
Though we might never arrive at an understanding of the ultimate nature of
reality, this does not mean that we cannot improve the understanding that
we have, and this can be both intellectually rewarding and, possibly, of
practical value. The political activist, too, has an important part to play, for
the activist’s role is to join in the struggles that take place over the
significant choices that necessarily confront human beings and which
decide the directions in which society will go. Weber was pessimistic, for
example, about the political prospects of the Germany of his time, as part of
his gloom about the future prospects of the entire Western world, but the
whole point of politics is to fight for what one believes in, and the fact that
one’s own beliefs are under threat does not mean that one should give up
the fight.
The most effective way in which we can present Weber’s scholarly work
is by separating it into two parts, the ‘substantive’ and ‘the methodological’.
These represent two strands in Weber’s work in that they involve two
distinct sets of writings, one of which consists of historical and sociological
studies, the other of philosophical essays. But there is, none the less, a sense
in which the separation is an artificial one. The philosophical essays are on
the ‘methodology’ of the social (or, as they were often called in Weber’s
time, the ‘cultural’) sciences and debate those perennial questions about the
general manner in which these sciences are to be pursued – should they
follow the method of the natural sciences, or do they require a very different
method? Weber regarded such debates as a waste of time, though this did
not prevent him from being intensely involved in them. These issues were a
matter of fierce controversy in the Germany of Weber’s time, and it would
have been near impossible for him to avoid engagement in them. None the
less, he held the clear view that the real business of the social scientist was
to engage in productive empirical investigation, rather than in speculative
controversy about the scientific status of the social sciences. If methodology
must be discussed then let it be in a way that involves the spelling out of the
methods that have actually been employed in social and historical studies
along with an awareness that this is very much a secondary activity to the
making of the investigations themselves.
The question of whether Weber’s writings (which were often, like
Marx’s, unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime) constitute a unified
body of work is a controversial one, though there is nothing like the debate
that there is over the unity of Marx’s thought. For a long period, Weber’s
work was made available in English through a string of partial translations,
and it is this which gave rise to the impression that it was a collection of
studies of disparate topics such as ‘bureaucracy’, ‘the law’, ‘the basic
categories of sociology’ and so on without any thematic coherence. In
reaction against this situation, it was eventually argued (Tenbruck, 1980)
that there was a pervading unity to Weber’s thought, though the precise
nature of this inner coherence then became a focus for further dispute
(Hennis, 1988). Recognising that it is not unproblematic to look for
connections amongst all the parts of Weber’s work, we will none the less
treat them for the purposes of this exposition as relatively unified, with very
much of his work being centred on the two related preoccupations noted
earlier.
The first of these, the emergence of capitalist business as the dominant
form of organisation in the West, involves a concern to understand the
origins, in its specifically ‘rationalised’ and moralised form, of the capitalist
business organisation and the civilisation associated with it that was, at the
time Weber was writing, becoming ever more thoroughly pre-eminent
within Western Europe and the United States. The notion of ‘rationalisation’
refers to the proclivity to work things out systematically; a proclivity which
Weber thought had been given freer rein within the modern West than
elsewhere in human history. This was particularly manifest in the
progressively pervading tendency for the business organisation
systematically to work out its own internal organisation, by making as many
of its affairs as possible calculable.
The second preoccupation concerns a basic sociological theme, namely,
the relationship between ideas and interests in human action. This was a
theme stimulated in significant respects by the Marxian analysis encouraged
by the German Social Democratic Party. However, and as we have
explained in the chapter on Marx, only a small part of Marx’s own writings
were available to Weber and, therefore, many of his ideas about Marx’s
teachings were derived from secondary sources. These were the work of
what are often disparagingly called ‘vulgar Marxists’, interpreting Marx’s
theory as an ‘economic determinist’ one. This theory offered the view that
the economic ‘base’ of society, that is, the organisation of its system of
production, determined the nature of the society’s ‘superstructure’, that is,
the organisation of the other institutions of society – such as the family, the
legal system – and of its belief systems, such as its religious and political
ideas. The idea of ‘economic determinism’ further encouraged the view that
the fundamental motivations of human actions are ‘material’ in character
and essentially concerned with the advancement of practical, most
particularly economic, interests, and that all conflicts in society, be they
ostensibly over, say, religion or nationalism, are really about economic
interests. This means that religious and political beliefs are conceived as
rationalisations, that is, as justifying actions undertaken out of materialistic
and self-interested motives in order to make them seem more palatable.
Whether or not such ‘economic determinist’ views are rightly ascribed to
Marx, they were views that Weber flatly rejected. He did not necessarily
reject them as entirely false, certainly not to the extent of denying that
human actions could be motivated by economic interests. He rejected them
because they were much too crude as a portrayal of human motivation and,
therefore, of little use in analysing the complex causal conditions which
give rise to actual historical situations. Weber’s own background in
economics gave him a strong interest in the role that economic motivation
played in individual action as well as in the role that the economy played in
structuring the society more widely. But a recognition of the real
importance of ‘economic’ elements could not equate with the view that
these were primary factors, explaining everything else about society. The
very idea of a ‘primary factor’ was one that was also, in Weber’s judgement,
too crude for a real understanding of history.
The view of beliefs and ideas as ‘rationalisations’ is one that is present in
both Marx and Durkheim. Both argued that in significant respects the
members of society do not know what they do and need to have the true
causes of their actions revealed to them by social science. Both agreed that
the explanation of beliefs must be sought in the nature of social reality; a
reality which is, again for the members of society, mystified and concealed.
This applied not only to religious beliefs but to other kinds, too. As we have
seen, Marx devoted considerable effort in arguing that the political
economy of his day was nothing less than a rationalisation, an ideology, of
capitalist economic relations.
On this point, Weber’s views directly opposed those of Marx and
Durkheim. For him people undoubtedly act on the basis of their beliefs and
ideas, and the ways in which they conduct themselves follow from the
religious and political conceptions to which they subscribe. Whether or not
God exists does not matter, for the fact is that people who believe that God
does exist are likely to act in certain ways because of their conviction that
they are doing what God wants them to do. From the point of view of the
sociologist analysing the way in which people’s actions make up and affect
the organisation of society, the fact that people hold to and, to a greater or
lesser extent, act out the instructions of a religious doctrine will have a
tangible impact upon the patterns of their conduct and upon the organisation
of the social arrangements in which they live. Thus, the sociologist who
wishes to understand people’s actions must take into account the beliefs and
ideas to which those people are attached, and seek to understand the way in
which holding such beliefs and ideas leads them to act.
This was the basic presupposition of Weber’s sociological approach,
known as the ‘verstehen’ (or ‘understanding’) method, which sought
sociological explanation in prominent part through understanding the
outlook – what might be called the world view, or basic system of beliefs –
that people have. On such a basis, Weber rejected the ‘vulgar Marxist’
notion that actions are motivated by economic interests alone. Some actions
certainly are motivated by such interests, but in Weber’s view it would be a
dreadful oversimplification to suggest that all or even most of them are, and
that religious and political ideas just provide a ‘cover up’ for a more
disreputable pursuit of self-interest. People are, to a varying extent, and in
degrees which are themselves susceptible to sociological explanation,
capable of genuinely believing and acting in terms of ideas other than those
which concern their material self-interest, most particularly in terms of
religious ideas and ideals. Understanding why they accept those ideas, and
what it leads them to do, cannot be achieved through a focus upon
economic interests alone. Both economic interests and religious ideas are at
work in society. Both interact with one another and, along with many other
factors, play an important part in the dynamic shaping of the structure of
society and the courses of action of its members. In Weber’s view religious
ideas and ideals arise out of a widespread human need to feel that human
life and the world both have meaning, that is, they have some point, serve
some purpose. There is a common need to feel that things in the world and
one’s life do not merely ‘happen’ by chance, but that they are part of some
greater pattern and that one’s fate is bound up with that plan. For example,
Weber pointed to the importance of ‘suffering’ in many religions, arguing
that it was eased if it was seen as being borne for something. Thus, religions
sometimes explain that suffering in this life is borne in order to achieve
salvation in the next. The needs to which religion speaks are, then, just as
authentic as those which are satisfied by food, clothing or power over
others.
It is not surprising, then, that such a major part of Weber’s ‘substantive’
work should be devoted to studies of religion. The major project of his
mature work was given over to a comparative study of the ‘world religions’,
that is, those religions which had made a decisive impact on world history
(and/or upon that of Western civilisation). Weber’s agenda had included
Christianity and Islam, but he did not make significant inroads into the
study of these, though he did manage to generate large (though incomplete)
studies of Confucianism (in The Religion of China (published in English,
1951)) and of Buddhism and Hinduism (in The Religion of India (published
in English, 1958)), as well as his Ancient Judaism (originally published
1922). He also produced a general account of the general ‘evolution’ of
forms of religious belief and practice (The Sociology of Religion (1963)). It
is through these studies, though not these alone, that Weber sought to
examine the interplay between beliefs and ideas, particularly religious ones,
economic interests and social conditions more generally, and it is because
this takes up such a major part of Weber’s writings that we can treat it as a
strongly unifying theme.

The Early Career

Born into the well-to-do middle class in Berlin in 1864, Weber was the son
of a lawyer who was politically active as a National Liberal
parliamentarian. Weber was to have a lifelong interest in, as well as a strong
desire to be influential upon, practical politics. His political outlook was
strongly nationalistic, and his academic work was partially motivated by his
concerns for the welfare of German society, which had recently been
unified under the leadership of Bismarck’s Prussia. Although Germany was
politically modernised to some extent, and a major imperial power by the
end of the nineteenth century, industrialisation had failed to establish a
politically independent bourgeoisie, unlike in Britain, France and the United
States. German liberalism, which had provided the intellectual
underpinning for the unification and the modernisation of the German state,
was under serious threat from the very creature it had helped to create. The
rise of Bismarck’s Reich saw the political defeat of the middle class that
had most strongly espoused the values of respect for the individual, a
concern for humanitarian learning, duty, personal integrity and the
responsibility of the individual; values which were deeply entrenched in
German Protestantism. The period of Germany’s rapid industrialisation and
urbanisation saw the demise of liberalism as the alliance of the state with
the Junkers – the aristocratic landowning class – the army and the
bureaucracy extolled and imposed the duties of deference to superiors,
paternalism and service to the nation at the expense of individual autonomy.
By the late nineteenth century Germany was governed by an authoritarian,
militaristic state that regulated most aspects of social and economic life.
Weber tended to support liberal policies while rejecting many of the
elements of liberal political philosophy, such as a belief in progress. His
own sentiments emphasised the virtues of individual autonomy and
responsibility, the importance of doing one’s duty and meeting one’s
obligations to the community; values which, he felt, and with good reason,
were imperilled in the Germany of his day.
Weber’s education at the universities of Göttingen and Heidelberg,
interrupted by a year of military training, took him first into law and then
into studies of law and legal history which, after 1886, he pursued at Berlin.
Some of his earliest research, which included work on Roman law, was into
the effects of industrialisation on the position of the Junkers in Germany.
While political unification after 1870 had promoted rapid industrialisation,
it was the southern and western parts of the country that had become
economically strong, sucking in labour from the eastern agricultural regions
– the sources of Junker wealth and power – which had, as a result, suffered
a relative decline. Despite extracting more and more from their estates, the
Junkers were increasingly unable to support their aristocratic position and
pretensions by economic means and had to rely upon political power. This
period also saw the appearance of what was then known as ‘the social
problem’, namely, the rise of an industrial proletariat and the spread of
socialist ideas. Bismarck had tried to solve the ‘problem’ by a carrot and
stick combination of repression accompanied by welfare legislation (which
was, paradoxically, to become the model for the modern welfare state).

The agrarian problem in Germany

The ‘agrarian problem’ of eastern Germany was Weber’s first sociological

study. In 1897, the previous free trade policy in grain had been abandoned
under the threat of cheaper Russian and American grain imports. The
Junkers, though highly nationalistic and protectionist, had encouraged the
replacement of German farm labourers by foreign migratory workers. The
problem of farm labour became the subject of a large-scale study conducted
by an association of scholars, government officials and other specialists, the
Verein für Sozialpolitik. In 1890, the association sent out a questionnaire to
over 3,000 landowners throughout Germany, and Weber was given the
responsibility of analysing the returns from provinces to the east of the
Elbe. The study revealed considerable regional differences in the position of
agricultural labourers. In eastern Germany the capitalist transformation of
labour relations had tended to depress the workers’ standard of living, partly
because they no longer had quasi-feudal rights to depend on, and partly
because of the influx of cheaper labour from Russia and Poland. For the
first time Weber came face to face with a conflict between national values
and economic rationality. The central issue, namely the replacement of
German workers by Poles on the estates of eastern Germany, could not be
understood in purely economic terms. Economically, Polish labour was
cheaper than German, but, from the point of view of nationalist values, the
influx exposed Germany’s eastern frontier. Yet, as Weber realised, it was the
eastern aristocrats who espoused loyalty to national values who were, in
their economic life, pursuing an anti-nationalist course of action. Just as
Marx was to realise after his study of ‘timber thefts’, capitalist economic
relations were beginning to transform traditional rights and obligations and
patterns of social organisation.
Weber began to take an increasing interest in historical and sociological
studies. As he did not occupy a university position as a sociologist, this did
not involve the same kind of struggle to legitimise his sociological
inclinations that faced Durkheim at the beginning of his career. The
intellectual climate within which Weber was educated, and to which he, in
his turn, contributed, was that of a highly developed and widely respected
scholarly tradition which identified itself with the well-being of the nation.
Germany, with its rapid rise to cultural and intellectual eminence, buttressed
by a well-developed educational system, had within a short space of time
begun to make major contributions to natural science and industrial
technology. Nor did German academia neglect ‘the social’ as a distinct
sphere of inquiry. Rather unusually with respect to European countries,
German scholars in general accepted that the social could be the object of
academic, even scientific, study. Economics was well established in the
universities, and legal studies embraced far more than the theory and
practice of law, giving attention to the social and cultural settings within
which the law had its place. Indeed, one of the most prominent
preoccupations of German scholarship during Weber’s time was with the
nature of the so-called ‘cultural sciences’, a collection which included,
among others and as we now know them, economics, history, law,
archaeology, etymology, linguistics, sociology and political science.
Weber’s studies, then, began to concern themselves not just with the
internal organisation of Germany society but also with the character, origins
and prospects of the wide-ranging social and cultural transformation that
was taking place throughout European and North American society. As
Marx and Durkheim also saw, this was due above all to the spread of the
capitalistically organised business venture. It was to understanding the
character, origins and prospects of this new Western civilisation that Weber
devoted the remainder of his scholarly career.

Weber and Modern Capitalism

Marx had already identified the business organisation, with its overriding
compulsion for profit and expansion, as the most striking feature of the
modern Western society which had developed in the nineteenth century. He
had emphasised the way in which capitalist production endlessly
reorganises itself as part of the mutually destructive competition in which
capitalists seek to preserve their market advantage against encroaching
rivals. As we have seen, the need to accumulate capital was, Marx
maintained, imposed upon the capitalist. It was not any psychological trait
of greed which mattered. The individual businessman might be a well-
meaning and generous person, and genuinely concerned for the welfare of
those he employed. But this did not mean that he could exploit their labour
power any the less if he himself was to survive in business. Marx had also
drawn attention to the way in which the ‘capitalist class’ was becoming not
only economically but also politically dominant in Western society, not only
influencing government policy, but also shaping the ideas and values of the
wider society. Western society was developing a predominantly ‘bourgeois’
character.
Though, as mentioned above, Weber was in fundamental disagreement
with Marx (or, at least, Marx as he understood him), he was in significant
agreement with him that the development of the dynamic, dominant
capitalist economy on a scale which extended its influence across the globe
was historically unprecedented. The need was to understand this ‘meteoric’
rise. But whatever common ground there was between them was bounded
by very different ideas of how this understanding was to be achieved.
Particularly in his earlier work, Marx inclined toward connecting the
development of modern Western capitalism with an account of the progress
of the whole of human history, even suggesting that the developments in the
West anticipated those which must take place throughout the rest of the
world, thus seeing capitalism as a stage in the general development of the
whole of history. By contrast, Weber had no regard for comprehensive
accounts of history, seeing, instead, the contemporary developments as
entirely distinctive to the history of Western Europe and the United States
and unmatched elsewhere. Capitalist enterprise as such, however, was not
the source of this distinctiveness. Weber argued that capitalist enterprise had
often existed elsewhere. There had been profit-seeking organisations
throughout history, and these could be every bit as ruthless and exploitative
as ever might be the case in the industrial societies Marx wrote about. It
was the relentlessness of the pursuit of profit which was the distinctive
aspect in modern societies. In other societies the capitalist enterprise had
tended to be a sporadic affair, with people organising a profit-making
venture, carrying that through and, when sufficient profit had been made, at
least temporarily discontinuing the venture. The modern business enterprise
was, however, one which was remarkable for its continuity, seeking to
sustain and expand its operations, shifting and adapting itself to change in
market opportunities, competing in an endless cycle to outgrow other
businesses.
Marx had been right to emphasise the extent to which profit-seeking in
capitalism is dissociated from personal needs. The capitalist does not seek
profit simply in order to improve his standard of living. Marx had attributed
this endless pursuit of profit to the necessity of the survival of the business
organisation. Weber, however, notes that from the point of view of the
capitalist the pursuit of profit has become an end in itself. The very point of
business activity in the modern world is to make greater profits and build
larger and larger companies. The capitalist measures achievement by
reference to the profits made and the companies controlled. Such a drive is
not imbued with a purely pragmatic motive; it has a strong moral sense.
Profit is perceived as the rightful reward for devotion to work.
When viewed against the attitudes toward work held throughout the
historical range of societies, it is the moral injunction that hard work
deserves reward which is most striking. Acquisitiveness and avarice are
common throughout all societies. In other societies, work and the pursuit of
wealth are regarded as necessary evils, as means which provide the good
life; they do not themselves make up the good life. In modern capitalism, by
contrast, work has a morally positive character. Holding a job, going to
work regularly, working in a steady, disciplined and dedicated way, are all
seen as essentials of a worthy way of life in our society. It is this attitude
toward work as a worthy pursuit which is rewarded by economic prosperity
that Weber termed ‘the spirit of capitalism’; an ethic, he argued, which was
an essential element in the nature of capitalism in the West, and which must
have been a vital contributory element in the rise of the capitalist system.
Without some motivation for determined, persistent work, and to work for
its own sake, the economic and other opportunities which had brought the
dynamic growth of modern capitalism to dominance would not have been
seized and exploited as they were. Both the profit hunger of the capitalist
and the disciplined devotion to work of employees had a strongly moralistic
character, and this is a crucial feature which, in Weber’s judgement, could
not be accounted for by the Marxist scheme.
There is a further distinctive element to modern capitalism which we
have already noted, namely, the extent to which it is ‘rationalised’; that is,
the extent to which people attempt systematically to work out the conduct
of their affairs. ‘Rationalisation’ is, like profit-seeking, something which
can occur in any society, and in any sphere of life. There are many instances
in history in which people have attempted to work out their system of
beliefs more systematically or have sought to consider the organisation of
their practical activities in a more systematic way. What is distinctive in the
modern capitalist West is the extent to which ‘rationalisation’, like the
pursuit of profit, has become almost an end in itself, and an extensive and
dominating aspect of our lives. There are two sectors of modern society
which have most dramatically exemplified such rationalisation. One has
been our understanding of nature. The modern sciences represent a most
systematically worked out understanding of nature, one which enables the
most finely calculated comprehension of its details. The other is, of course,
the business enterprise, where there has also been a strong and continuing
drive systematically to work out the most efficient means for organising the
enterprise and delivering its product.
However, the drive toward further systematic working out of systems of
belief and the organisation of conduct now enters into most spheres of our
lives. As we have suggested, in the modern West there is a marked tendency
to regard rationalisation, and still further rationalisation, as desirable in its
own right, as an ideal of efficiency which should govern all activities.
Certainly for Weber the intensity of the quest for rationalisation in modern
capitalist society was historically quite exceptional and, thus, called for
explanation.

The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism

The main phase of Weber’s work was initiated by the writing of a pair of
essays – collected together under the title The Protestant Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism (and published in 1904–5) – in which he set out a
possible explanation for the origin of the spirit of capitalism with its
moralistic view of work and its determination to rationalise all aspects of
life.
The Marxist account, as Weber understood it, made the development of
capitalism seem an inevitable outcome of a continuing, pre-destined
development of history and also made the development of the beliefs
necessary to the appropriate conduct of the capitalist system appear an
automatic consequence of the development of its economic and political
preconditions. The ‘material base’ was, in a schematic formulation of
Marxism, the direct cause of the ‘superstructure’ of ideas, beliefs and
values. Such a conception was unacceptable to Weber. The Marxist
approach could not explain the origin of ‘the spirit of capitalism’ because it
had misguided views about the nature of historical explanation in general.
First, there was nothing inevitable about the course of history, no
necessity whatsoever that capitalism should have developed or, having
developed, have taken the specific form that it now has. A whole complex
of causal conditions converged in Western Europe to initiate and sustain the
development and expansion of capitalism, but these conditions did not have
to arise and converge as they did. Historical situations are always
contingent, they could have been otherwise, and the contributory causes of
modern Western capitalism need not have obtained. To understand why they
did was a matter of identifying their particular causal preconditions, not
seeing them as provided for through some guiding ‘master plan’ of
historical development.
Second, even if the material conditions of capitalist development were
present, it does not follow that what Marxists would term the ‘super-
structure’ elements, the values and beliefs necessary to the exploitation of
the opportunity for capitalist activity, would inevitably arise. The economic
and political preconditions for industrial capitalism might have been present
in Reformation Europe, but the presence of an opportunity does not ensure
that it will be taken, that people will have, for example, the motivation to
exploit it. It is possible that the values and beliefs of the Reformation might
have developed in directions other than they actually did, and, as a result,
the opportunity for industrial capitalism might not have been exploited, or
that it might have been developed with quite a different ‘spirit’ than that
which it now has. People’s motivations, no less than anything else, require
historical explanation for, as we have noted, the kind of motivation
common in modern Western capitalism is very far from common or usual
elsewhere. The question of the causal conditions of the ‘spirit of capitalism’
is, for Weber, a separate question to that of the causal conditions of
capitalist industrial production.
All kinds of material preconditions were, therefore, necessary for the rise
of capitalism, many of them already identified by Marx, such as the
development of manufacturing technology, the urbanisation of the rural
population, the growing political independence and power of the urban
commercial classes, changes in law, the development of accounting
systems, a free market in capital and goods, a division of labour based on
skill and expertise rather than traditional, ascribed criteria, a legally defined
notion of the citizen, and many more. But what had provided the initial
motivation for capitalist activity of the kind familiar to us?
The source of that motivation, Weber surmised, was to be found in the
transformation of religious ideas brought about by the Reformation,
particularly the impact of Calvinist doctrines. There was, he argued, a
resemblance between the ‘capitalist spirit’ and the attitudes of Protestants
toward hard work and wealth, for the latter also emphasised duty and
austerity, encouraged economic diligence and condemned laziness and
wastefulness, and spread the virtues of thrift and productivity. The only real
difference between the ‘spirit of capitalism’, on the one side, and this
‘Protestant ethic’, on the other, was that the latter spoke in the name of God
whilst the former speaks in entirely secular terms. It was Weber’s
hypothesis that the ‘spirit of capitalism’ is the secularised successor of the
‘Protestant ethic’, and that the latter was a cause of the former. If true, then
the Protestant ethic played a vital part in the rise of modern Western
capitalism.

The role of ideas in history Weber is often taken to be saying that it is

religious ideas which played a causal role, and it is on this basis that he is
standardly contrasted with Marx – the one denying and the other affirming
that ideas can play a causal role in social change. However, the divergence
between the two is not actually of this kind. Weber was, in fact, no less of a
‘materialist’ than Marx. Certainly he was as deeply opposed to the Hegelian
idea that social change could be understood as the ‘emanation’ of ideas
working out their own internal logic. He rejected, too, just as vigorously as
did Marx, the idea that the individual and ingenious thinker could, as an
individual and just by coming up with new ideas, make a decisive impact
on the course of history. For both Marx and Weber, historical change is not
brought about by any unfolding of the logic of ideas but only through the
activities of real, striving human beings acting in pursuit of their interests.
However, Weber took it that these real, striving human beings are guided
not only by their practical, particularly economic, interests, but also by,
among other things, their beliefs and ideals, including their spiritual ones.
Their attachment to these can be as real, intense and as important to them as
their needs for animal sustenance and comfort. Individuals can, therefore,
have an interest in realising their beliefs and ideals; an interest which can
match, or even override, their material interests. For the deeply convinced
believer in a religion that offers the concept of an immortal soul and its
eternal salvation, the individual’s concern to ensure that salvation can
matter as much, and more, than everyday affairs. How can the transient
discomforts and miseries of this life compare with the prospect of eternal
damnation in the next? Weber, no less than Marx, saw individuals as acting
in pursuit of their interests, but he insisted that the range of interests which
governed actions was wider than that allowed in Marx’s theory. People
indeed do have economic interests and these play an influential, and
sometimes the most influential, role in history, but they are neither the only
interests people have nor invariably the most influential ones. In particular,
for Weber’s concerns, people’s religious interests may be the most
important thing in their lives and decisive in shaping the direction of their
actions.
As mentioned, Weber was as sceptical as Marx of the effect on historical
change of the ideas of individual thinkers as such. His account of the
‘Protestant ethic’ certainly gave great prominence to the teaching of John
Calvin (1509–64) but only to argue that the ethic engendered the spirit of
capitalism despite the official teachings and exhortations of the religious
leaders. It was only because believers applied Calvin’s religious teachings
‘against the grain’ of his thought that they were led into the actions that
followed. Ideas could only have a decisive historical effect insofar as they
came to comprise the interests of large numbers of individuals and, even
more, the interests of groups of individuals.
Weber was determined to reject the idea that any single factor should be
given general primacy in the explanation of human action, and his emphasis
upon the role of religious ideas and the interests associated with them was
not, therefore, meant to comprise a new single-factor approach of his own.
Historical situations are always brought about by a multitude of interacting
factors, and the emphasis on religious interests was, then, merely intended
to provide a corrective to any unbalanced emphasis on economic ones.
Religious ideas and interests are prominent in Weber’s concerns merely to
make up for the fact they had been unduly played down in other places, and
not because he considered these the single most significant factors in
history.
 The idea that religious beliefs might have an influence upon economic
activities is not, within Weber’s conception, as attenuated as it might first
appear. The fact that religious beliefs could have a direct and decisive
influence on economic activity might appear unpersuasive in a society like
our own where religion is very much ‘marginalised’ in our lives, but this is
not a characteristic human condition. In other societies religion plays a very
important, even dominant part, in social life. Weber’s assumption was that
all religions contain definite attitudes toward economic activity, toward the
worldly business of acquiring a living, the ethics of trade, the legitimacy of
usury and so on, and it was these ‘economic ethics’ of a religion which were
of particular interest to him. Such ethics are an offshoot of the general
orientation of religions to the meaning and value of life on earth. Many
religions devalue work, regarding economic life as meaningless and empty.
They accord little importance to economic activity and the pursuit of
prosperity. The former is necessary to meet the needs of survival, but
beyond that it is a worthless endeavour. The attitude of the medieval
Catholic church was an example. Its ideal was to serve God through near
full-time religious activity, with only the minimally necessary time given
over to meeting the practical requirements of life. A monastic existence
came closest to fulfilling this ideal. By contrast, the Protestant sects
profoundly disparaged specifically religious ceremonials and practices in
favour of carrying out one’s practical, everyday affairs, including the
making of one’s living, in a spirit of service to God. Their ideal life was one
of vigorous embrace of, not monastic retreat from, the affairs of the
ordinary society.
Again like Marx, Weber recognised that modern capitalism was a
destroyer of all tradition, an unprecedented revolutionary force within
society. The drive toward rationalisation called into question any practice in
its name. Thus, an account of the origins of capitalism’s spirit must also
explain how such a thorough rejection of tradition could arise in a society
dominated by the deeply traditional institutions of crown and church. As we
said earlier, the distinctive features of the ‘spirit of capitalism’ closely
resembled the teaching of the Reformation’s Protestant sects, especially in
their attitudes to austerity, discipline and hard work. Accordingly, if we are
looking for a motivational set that not only resembled the ‘spirit of
capitalism’ but which could also have been a cause of it, then the ethics of
these sects had not only a strong resemblance to that spirit, but also
developed in just those places and at that time at which capitalism itself
developed. How could they have provided the spur for capitalist acquisition
when the teachings of the sects themselves emphasised the priority of
spiritual ideals over material concerns, and were hostile to the pursuit and
possession of wealth?
Weber’s short answer was that in challenging the Catholic conception of
the religious life the Protestant sects effected a profound change in the ways
in which people led their lives in the world of ordinary affairs, one which
also altered their orientation to work and business.

Ascetic Protestantism and social change The first vital feature of the
Protestant ethic Weber emphasised was the idea of ‘the calling’, that is, the
idea that people have been ‘called by God’ to the position that they occupy
in this world. The Catholic church’s ideal was the monastic existence, but to
the Protestants this was to withdraw from the position to which one had
been called by God. Thus, a new ideal was created: to withdraw from or to
fail to fulfil the responsibilities of one’s position in the world of ordinary
life was to show disrespect to Almighty God. Weber credited Martin Luther
(1483–1546) with first giving voice to the idea that through fulfilment of
the traditional requirements of our secular station in life we show devoted
service to God.
The concept of ‘the calling’ as an obligation of individuals in their
everyday life turned the task of earning a living into a religious duty. This
was an important step, but as far as Weber was concerned Luther’s teaching
did not explain the rejection of all tradition which was to become a
characteristic of the ‘spirit of capitalism’, for Luther encouraged
compliance with traditionally defined obligations. Instead, for Weber, the
explanation lay with John Calvin’s teachings, which exhorted the rejection
of authority and tradition as guides to one’s duties in the practical world in
favour of absolute reliance upon the individual’s conscience, under God’s
guidance, as the measure of right action.
Calvin’s teachings, however, involved a crucial inconsistency. He taught
that since God was omnipotent and omniscient the whole pattern of creation
must have been predetermined. There is nothing that a person can do to
influence God to change things, since everything has already been settled.
The rituals and ‘good works’ of the Catholics are just so much idolatry, and
cannot influence God’s will one jot. God’s determination is final. He does
not reveal His will, and though He has already decided which souls will be
saved, there is no way of knowing whose these are. It makes absolutely no
difference how we live in this world for it cannot change God’s decisions,
nor even show whether we are amongst his ‘elect’. Before such a God,
individuals stand alone.
For Calvin, as for Luther, service of God’s greater glory is carried out in
the everyday secular world. The crucial inconsistency in Calvinism was not
within the system of teaching itself, but between the teachings and the
religious interests to which they gave rise. The salvation of the soul must
have been a matter of intense importance to the believer, for the glories of
heaven and the terrors of hell were immense and awesome. Salvation was,
therefore, an important, even the most important, interest of the believers.
But it was one that the believer could neither achieve nor even know about.
A position of unrelieved ignorance about something so important to them as
their eternal salvation was one which was, said Weber, psychologically
intolerable. The tension between the need for certainty about salvation and
Calvin’s official teachings must be psychologically resolved. Despite the
doctrine of the invisibility of membership of God’s elect, many followers
convinced themselves that there were signs which showed who was, in fact,
saved. Though the teachings said that how you actually behaved made no
difference to salvation, believers convinced themselves that one’s conduct
must be a sign and that those who acted in a way pleasing to God were, in
fact, of the elect.
The conviction that one could know that one was saved developed
without corresponding modification of the belief that one’s salvation could
not be influenced by one’s actions. If a person’s conduct was the sign of his
or her membership in God’s elect, then any evidence whatsoever of
deviation from God’s ordinances would be a cause for doubt about his or
her salvation, for such deviation could not be corrected by penitence and
penance. The slightest departure from God’s way was, then, to be avoided
at all costs. This meant that individual believers were motivated to maintain
the most stringent self-control, monitoring their conduct in the most
systematic and rigorous way, most scrupulously conforming to their
standards of behaviour, all in order to show not the slightest blemish – all
the while, of course, living in the practical world of daily affairs with its
endless demands for pragmatism, compromise and flexibility.
 What was striking to Weber about the cumulative effects of Lutheranism
and Calvinism was that they brought into the lives of ordinary religious
believers demands for self-monitoring and self-control that had, hitherto,
been asked only of the most advanced of religious practitioners or, as Weber
referred to them, religious ‘virtuosos’. Other, later, Protestant sects such as
Methodism, Pietism and Baptism, whilst lacking Calvin’s rigorous
consistency, nevertheless held to the conception that salvation could not be
attained by good works, sacraments or confession, and propounded the
rational planning of life in accordance with God’s will. What the Protestant
sects collectively created was a new mentality which involved the thorough
disciplining of every detail of practical life. It was through the formation of
this stringently managed attitude to everyday activity that the Protestant
ethic, Weber held, helped create the ‘spirit of capitalism’. It was a further
feature of that ‘spirit’ that it encouraged the extensive ‘rationalisation’ of
life, the extension of calculation and control into all its sectors, but
particularly into the sphere of economic action.
Although the Lutheran insistence that a person’s calling demanded that
an individual fulfil the obligations of his or her station in life, it could not
explain how the pursuit of profit could rise above the demands of tradition,
as it does in the modern world. Calvinism was significantly different. God’s
world gives to people opportunities to add to God’s manifest greatness by
doing well in their calling. It would therefore be sinful to fail to take even
the smallest opportunity that God gives. There was, thus, no reason to
regard oneself as prevented by the obligations of tradition from taking
whatever economic opportunities life offered. To the contrary, it would be
to reject something that God had given.
A good illustration of this relentless attention to even the smallest detail
of economic affairs, and condemnation of the neglect of even the smallest
economic opportunity, is provided at a key point in Weber’s essays by the
citation of Benjamin Franklin’s condemnation of waste:

Remember, that time is money, he that can earn ten shillings a day by his labour, and goes
abroad, or that bits idle, one half of that day, though he spends but sixpence during his diversion
or idleness, ought not to reckon that the only expense; he has really spent, or rather thrown
away, five shillings besides.
He that kills a breeding sow, destroys all her offspring to the thousandth generation. He that
murders a crown, destroys all that it might have produced, even scores of pounds. (Weber, 1930:
48–9)
 The inevitable result of such remorseless profit-seeking will be the
prosperity of the business. But the seeking, as with Franklin, is expounded
in terms of the sinfulness of waste, the wickedness of idleness and laziness
combined in turn with warnings against the sinfulness that success and
prosperity themselves could encourage. Business activity was worthy only
where it was directed toward realising the glory of God. The motivation of
business expansion and accumulation had been detached from those of the
personal acquisitiveness and had become almost an end in themselves. The
moral rightness of profit-seeking resulted from God’s sanction and its sheer
endlessness was a result of the necessity for unrelenting devotion to the
ever greater majesty of God.

The Weber thesis: critiques and continuities

The Protestant ethic thesis remains a matter of sharp controversy, much of

which continues to be over its interpretation as well as interpretation of the
historical record. Pellicani (1988), for example, argues that the thesis is
false because, first, the spirit of capitalism was found in medieval Europe
and, second, the Protestant sects were opposed to the accumulation of
wealth. Oakes (1988–9), however, accuses Pellicani of pointing to kinds of
medieval capitalism which were adventurous ones motivated by greed as
opposed to the sober, unheroic, duty-guided kind found in modern
capitalism. He also reiterates Weber’s point that the spirit of capitalism was
an unintended, almost paradoxical, consequence of teachings which forbade
the pursuit of wealth for its own sake. In the same volume, Dulman in
attempting to summarise the difference from recent historical scholarship,
asserts:

Weber’s thesis continues to be vigorously discussed, although no new productive starting points
have taken up his initial ideas in all their fullness. No doubt today we see individual factors
differently; no longer value Luther’s conception of vocation so highly; distinguish Calvin’s
theology from Calvinism in important ways; see no direct connection any more between the
active bearers of early capitalism and the propagandists of an ascetic Protestantism; and in
general make more distinctions within the Calvinist-Puritan tradition and weight the Catholic
contribution to modernity differently. Yet Weber’s thesis is therewith not directly met, since he
was primarily concerned with an analysis of the origin of the modern spirit not as an intellectual
construction, but as a behavioural articulation. (1988–9: 80)

MacKinnon (1994) has provoked another round of controversy by

claiming that Weber failed to understand Calvinist ideas and that
subsequent developments in Puritan thought invalidate the entire thesis.
Weber’s case rests upon the claim that Calvin’s doctrines engendered a
psychological crisis in believers with respect to the ‘proof’ of their
salvation; that is, they can neither do anything to influence their fate nor
ascertain whether in fact they are saved. However, MacKinnon argues that
in Calvin’s thought provision was made for some self-assurance through
‘good works’, which could be of a spiritual kind, so providing an alternative
to the need to seek self-assurance through disciplined application in worldly
affairs. This was amplified by subsequent developments in Calvinist
thought and so there was no need for believers to confront the crisis Weber
identified. MacKinnon’s critics claim, among other things, that he himself
has misunderstood Calvin’s theology and that he has failed to apply proper
standards of textual scholarship to its interpretation (Zaret, 1994). Further, it
is argued that MacKinnon pays too much attention to the official
theological writings and makes too ready a connection between these and
the actual beliefs of the followers. Even if MacKinnon is correct about
Calvin’s own teachings, this would not show that Weber’s thesis was
invalid. Although a way of avoiding the crisis may have been present in
Calvin’s thought, it may still have been true that believers did, in fact, face
such a crisis (Oakes, 1994). The debate continues as to whether the whole
‘Protestant ethic’ question has been a complete waste of time or remains a
provocatively fertile thesis (Moore, 1978; Poggi, 1994).
Weber himself did not suppose that the essays on the Protestant ethic had
conclusively established his case for the critical causal role of the Protestant
sects in creating modern capitalism. At most, he had shown that there was
an affinity between that ethic and the spirit of capitalism, and had outlined a
plausible account of how one could have led to the other. This account was
plausible at ‘the level of meaning’. It was an exercise in explanation which
was meant to make the connection between the Protestant ethic and the
spirit of capitalism ‘understandable’. Weber attempts to show how it would
make sense for the people concerned to act and react in the way that they
did given their beliefs, ideals and purposes. However, showing that such a
sequence of events was possible, and, therefore, a possible cause of the
capitalist spirit, was not the same as establishing the case ‘at the level of
causality’, that is, as demonstrating that this was, in fact, the causal
sequence.
 There was also some resistance to the idea that religious teachings could
have such a decisive impact on socio-economic change. One way in which
to reinforce Weber’s argument would be through a general comparative
survey showing the significant effect that the ‘economic ethics’ of major
religions have had on the economic development of their respective
societies. He therefore, began upon the study of the ‘world religions’,
among which he numbered Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism,
Christianity and Islam. Although he did not make substantial progress in the
study of the latter two faiths, he did make a study of ‘ancient Judaism’
because of its formative influence on Christianity and, thus, upon the
history of the Western world. The point of these studies was to reinforce the
claim for the causal efficacy of religious ideals and, through this, secure his
claim that the Protestant ethic was a causal factor in the origin of Western
capitalism.
As the latter remark indicates, it was the rise of the civilisation of the
West that remained the focus of his attention, with his study of other
civilisations undertaken to enhance the understanding of his own. Further,
Weber’s concern to show the causal influence of the ‘economic ethic’ of
religions upon socio-economic organisation was a self-consciously ‘one-
sided’ one. He recognised that the description of the way religious ideas
influence social life was a selective, partial story. In fact, Weber’s
comparative studies were by no means one-sided, for if Weber did draw out
the economic role of religious ideas he placed at least as much emphasis
upon the way in which socio-economic conditions shaped religious ideas
and practices. Along with the studies of the religions of India, China and
ancient Judaism he produced a general Sociology of Religion which
provided an account of the evolution of religion, ranging over a wide range
of topics including the conditions favouring the emergence of specific
beliefs such as those of monotheism, the roles of prophets and priests, the
relationships of religious leaders to their congregations, and the variable
religious inclinations of diverse groups such as the peasantry, the nobility,
the urban bourgeoisie and those he termed ‘the non-privileged strata’. He
also turned attention to the various forms that the idea of salvation has
taken, and the assorted practices, such as ritual, good works, self-perfection,
asceticism and mysticism, that have been used as techniques of salvation,
all as aspects of his understanding of the relationship, often one of tension,
between religious teachings and such ‘worldly’ matters as economics,
politics, sexuality and art. Throughout, there was a combined concern with
the way in which social conditions favoured the creation of certain kinds of
religious ideas and the conditions under which different types of people
lived, developed their religious dispositions (or lack of them) and made
them more amenable to one sort of religious belief rather than another.
It is out of Weber’s comparative study of religion that we can see his
conception of the nature of sociology and of society. Though no theoretical
system-builder, none the less Weber developed a set of analytical concepts
which he used with great effect in the analysis of features of rationalisation
in modern society.

The Organisation of Society

Weber was scornful of views, like those of Durkheim, which supposed that
society existed as a reality above and beyond that of individual human
beings and their actions. Durkheim had maintained that unless society was a
reality in its own right, then sociology was without an independent subject-
matter. Weber, on the other hand, argued that sociology had its proper
subject in the actions of individuals directed toward other individuals.

Action

‘Action’ Weber defined as ‘behaviour with a subjective meaning’. The idea

of ‘subjective meaning’ is particularly difficult to explain clearly, especially
in a succinct way, and it will suffice, here, to take it to mean something that
is done with an intention or purpose in mind. Many of the actions which an
individual performs are not directed toward others – someone who sits in
his room riding an exercise bike in order to make himself fit is engaging in
action but not in social action. Someone who rides a bike down the street,
however, will engage in social actions. If she is to ride safely she must be
aware of the presence and behaviour of others, must seek to anticipate how
those others will act and adjust the course of their own actions in
anticipation of and response to that behaviour. It is with those actions which
involve people in taking account of and adjusting to each other that
sociology is specifically concerned.
 At the basis of sociology there must, Weber thought, be a conception of
the basic forms that actions can take. He identified four such basic types.

Traditional social action This includes actions which we do because we

are accustomed to doing them, ones which have an habitual character,
which we do thoughtlessly and automatically, and because it is the way in
which such things are conventionally done. For example, we shake people
by the hand in greeting because this is the established, traditional way
friendliness is shown in many societies.

Affectual social action This is conduct which arises from and expresses
our feelings, particularly emotions. Thus, we rage and shout at people to
show the anger they have provoked in us, or embrace and hug them because
of the affection we feel toward them.
We have said that action is, for Weber, behaviour directed toward an end,
and these first two forms of action come close to the borderline of his
definition. To do something out of habit is not necessarily to have any
purpose in mind, just as to react emotionally is to express one’s feelings
rather than to seek some objective. The other two forms in Weber’s schema
are the more central cases.

Instrumentally rational action This is action which has an essentially

practical purpose; that is, it is devoted to working out the means to get
something done, such as, for example, calling in a technician to repair the
television. This kind of action involves choosing means to meet an end. It is
‘rational’ in that it involves the search for the most effective means to the
relevant end. It is the inclination of ‘utilitarianism’ (as we will see in our
discussion of Durkheim) to conceive of the rationality of human action
exclusively in terms of such instrumental, practical concerns. However,
Weber, like Durkheim, recognised that not all action is of this ‘instrumental’
kind, and that, therefore, the logic of efficient means/ends relations does not
represent the only kind of rationality.

Value rational action This form of action involves conduct which is, to use
Weber’s own words, ‘determined by a conscious belief in the value for its
own sake of some … form of behaviour, independently of its prospects of
success’ (quoted in Käsler, 1988: 154). In Weber’s view, people’s actions
are guided by beliefs and ideals, by conceptions of how they would like
things to be; these he calls ‘values’. There are many things people do
because they believe them to be right or desirable. The captain who ‘goes
down with his ship’ is someone who, seen from a practical point of view,
has needlessly given up his life, and in that this is an ‘irrational’ action. But
it is one which, to someone who believes that there are more important
things than practical outcomes, and that there are, indeed, more important
things than human life, appears as a rational course of action, as the only
one which can honourably be taken in such a situation. The behaviour of
standing unrelentingly by one’s responsibilities is, in such cases, valued for
its own sake, regardless of its prospects of practical success, even at the cost
of one’s own life.
The distinction between these two latter types of action further
exemplifies Weber’s insistence upon the range of interests which human
beings pursue, and the extent to which people can have an attachment to
objectives which are in tension with, and which can, for them, rise above,
practical, utilitarian and material considerations. Weber’s very definition of
‘value rational action’ makes the contrast with those actions which are
pursued out of concern for practical material interests, identifying those
which can be pursued even despite such interests. Both Marx and Weber
view human beings as acting in pursuit of their practical interests,
prominently their economic ones, and this is something that creates conflict
for, of course, one person’s economic interest can often only be advanced at
the cost of someone else’s. Weber viewed ‘value rational action’ as another
common source of conflict. Someone who sees a particular form of
behaviour as worthwhile for its own sake does not typically suppose that it
is to be sought only within his or her own life, but is also eager that it
should be pursued in others’ lives, too. Thus, the Protestants, for example,
were not content that their own lives were given to the service of God,
leaving other people to behave in whatever ways they might wish. On the
contrary, it was part of their idea of service to God that they should spread
His Word and bring the conduct of others into line with His
commandments. The values that people hold are very diverse, and acting
them out ensures conflict as they try to impose their preferred ways of
acting upon each other.
Marx had made economic conflict, in the form of ‘class struggle’, the
driving force of social change, and Weber certainly did not intend to
minimise the importance of economic conflicts, even of class struggles, but
he was insistent that conflicts of economic interest were not the only
sources of influential social struggles, and that many of these originated in
differences of values. In Weber’s view, the possibility of conflict pervaded
social life and interpersonal relationships, to the extent that the conduct of
social life was often a continuing struggle between individuals or groups of
them. To use his own example, even a chess club can be the site of a
protracted faction fight. It was this emphasis upon the pervasive nature of
conflict, and the diversity of its sources, that led to Weber’s nomination as
the forerunner of a ‘conflict’ approach to sociology, about which we say
more later.
Though Weber held that society was made up only of individuals and
their actions, he did not think that single individuals themselves make much
difference to the state and development of the whole society. A few leaders
can make a difference, but it is usually only through collective activity that
people make a significant impact upon the overall arrangement of social
affairs, and Weber’s sociological ideas were much concerned with the
condition and character of group action, and his account of ‘social
stratification’ was pivotal in this.

Social inequality: power, class and status

If Weber viewed social life as an intense competition amongst individuals

with divergent economic and other interests, he did not imagine that this
competition is conducted on equal terms. Power is by no means evenly
shared out.
Power, in Weber’s definition, is a person’s capacity to get what he or she
wants, even in the face of resistance by others. Social stratification is
precisely about the unequal distribution of people’s capacities to obtain
things, and to prevail over others, and is, thus, essentially a phenomenon of
the distribution of power.
Weber agreed with Marx that the possession of economic resources is
vital for the achievement of ends. The extent to which people are unequally
placed with respect to economic resources he was also prepared to
characterise as their ‘class position’. In line with his insistence that only
individuals are real, however, he was not prepared to go along with any
suggestion that might be found in Marx to the effect that a ‘class’ is a real
entity with interests of its own, and which might differ from what its
members believed their interests to be. For Weber, a class is not by its
nature an actual group, it is only a category, or collection, of individuals
who occupy comparable economic positions, and who need have no
awareness of each other, or recognition of the fact that they are in the same
position, let alone of the need to unite in pursuit of shared interests arising
from that position.
The respect in which people are to be judged ‘in the same position’ in
economic terms is, Weber argued, that of their ‘life chances’, that is, their
prospects of leading a certain kind of life. The notion of life chances is a
probabilistic one: how likely is it, given a person’s current position, that
certain things will happen to him or her in his or her lifetime? It is a fact
about society, for example, that a person in a manual occupation is more
likely to suffer from certain kinds of illness than someone in a non-manual
one. Equally, it is less likely that someone born to a family of manual
workers will obtain a university education than someone who is the child of
professionals. The notion is probabilistic because, of course, people in
working-class jobs do not necessarily suffer those illnesses, and some of
their children do go to university. Yet it is an ‘objective’ rather than a
‘subjective’ fact of social life for it has nothing to do with what persons
believe their class position to be. It is, rather, a property that needs to be
calculated and determined for an individual without any reference to what
he or she might believe.
The distribution of life chances is no random process. Marx argued that
class membership is determined by one’s position in the process of
economic production, and Weber did not disagree with this. Marx proposed
that one’s position within economic production is fixed by one’s
relationship to the means of production. Weber made a slightly different
proposal, though one which did not, in many respects, make for a
significant difference. For Weber, it is one’s relation to the market that is
decisive in fixing class position: whether one buys or sells labour, as well as
in terms of the labour one seeks to sell or to buy. Thus, a skilled worker
comes with skills to sell, whilst the unskilled worker has only the raw
capacity to work on offer. However, those who have skills to sell have
different skills to dispose of, and this may put them at odds with one
another. For example, a railway engine-driver and a truck-driver have
different skills to sell and are in conflict with one another insofar as engine-
drivers find that the transfer of goods from rail to road is taking their work
away from them.
In deciding whether people stand ‘in the same relationship’ to the market
there is an irreducible element of arbitrariness with which the criterion of
sameness is to be applied. This is a matter on which the sociological analyst
must finally take a decision. Thus, for example, it can be held that not even
the members of the same occupation are in the same relationship to the
market, for even though such capacities as they have to sell are broadly
alike, there are still likely to be significant differences between them.
Amongst ditch-diggers, for example, there is the difference between the
young fit ditch-digger and the old wearied one, a difference which may in
the end mean that the young one has a job and the old one does not.
Applying the criterion of sameness very stringently would leave us with
virtually an infinite number of classes. But such a finely discriminating
classification would be beyond the practical resources of sociology and be
of little practical use. For sociology’s purposes, a much less stringent
criterion, overlooking a vast multiplicity of intra-individual differences, is
usually appropriate, one which sees not only the members of the same
occupation but also those of broadly the same kinds of occupations as being
in the same position in the market. Indeed, for many sociological purposes,
it is sufficient to make the central difference of class on much the same
basis that Marx did, namely that of ownership or non-ownership of
property, for it is that which decides whether one comes to market to buy
someone else’s capacity to labour or whether one is there to sell one’s own.
It is this which characteristically makes a considerable difference to one’s
income and resources, and thus to one’s capacity to lead a certain kind of
life.

The formation of the class and status order Though Marx and Weber
more or less agree that, for many sociological purposes, ‘class’ is a matter
of the ownership and non-ownership of property, they disagree about the
import of class as a basis for collective action.
Marx took what would nowadays be called a ‘realist’ view of the
theoretical constructs of science. Classifications are designed to capture
divisions which are inherent in reality itself, and a ‘class’ is therefore
something which actually exists independently of the theorist’s conception
of it. Given such a view, it makes sense to ask whether a proposed way of
distinguishing one class from another is the correct way of doing so, and
whether it actually does follow the line of division which exists in reality.
For Weber, such a question makes no sense. There are lots of differences
between individuals, but there is no dividing line built into reality which
allocates them to different classes, and any proposed division between them
is at the theorist’s convenience. As mentioned earlier, we could devise
virtually an infinite number of classes, but such discrimination would be too
refined and inconvenient for the theorist when a crude division into two
classes will often serve well enough. Weber is not being cavalier on this
matter, but is, rather, pursuing the implications of his ‘nominalist’ views,
which treat the theoretical constructs not as representing things inherent in
reality but, rather, as devices to organise theoretical thinking.
Marx argued that the difference in economic interests arising from shared
positions in the system of production would lead people to recognise their
common interest and to unify in pursuit of it. This claim was one which
Weber’s approach eliminated. A ‘social class’ might become a group in that
people in comparable positions might become aware of each other, see one
another as having interests in common and set about organising more
effectively to advance those interests. This could happen, but it was by no
means destined to do so, and on the whole it is an unlikely development. It
would require specific social and cultural conditions to encourage the
recognition of similar situations, of shared interests and the need for action.
Weber maintained that it is only relatively rarely in history that the
members of social classes act together in a self-conscious way on the basis
of their common economic position and associated interests. More often,
the behaviour of members of a social class impacts upon society in the form
of ‘mass action’; that is, people who are in the same economic position
respond in the same way to a particular situation, and do so just because
people in the same situation tend to react in the same way. Accordingly,
they act commonly but quite without awareness of each other.
Economic inequalities are not the only kinds of inequalities in society.
There are inequalities in the value that people put upon each other, the
esteem or honour in which they hold one another. People look upon each
other as superiors, equals and subordinates, and their orientation to each
other in these terms significantly affects the ways they behave. Indeed,
people will often accept as associates only those whom they regard as at
least their equals, rejecting those whom they think stand below them in the
social order. Thus, social groups arise which are based upon the equality of
regard in which their members hold one another. These Weber terms ‘status
groups’.
Such groups are ones which are defined ‘subjectively’ rather than
‘objectively’. This does not mean that status groups are somehow less real
than classes; on the contrary. A social class, in Weber’s terms, has only the
potential, often only the faint potential, to make up a real social group, but
the status group is, by definition, a real-group. The ‘subjective’ definition of
the status group means that it consists in the reciprocal recognition of each
other by the members of the group, an awareness of each other and an
acting toward one another on the basis of that awareness of common
position and interest.
Status groups, Weber held, form within the sphere of consumption rather
than those of production and distribution, and it is ‘lifestyle’ rather than ‘life
chances’ which is the criterion of membership. People recognise each other
as equals on the basis of the kind of life they lead, feeling that certain
patterns of life are to be looked up to or looked down upon. As Weber
pointed out, it is not enough to have equivalent wealth to be recognised as
someone’s equal, it is what one does with the wealth which is decisive.
Thus, the newly rich are often looked down upon and disparaged as
nouveau riche by those who come from backgrounds of long-standing
wealth and prestige because they lack the social connections, manners and
polish and because they consume their wealth in ostentatious and ‘tasteless’
ways. It is the kind of house they buy, where they educate their children, the
sorts of cultural activities they cultivate that are, in such cases, the marks
which differentiate between inferiors and superiors. This was the kind of
pattern Weber had detected in his early study of the agrarian problem, in
which the high-status Junkers, whose economic advantage over the
emerging bourgeoisie was being eroded, had sought to sustain their sense of
social superiority over these economic rivals.
The basis for status differences is not an economic one, and people of
comparable economic power can stand in differential status positions. But,
of course, status inequalities cannot be entirely independent of economic
ones if only because the maintenance of the consumption required for a
superior ‘lifestyle’ demands, in the longer term, an appropriate level of
prosperity. However, though there is a relationship between wealth and
stratification in the case of status, just as there is in that of class, the
relationship in the two cases is quite different, and, in important respects,
antithetical. Stratification in terms of ‘class’ is based upon relationships to
the market, but the development of strong status differentiation turns upon
restricting the operation of the market. If the lifestyle characteristic of a
status group could simply be acquired by being bought on the market, then
one could become a status equal just because one had enough wealth. Thus,
the kind of things which status groups make the criteria of membership are
ones which characteristically cannot be purchased in the market. Thus,
though one can buy big houses, hire servants and so forth, one cannot buy a
long family lineage of wealth and influence, or retrospectively an education
at the ‘right’ schools and universities. Status groups struggle to keep the
things which are the marks of their status from the market, even to the
extent of inhibiting the workings of the market itself.
The most developed example of a status system is the Indian caste
system, which is divided into rigidly ranked, sharply distinguished and
mutually closed groups in which a person’s worth is decided entirely by
heredity. Occupations are allocated on the basis of caste membership and
marriage prospects restricted within the cast group. The development of a
status system militates against the development of the class system, as must
be the case if one is based upon the operation of the market and the other on
its restriction. In the caste case, it is position in the status system which
dictates one’s occupation, rather than one’s occupational position being the
basic determinant. Weber conjectured that the two bases of society’s
organisation flourished under different conditions, with status groups
tending to be more prominent in stable societies, and class stratification
coming to the fore in times of more rapid social change.
Through the notion of ‘status group’, then, Weber opened up the
possibility that social stratification can be organised around many different
criteria of evaluation. Economic situation is certainly one basis upon which
people rank each other, but ethnic origins, gender and religious affiliation
are others which have been important. Though class membership can be the
fundamental basis for ranking people in society, Weber does not have to
assume, as Marx did, that it is the only, or even the primary, one.
Very often, then, the status group is more important in social organisation
and social conflict than are social classes. The status group is, by definition,
a real social unit which has some sense of solidarity. Its members recognise
each other as equals and acknowledge a need to stand together against the
depredations of rival groupings. It is easier for the members of such a group
to act in a concerted way, although the basis of their joint action is likely to
be a diffuse sense of mutual interest rather than a clearly calculated
understanding of their common interests and of the most instrumentally
rational means to achieve these. However, it is the reality of the status group
as a basis for collective action which leads Weber to treat this form of
stratification as central to his understanding of the economic ethics of the
world religions, as we shall shortly see.

Power and forms of domination A clear, self-conscious awareness of

common interest and the calculation of effective means toward realising
that interest is characteristic, again by definition, of ‘the party’, the third
element in Weber’s account of stratification. The status group is concerned
about its position, its power over other groups, and it acts to sustain and
develop that power position. But it is not, like the party, specifically formed
in order to struggle for power. By ‘the party’ Weber does not only mean
those organisations which are called ‘parties’ and which are the constituents
of an electoral system, but any kind of organisation which is set up
specifically to compete for power, and which organises itself primarily in
pursuit of this. Thus, Weber observed, the kind of faction fighting which
goes on in a chess club would comprise an instance of party organisation if
those in the factions have set them up to fight for control of the club, to
determine who shall occupy the administrative positions within it and what
policy it will follow. The basis for party membership is, then, acceptance of
its purpose, a recognition of common interest with other members. The
members of a party can, but need not, be drawn from the same kind of
social groups. A party can base itself upon a particular social stratum, can
align itself with a particular social class or ethnic group, in which case it is
likely to recruit mainly, if not exclusively, from that group. But parties need
not identify themselves in that way and can also recruit a socially
heterogeneous following, one which crosses class and status lines.
Social relations were, for Weber, essentially conflictual, and prominent
social struggles were between social groups, sometimes social classes,
sometimes status groups and sometimes parties. Of course, he did not
imagine that social life endlessly involved overt conflict and outright
struggle, with inequalities being endlessly, and in every particular,
contested. This would simply be a false picture of historical reality for in
very many historical situations people are quietly compliant in inequality
and domination. They accept and do not contest the inequalities which
confront them and are obedient to the commands of their superiors.
Power, in Weber’s definition, is the capacity to achieve one’s ends even
over the opposition of others, but power is not always faced with
opposition, nor is it always exercised over those who are resentful of and
resistant to its imposition. The powerful often achieve their ends through
the willingness of others to act as instruments of their projects. Weber
marked a difference between the exercise of power as such, in which might
alone achieves the objective, and situations of ‘domination’ (or, as it used to
be translated, ‘authority’), in which the entitlement of the powerful to the
obedience of others is accepted by the latter. The domination of some
individuals by others is regarded as something which is right, which is
justified, and it was, therefore, important to Weber to identify the main
bases which justified domination as legitimate.
Weber noted three main forms of domination, singling them out in terms
of their primary justification.
Tradition was, historically, the most widespread and long-lasting of
these, which is given leading example by the kingly ruler who holds the
position through inheritance and is entitled to obedience entirely because
the right has traditionally been in the hands of his family. The king’s power
to command derives not from any personal characteristics, but entirely from
the fact that he is someone with the right kind of hereditary connection to
his predecessors. The forms of domination are ways of administering social
affairs, and each form is associated with a characteristic administrative
arrangement: ‘traditional authority’ is typically operated through the royal
court, with the king’s personal following performing the administrative
functions because they are connected to and trusted by the king, and
carrying out their functions at his behest.
Charismatic leadership is contrasted with traditional domination, ‘for the
power of charismatics resides entirely in their personal qualities.
Charismatics are those who, in the original meaning of the term, are gifted
with ‘holy grace’, or, in Weber’s usage, those who present themselves as
people with special gifts – frequently supernatural – which entitle them to
the obedience of others. Charismatics, accordingly, claim to have been sent
by God or national destiny, and demand that others should follow them
unquestioningly to realise what they ordain. Charismatics are an
exceptional people in the sense that their personalities are such that they can
impress themselves upon others powerfully enough to lead them to abandon
their normal lives to follow their cause. Such figures are common in
religious life, but are also to be found in the worlds of politics and warfare.
One leading example of the charismatic is, of course, Jesus Christ, who
claimed to be the Son of God sent upon a special mission of salvation,
entitled to demand that others follow him to the extent of giving up their
jobs and families to become his disciples. The charismatic is surrounded by
an immediate personal following who act as the administrators of the
movement, but the leader personally is typically contemptuous of regular
organisation and worldly affairs, and tends, therefore, to treat matters of
day-to-day administration somewhat whimsically.
The third type of domination Weber calls ‘rational-legal’ to emphasise
the fact that leadership is selected through the use of a procedure which is
legally sanctioned. This is the kind of domination which we have in our
own society, where the democratic electoral process is the means of
choosing between rival leaders, and where entitlement to occupation of the
position of leader and to our obedience are both due to the fact that he or
she has been chosen for the leadership in this legally sanctified way. This
type of leadership is associated with an administrative arrangement which is
staffed by professionals, who have no personal relationship to the political
leader, but who hold their jobs on the basis of their qualifications. They, too,
have been selected for their positions by explicit procedures, most notably
those of examinations, and their movement up the hierarchy of positions is
based upon their supposed success in administrative work.
Charismatic leaders are the ones who, for Weber, have powerful potential
in initiating important social changes, for they are typically disruptive and
innovative. Charismatics can appear under either traditional or legal-
rational domination, and characteristically confront and challenge the
existing order. Religious prophets have often created and disseminated new
ethical conceptions as, for example, Luther and Calvin did in Reformation
Europe. However, whilst the charismatic leader can have a powerful impact,
this can be short-lasting. It certainly cannot span the generations in the way
that a dynasty of traditional rulers can. It is short-lived for two reasons:
first, charismatics are constantly required to prove their powers, and,
second, the charismatic’s powers are purely personal and mortal.
 The charismatic’s position demands the continuing proof of his or her
special powers. The prophetic leader can only convincingly claim special
status so long as the prophecies are fulfilled, just as the military leader can
only claim special powers if battles are won, and the leader is, therefore,
vulnerable to a poor run of fortune. Even if events continue to ‘prove’ the
charismatic leader’s power, that leader will, sooner or later, die, so creating
a problem of succession. Since the charismatic’s powers are personal, they
cannot be transferred to someone else. If the group the charismatic has
founded is to continue, a successor must none the less be found. However,
the selection of such a successor cannot be assured to find another equally
dominating, powerful personality, and so the charisma of the deceased
leader will be displaced onto the leadership position, rather than the person
who occupies it. For example, the Pope is a special person not by virtue of
his own awesome personal powers, but because he occupies a position as,
so to speak, the successor to Christ. This transition from personal to
positional power Weber termed ‘the routinisation of charisma’, marking the
end of a period of charismatic leadership proper because routine is
anathema to true charisma. Charisma is a disturbing and transitional force,
lasting no longer than a single lifetime and either fading away or absorbed,
at the moment of succession, into either one of the other two more stable
types of domination, traditional or rational-legal.
During its lifetime the administration of the charismatic group is also
unstable. The charismatic is surrounded by ‘disciples’, by personal
followers who are chosen according to the leader’s own decisions and who
owe their loyalty to the leader personally. They are not usually chosen for
their administrative skills, not least because the charismatic leader is
typically indifferent to everyday matters, including those of running the
routine affairs of his or her own group. Furthermore, the leader’s decisions
are often very changeable, and there is little stability in the direction in
which the movement goes from day to day. Administrative decision will
tend to be shortsighted and superficial, run by the dictates of someone with
continually changing aims and with little interest in the details of how they
are to be implemented, and carried out by trusted devotees rather than those
chosen for any demonstrable administrative competence.
Bureaucracy, by contrast, involves the selection and promotion of
administrators on the basis of administrative training and experience. It
provides stability and predictability as an environment for decision-making,
providing officials with life-long careers and, thus, some protection from
the arbitrariness of superiors. The system of rules and hierarchy means that
the individual’s work is subject to impersonal regulation rather than
personal behest. Because they are entirely dependent upon the bureaucracy
for their income, the bureaucrats are thus insulated from external
influences. They are not dependent upon the goodwill of others nor so
amenable to bribes, and are less inclined to be suborned whilst making
administrative judgements. In other words, the bureaucratic setting is one in
which administration is a specialised task, in which expert administrative
knowledge is concentrated, and in which decision-making procedures are
stabilised and made independent of all kinds of exigent constraints.
Therefore, it is not perverse to argue, as Weber did, that ideally such
structures are superior for the administration of large-scale populations.
Real bureaucracies of course depart in all kinds of ways from this ideal.
Weber perceived a political threat in the growth of bureaucracy, that there
would develop a conflict between the administrative system and the
political leadership which was supposed to direct it. Administration is a
means not an end in itself, but the danger Weber saw is that the officials, by
virtue of their administrative expertise, will be able to dominate their
supposed leader, and will give priority to their own administrative
preoccupations over the political objectives of the politicians who should be
giving purpose to and controlling their work. It is the politicians’ role, in
Weber’s nationalistic conception, to lead the nation-state’s pursuit of its
destiny, not to be manipulated by civil servants.
The sociological concepts which Weber devised were numerous, but
those for the analysis of stratification and domination were amongst the
most significant in his comparative study of world religions, and have
subsequently been most influential in sociology. The notion of ‘status
group’ was particularly critical. If society is to be understood as a
continuing struggle for domination among social groups, then those which
have measure of internal solidarity and common purpose are more likely to
be successful in the pursuit of their interests, and, as noted, the status group
is much more likely to have these characteristics than are social classes.
Further, what unites the status group is a ‘style of life’, and the style of life
involves strong cultural elements, including values.
Religion, bureaucracy and the Chinese literati We have mentioned that
Weber saw ideas as having potent influence on socio-economic change only
if they were involved with the interests of social groups, and thus, in his
studies, he was alert to the need to identify groups which could act as
‘bearers’ of ideas and provide potentially effective vehicles for the
introduction and transmission of values into society more generally.
In his studies of traditional Indian and Chinese societies Weber paid
particular attention to pivotally placed status groups. In the Indian case, it
was the Brahmins, a high caste of priests and teachers, in the Chinese, it
was the Mandarins, who staffed the administration of the empire. What was
particularly interesting about them was that though they were not dominant
in society in political or economic terms, they were, none the less,
immensely influential within the society, decisively shaping its culture and,
in certain ways, even having power over those who were their political or
economic superiors. The Brahmins, for example, had a crucial position
within the caste system, and it was their authority in this respect which
often placed them above those to whom they were in secular terms
subordinate.
The Mandarins were at the centre of Weber’s account of the religion of
China, for they were the bearers of Confucian teachings which provided, for
him, such a stark contrast with Protestant doctrines. Protestantism and
Confucianism had systematically unified the relationship between God and
the world, but with very different ethical consequences. Both of them
provided rational systems of thought, each providing a consistent ordering
of human life based on religious belief. Both encouraged sobriety and self-
discipline and were compatible with the accumulation of wealth. The ends
they espoused were, however, very different. Confucian ethics were aimed
at creating ‘gentlemen’, people who were educated, cultured, with highly
refined sensibilities, and who were devoted to their further self-cultivation,
leading a life which took the traditional attitude of piety toward one’s
family elders as the model for conduct generally and, especially, meant
respect for both propriety and for authority. The cardinal virtue for the
Confucian was that of consonance with the harmony of heaven and earth
through fulfilment of the traditional duties of family and office and the
requirements of ceremonial. This world and those in it were merely a part of
the harmonious and beneficent unity of the entire cosmos, a view which
contrasts with the Protestant image of both humanity and the world as
inherently evil. Confucianism resembled Protestantism in the way in which
it taught religious fulfilment through the discharge of one’s secular
responsibilities. The former, however, indicated that this should be done
through acceptance of and compliance in the established order of things
within the numerous constraints set down by tradition and ceremonial,
whilst the latter came to reject all such restraint, including all sacraments
and symbols that might distract an individual from the inward experience of
God and guidance by His commandments. Obedience to those
commandments stood above everything else, even the obligations of family.
The Mandarins, being officials in a ‘traditional’ bureaucratic structure,
owed their powerful position as the effective rulers of the Chinese empire to
qualification rather than wealth. They provided a sub-section of the wider
status group of ‘intellectuals’ (termed ‘literati’ because of their possession
of literary skills) and were capable of projecting a conception of themselves
as the exclusive carriers of the culture of Chinese civilisation. Their success
in projecting themselves thus made the figure of the gentleman engaged in
educational and cultural pursuits, rather than economic or political ones, the
ideal for the whole civilisation. The literati were strategically placed
because of their administrative and political utility to the rival princes who
were eventually included within the unified empire. For historical reasons,
the literati were not inclined toward strong religious feelings. For them,
religion was primarily of importance for its role in placating the masses,
with the result that any religion which was likely to develop amongst them
would be barely a religion at all. Confucianism was one such, placing its
stress entirely upon the gratifications of this world, upon the benefits of
long life, the family and some personal wealth rather than upon an afterlife
and salvation. It was, further, one which contributed to the idea of the
political status quo as sacred and, accordingly, to the sanctity of tradition.
The religious practice of the Confucians was directed toward ‘self
perfection’ through the acquisition of the all-round virtues of the gentleman.
The issue of the salvation of others did not arise. It was no business of
Confucians to promote their own religion throughout the society and, in
fact, the literati were highly tolerant of other religious and magical
practices, limiting them insofar as they might present any threat to the
interests of the state.
In this concise summary of Weber’s treatment of the religion of China we
can identify many of the themes that ran through his comparative studies.
The concern was with the place of a crucial status group – the Mandarins –
in ‘setting the tone’ for the civilisation’s culture; upon the way in which
they, through the political struggles leading to the formation of the unified
state, had come into their powerful position; how the nature of their position
shaped their religiosity and inclined them toward certain kinds of teaching;
how they, as a group, sought to defend and advance their position against
potential rivals. The situation of the Mandarins within their civilisation was
understood in terms of a ‘conflictual’ conception.
The understanding of the religion of China was not, it must be recalled,
for its own sake, but for its relevance to the understanding of the origins of
the spirit of capitalism in Western Europe, primarily through contrast in the
roles that the Protestant and Confucian religions could play in imparting
economic dynamism. We have already indicated how the Protestant and
Confucian world views differ, despite their common, highly rationalistic
emphasis upon religious fulfilment through secular activity. In the
characterisation of the role of the literati we have noted three things which
Weber considered decisive in ensuring that the rationalism of traditional
China took a very different direction to that of Western Europe. First, the
literati’s religious outlook bound them and their society ever more tightly to
tradition rather than breaking away from it. Second, the tolerance and
indifference of their religious outlook limited their effort to rationalise
religious thought, and prevented them from seeking the elimination of
magic. Third, the prevalence of the ideal of the educated gentleman, whilst
it certainly did not inhibit the accumulation of wealth, prevented business
activity from acquiring any inherent value of its own.
In addition to all this; the importance of ‘family’ in their lives was such
that kinship dominated commercial transactions, voluntary associations, law
and public administration. The stress on kinship led to a distrust of all
persons outside the extended family, whereas Protestantism enjoined a trust
of all persons who were of the faith. In Weber’s view, the subordination of
the demands of kinship to other, more impersonal requirements in many
spheres of social life was vital to the development of the institutional setting
within which the development of capitalism and the expansion of
rationalisation could take place. Weber also argued that the most thorough
development of bureaucracy was only possible in a society where there
were legal codes based on the idea of ‘citizenship’. This, he saw, resulted
from the political independence of cities and, in important part, derived
from their capacity to form armies based upon citizenship. Politically
independent cities with their own armies were a tradition in the West that
reached as far back as the Greek city-states and lasted through the cities of
the Middle Ages. In the Orient, however, cities did not acquire this kind of
independence because, for example, their development was under the aegis
of a previously established military power or because they were dominated
by religions or by kinship traditions which inhibited the idea of forming
groups in association with strangers and, thus, of forming an army made up
of those who had only location within the same city in common.

Capitalism, Rationality and Social Change

It is a difficult task to summarise Weber’s overall account of the rise of the

modern capitalist system in the West. Much of his work was directed
toward the comparative analysis of other civilisations, with a particular
emphasis upon their religious traditions, and the way in which these
engendered their own distinctive ‘economic ethics’. Given the pivotal status
of the Protestant Ethic within Weber’s work and the predominance of
studies of religion in the rest of that work, it would be easy, but mistaken, to
suppose that Weber considered religion to be the most important causal
factor in the emergence of capitalism. On such a view Weber would seem to
be taking up a position at the opposite extreme to the Marx that he knew,
and opposing the role of ideas to determination by economic and political
factors. However, it was not Weber’s purpose to challenge an extreme with
another extreme, as though one or other of them must be the right one.
Indeed, in his last lectures, in Collins’ words, he ‘reduces the ideal factor to
a relatively small place in his overall scheme’ (1986: 20–1). The
characterisation of his own emphasis on religious interests as ‘one-sided’
recognises that this is a very partial account of the historical situation.
Weber is as willing to recognise that economic organisation has causal
consequences upon religion as that religion can have causal consequences
for economic organisation. He is not arguing that religious causes be given
as causes of capitalism instead of economic, political and other ones, but
that they be given as well, as one of the numerous factors determining the
course of a civilisation’s development. The obstacle Weber perceived
himself as overcoming was a view which denied religion any role at all,
except as a ‘rationalisation’. When Weber came to give an overview of the
origins of modern, Western capitalism it ought not, therefore, to be
surprising that ‘the religious factor’ was comparatively less prominent: it is,
after all, only one amongst many factors.
Indeed, Weber argues that to trace the origins of modern capitalism
requires a broader focus than that upon the Reformation period in Europe.
The presence in Reformation Europe of many preconditions of capitalism,
both ‘material’ and ‘ideal’, was certainly the immediate stimulus of
capitalist development, but that combination of material and ideal
conditions did not spring up overnight; it was itself the product of a long
process of historical development of Western European civilisation.
The rationalisation which marked capitalist society, and especially its
business organisation, could not have been possible if appropriate ways of
thought and skills had not already been in place; if literacy, calculation and
record-keeping, for example, had not already been developed and acquired
social significance over many centuries. The Protestant sects played a
crucial role but they themselves were the product of a reaction against the
Catholic church. The Catholic church itself had a long history, one which
owed its character to the nature of Christianity, a religion formed out of the
legacy of two prior civilisations, namely, ancient Israel and Greece. Indeed,
Weber saw some of the impetus for the strong development of
rationalisation in the West originating in these civilisations. Ancient
Judaism’s conception of the relation to God, for example, gave rise to a
religion, Christianity, which treated the prospect of salvation not as one
available to a Chosen People but as available universally. This in turn fed
into the idea of people as related to one another by universal legal
membership. In addition, the general rationalism of Greek intellectual
culture was a strong influence on the later culture of Western Europe and a
potent inspiration to the growth of rationalisation.
Weber’s comparative studies were intended to make sharp contrasts with
the ‘world views’ of the Western tradition. He did not suggest that these
other civilisations had failed to develop capitalism because they were
inferior or incapable of rational thought. He stressed that the proclivity to
rationalisation was a contingent feature of a culture. It was possible, for
example, for Mandarin China to thoroughly rationalise its world view. But
it had to be recognised that there was no necessary direction in which
rationalisation had to go. The direction it took in Mandarin China was
antithetical not to business and trade, but to the kind of spirit favourable to
these activities. There was nothing inevitable about the rise of capitalism. It
was the product of developments which could have taken a different
direction. Had the reaction against the religious dominance of the Catholic
church not taken place, then capitalism might still have developed, but, in
Weber’s judgement, it would not have had the compulsively rationalising
impulse that drove it in the West.

The inexorability of rationality in the West

Weber’s interest in the origins of modern capitalism was not motivated by

purely antiquarian curiosity. It was also influenced by his political outlook
and his concern to understand and take part in shaping the political future of
his society. However, the political implications of his analysis depressed
him. The forward drive of rationalisation seemed irreversible and meant a
degradation of the quality of life.
The inexorability of rationality did not contradict the view that the rise of
capitalism in the West was contingent. Weber’s argument was that it had
become so deeply entrenched in the organisation and culture of the modern
West that everything, including its immense practical success, worked to
encourage its further expansion into every sphere of life. However, though
it had much to its credit, including providing material comforts unparalleled
in history, it did not ensure the growth of contentment. For Weber, one of
the problems of Western societies was the deep level of alienation and ‘lack
of meaning’ for a great many people, and this was a product of
rationalisation.
Part of Weber’s interest in religion was motivated by the idea that
religious ideas can provide ‘meaning’ to human lives, give them a greater
purpose or significance by fitting them into a larger pattern. Religious
beliefs often make the world ‘enchanted’ in that it becomes more than a
sequence of purely empirical occurrences. Natural phenomena become
more significant and awesome if they are understood as manifestations of
God’s purpose, for example. The effect of rationalisation was to
‘disenchant’ the world, particularly through scientific advance. The world
came to be increasingly understood in terms of the purely causal
connections of empirical phenomena. While this enhanced the practical
exploitation of nature, it served to deprive life of any ‘meaning’,
significance or value over and above its ability to satisfy material wants.
For many, this is not enough and their lives can seem empty and
purposeless.
Rationalisation also made relationships increasingly detached as in more
and more areas of life they became governed by strict rules which applied
regardless of personal relations, as, for example, between one bureaucrat
and another, or between the bureaucrats and those they administered.
Indeed, in Weber’s eyes, it was the bureaucratic form of organisation which
constituted one of the biggest threats of the inexorable march of
rationalisation.

The iron cage of bureaucracy The organisational form of rationalisation is

that of the bureaucracy and this, too, in Weber’s eyes, contributes much to
the meaninglessness of modern life. Within these vast administrative
structures the individual becomes increasingly insignificant, a mere cog in
an impersonal machine. Work within the organisation is subject to rules, as
are those subordinate to its administrative enforcements. Life becomes
conducted within an ‘iron cage’ of regulation and administrative oppression.
The very workings of bureaucracy themselves come to be seen as pointless.
There are political dangers, too. The great power and efficiency of
bureaucratic organisations means that they can effectively promote their
own interests over and above those of others, including the interests of
those who are supposedly their political masters. It was this tendency,
Weber feared, which was one of the great threats to the political life of the
modern world, leading him to stress the need for strong inspirational but
democratic political leadership which could keep the bureaucracy under
control and ensure that it served some meaningful political purpose not
merely its own expansion and empowerment.
Weber was not hopeful that this drift toward the ‘iron cage’ could be
contained. The political alternative was the socialist movement, but, as far
as Weber was concerned, this would expand the extent of bureaucratic
domination. The role that the socialists projected for the state would mean
even more bureaucratic regulation. Although its intention would be to
ensure liberation, it would almost inevitably ensure people’s further
subjection to senseless, self-serving bureaucratic rule. Weber’s
contemporary, Roberto Michels (1876–1936), in his classic study Political
Parties (first published 1915), reinforced the point that more, not less,
bureaucracy was to be expected from socialism, by noting how, within
socialist parties, the need for an administrative bureaucracy led to a dilution
of the political programme in favour of the expansion of the organisation.
For Weber, the political imperative was to resist this rising tide of
bureaucracy, and to create the opportunity for a charismatic political
leadership to arise and provide a sense of national purpose. As indicated
earlier, this ought to be within a democratic context, though such a leader
should be allowed considerable room for manoeuvre. Weber’s politics were
both democratic and elitist. He saw a need for exceptional and inspired
leadership to provide a sense of purpose for the society of his day and to
dominate the bureaucracy but within a broad commitment to democratic
politics. However, the conditions which obtained in Germany did not, he
felt, favour the realisation of such hopes. The ‘iron cage’ would remain
firmly in place.
We have outlined Weber’s views on the origins and nature of modern
capitalism up to the point at which he gave them application to the
examination of the political plight of his own society; a society whose
problems were not untypical of comparable contemporary societies.
Weber’s approach to these matters was related to more general, underlying
philosophical-cum-methodological preconceptions which specified what
could be expected from social scientific activities, and it is to an exposition
of these we now turn.

The Methodological Weber

For Weber it was historical and sociological studies that were important,
and methodological debates about the underlying principles of inquiry
distinctly secondary. More particularly, speculative debate about
methodology was unacceptable; if methods must be discussed, then let them
be those which have proven successful in actual investigative use. This, at
least, was what Weber preached: his disdain for methodological controversy
did not, however, prevent him from vigorously engaging in it. In a sense he
had no choice, for the intellectual environment of the Germany within
which he worked was intensely preoccupied with the proper methodology
of social and cultural studies, including that of sociology. The original
Methodenstreit (the ‘dispute over methods’) arose within economics but
there was a much more general debate into which a whole range of scholars
was drawn, involving history, legal and language studies, as well as
economics. Weber’s own background in legal studies, economics and
historical work ensured that he was aware of these controversies, and his
own purpose in joining the dispute was to articulate a relatively coherent
view of the methodology that was meant to inform his own research.
It should come as no surprise to learn that these methodological
controversies were essentially about a question that is still debated, namely:
can the social and cultural studies ever be true sciences? In the quarter
century prior to the First World War this issue was the focus of a complex,
many-sided dispute among often polarised positions. Weber sought to
reconcile many of these, drawing heavily, as he freely acknowledged, upon
the ideas of the philosopher Heinrich Rickert (1863–1936). Essentially, the
debate was about the question of whether the social sciences could be like
the natural sciences in their method and about the kind of knowledge they
produced – whether they were methodologically distinct from the natural
sciences or, even, whether they were sciences at all?

The nature of the social sciences

One approach to the question of the scientific status of the sociocultural

studies, that was broadly adopted by Durkheim, is one which is often called
‘positivist’. It holds that there is an essential unity to science. All sciences
pursue essentially the same purpose, which is the formulation of general
laws. There is only one way in which any discipline can become a science,
that is, by following the general method which has already proven
successful in the natural sciences. Accordingly, studies of social life should
seek to transform themselves into full-blown sciences by implementing the
general scientific method and studying the cultural lives of human beings in
the same way as any other natural phenomenon.
Though the positivist position was powerfully sustained by the obvious
success of the natural sciences, as a programme for the study of social life it
was distinctly less effective, and by the end of the nineteenth century there
was growing opposition to it. Influential thinkers such as Friedrich
Nietzsche (1844-1900) and Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) were suggesting
that the nature of human beings was much more ‘irrational’ than previously
supposed, and that methodologies based upon positivist principles were too
‘rationalist’ to allow for the recognition of this irrationality. Within German
philosophy, moreover, there was a well-established tradition of thought,
mainly of an ‘idealist’ character, which opposed positivism, at least with
respect to the study of human beings. This opposition owed much to
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), whose own idealism Hegel had both
criticised and enormously extended, and so one important party in the
Methodenstreit were the neo-Kantians who, though he did not share all their
contentions, had a significant influence on Weber.

The Kantian strain in Weber’s thought Kant had explicitly sought to

limit knowledge in order to make way for faith. Metaphysical philosophers
made it their aim to know ultimate reality, an ambition which, if successful,
would eliminate the need for religious faith. Kant found this aim
appallingly presumptuous, and attempted to demonstrate that it could not
possibly be fulfilled. It was not possible for human beings to know ultimate
reality – reality as it is ‘in itself’ – for they could only ever be acquainted
with reality as it appeared to them. It was not possible for reality to be
known ‘in itself’ because of the nature of human knowledge.
Kant sought to unite two polarised philosophies – rationalism and
empiricism – since they were, he maintained, complementary. They argued
over whether knowledge arose from ‘reason’ or from ‘the senses’. The
rationalists insisted that knowledge was produced by the mind through the
working of reason. The empiricists insisted that knowledge was produced
through the contact of our senses with the external world. Kant claimed that
knowledge involved a synthesis between the capacities of the mind and of
the senses. The only evidence that we have about the nature of the world
comes to us through our senses but, Kant argued, the input from our senses
has no intrinsic organisation: it is only a flux of disconnected impressions, a
chaos of meaningless sensations which do not, on their own, present us with
a perception of the array of stable objects arranged in time and space that
we do, in fact, experience. The mind must impose a pattern of organisation
upon the torrent of sensory impressions. The relations of spatial
distribution, temporal succession and causal connection, for example, are
not ones which we discover in things in the world but are already ‘built
into’ our minds and through which we interpret and order the impressions
coming in through our senses. As Durkheim was to agree, the experience
we have of temporal, spatial and causal order amongst things cannot be
obtained by abstracting from the raw experience of the world generated by
sensory input. (Durkheim, however, was to turn this point against Kant, and
to insist that ideas of time, space and causality were not built into the
individual mind at all, but supplied to it by society.) Thus, Kant could argue
that we cannot know reality ‘in itself’, as it is independent of our minds, for
an element in anything we can call ‘knowledge’ will always derive from the
mind itself.
The Kantian idea that we cannot know ultimate reality was one which
Weber accepted, and which was the basis for his insistence upon the
limitations of the sciences, both natural and sociocultural. He also accepted
the idea that the mind plays an active role in the production of knowledge,
that it imposes an order upon the otherwise formless phenomena of
experience.
In Weber’s view, reality is made up of concrete, individual things, each of
which has its own inexhaustible set of unique properties. We could never
exhaustively describe any one such thing. The vehicles of human thought
are, however, abstractions and, as such, can only selectively represent
things in reality; they can only include mention of some few of the virtually
infinite variety of characteristics that make up the thing in itself. In creating
the abstractions with which to think, then, we are of necessity making a
choice, singling out certain features of things as the characteristics by which
we shall identify them, in unavoidable disregard of the innumerable other
characteristics which the things have. The ideas – abstractions – that we
have can, then, only be the faintest representations of the concrete,
inexhaustible richness of the actual things in the world that they seek to
capture. What decides how we think of things in the world, what
characteristics we see them as having, is something that is determined by
the needs of our thought. In identifying a thing we have an endless variety
of characteristics which we could pick on as the ones to associate with it,
but because we can only grasp some of those characteristics we must select
certain ones, and the selection that we make will have to do with the needs
of our thinking. For example, if we describe someone to the police we
mention, typically, their skin colour, height, build, the possession of visible
distinguishing features such as scars. We do not, and could not, describe all
the other features they have: each and every hair upon their head, the shape
and colour of their finger-nails, the cells which make up their skin and so
forth and so on. The features that we describe are ones which actually serve
a particular purpose. In this case they assist in the recognition of the
individual by selecting features which will enable his or her identification
on sight and from among other individuals.
We have mentioned how Weber’s ‘nominalism’ contrasts with Marx’s
‘realism’. Weber held that the general, abstract terms of the sciences did not
refer to any reality. They could not do so for there are no general, abstract
things in the world. The world is made up of concrete, individual things
only, and, though we may use abstract general terms to talk about those
concrete individual things, the connection between the terms and the things
we use them to talk about is essentially an arbitrary one, a connection which
is made for our convenience. We decide to collect numerous concrete,
individually unique things together under the same heading because it is
useful for certain purposes that we highlight a few of the features which
they have in common at the expense of all the other characteristics which
they do not share.
There was a further aspect of Kant’s arguments which deserves comment.
The burgeoning natural sciences were proving so successful that they could
claim that they would eventually be able to explain everything in terms of
causal determination. Natural phenomena were being increasingly
understood in terms of causal laws, their behaviour determined by physical
causes. It seemed only a matter of time before human behaviour, too, could
be explained in the same way. The effect of this would be to jeopardise our
notions of ‘moral responsibility’ and ‘free will’. If such causal explanations
could be sustained, it would be irrational to blame people for actions which
they are causally determined to undertake. Kant sought to argue against
claims about the all-encompassing reach of the natural sciences, insisting
that there was an inherent limit on their application. Human beings were
resident, so to speak, in two realms. They were indeed subject to the laws of
the natural, physical sciences for human beings are physical creatures, and,
as such, their behaviour is causally determined. Our bodily movements are
subject to the law of gravity, the working of our physiology depends upon
causal conditions to keep it in operation. However, human beings also
inhabit a ‘realm of freedom’, the domain of ideas, beliefs and reason, and
this is separate from the physical world and exempt from its causal laws.
Human beings do make choices and decisions, act on the basis of their ideas
and beliefs, follow the dictates of their reason, and therefore they can – in
Kant’s view, must – be held morally responsible for their actions. Kant thus
provided a particular cast to the debate about the scientific study of
humankind: is the ‘realm of freedom’, the world of mind and ideas,
amenable to scientific study?

Knowledge and the interests of inquiry Some of Weber’s predecessors

had argued that inquiry into human life should be entirely separate from the
sciences, for the phenomena being investigated were in the world of beliefs,
ideas and values (or, as it is often convenient to call it, the world of
meaning) and are completely different from the phenomena of the natural
sciences. Accordingly, they require an essentially different method. One
aspect of the stark contrast between natural sciences and socio-cultural
studies was made in terms of those investigations, primarily those of the
natural sciences, which aimed at providing generalisations (the so-called
‘nomothetic’ disciplines) and those, such as historical studies, which were
primarily devoted to studying particular, individual cases (the ‘idiographic’
disciplines). Weber, however, did not think that this distinction between the
‘nomothetic’ and ‘idiographic’ entirely equated with that between the
natural and the social sciences. Economic and sociological theory, for
example, were generalising pursuits in his view.
Another, similarly stark, contrast was made in terms of method: the
natural sciences sought causal explanations while the historical ones
pursued ‘understanding’ in trying to grasp the ways in which the ideas,
beliefs and values of people guided their actions. This method, known as
verstehen, was neither causal in intent nor subsumable under the rubric of
the scientific method. Weber himself, following Rickert, accepted the
Kantian view that human beings are different from other natural phenomena
and that proper study of them requires the use of the verstehen method.
However, Weber maintained that this method was used as part of a process
of causal investigation and did not conclude, therefore, that there was an
essential difference between the natural and sociocultural sciences. The
latter had features which distinguished them from the natural sciences, to be
sure, but they were subject to certain general requirements of scientific
method.
Like Rickert, Weber held that the crucial difference between the natural
and social sciences does not originate in the subject-matter or methodology
of the respective disciplines, but in the interest which motivates our studies.
The leading natural sciences offer highly generalised accounts of
phenomena, and this is acceptable to us because we are not, on the whole,
much interested in individual natural phenomena, in the differences
between, say, one stone and another. Insofar as we are interested in a
particular stone at all, it is typically in respect of some use to which it could
be put – we find this stone useful because it is a stone, not because it is this
particular stone. The natural sciences reflect this typical lack of interest in
the individual character of natural phenomena.
Historical studies typically reflect the fact that when it comes to human
beings that someone who is this particular individual is of interest to us,
and we are interested in those things about them which are distinctive to
them, which they do not have in common with others. Thus, we are not
interested in, say, Napoleon in respect of those things which would make
him just an individual like any other, that he must eat, breathe, can talk, etc.
We are interested in him because he was the particular individual who led
an army which vanquished large parts of Europe, and whose activities had
exceptional consequences on the history of our own society. When Weber
talks of ‘individuals’ he does not necessarily mean individual people, but
sometimes is talking of a whole people and their civilisation. Thus, part of
our interest in Napoleon, the individual person, is due not only to his
outstanding feats, but also to the fact that those feats had an impact on the
whole history of the part of the world in which we live. The complex of
Western Europe and the UK (or even the wider civilisation including that of
North America) can constitute an ‘individual’ in this sense, and we are
interested in the history of that individual in a way that we are less
interested in the history of some other comparable, but geographically or
historically remote, ‘individual’. As we mentioned, the focus of Weber’s
work was upon the development of the ‘individual’ that was modern
Western capitalist society, and Weber’s study of more remote civilisations
such as the Indian and Chinese was not undertaken because he had the same
interest in them as he had in that of the modern West, but because he
thought that understanding them would help in his understanding of the
West.
The problems which sociocultural studies seek to solve are ones which
arise from particular historical situations – why has the West taken a
different road to that followed by other great civilisations? – and their
solution, therefore, involves the investigation of those cases in all their
specificity. The production of general laws is not the objective of
sociocultural studies in the way it is the main objective of the natural
sciences. But this does not mean that there is no point at all in developing
general sociological concepts – Weber himself, in Economy and Society
(published in English, 1968), did extensive if uncompleted work on such
development. However, it was not the primary purpose of such
investigative work. Its value must ultimately be judged in terms of what it
contributes to the understanding of the ‘individual’ historical cases that are
the principal focus of study. Sociology, for Weber, was not an entirely
autonomous science but, rather, an adjunct to the historical disciplines. As
McLemore points out: ‘Weber was principally an historian, and it is perhaps
too little appreciated that the primary aim of his early methodological
writings was to defend the status of historical inquiry’ (1984: 278).
Thus, Weber insisted that the difference between the natural and social
sciences was due to the indifference that we have, on the one hand, toward
the individuality of phenomena which make up the natural world, and the
intense interest that we take, on the other, in the individuality of the fellow
creatures that make up our social world. This latter interest is not, of course,
evenly distributed but tends, rather, to be concentrated upon those who in
themselves, or through the consequences of their actions, matter to us. To
talk of what matters to someone is to speak of the values they hold, their
ideas of what is important and worthwhile. Weber is, therefore,
unequivocally saying that intellectual inquiry is no less governed by
people’s values than is any other activity. Both the natural and the
sociocultural sciences are value relative. It is the difference between the
value that individual natural phenomena and individual human beings have
to us that makes the difference between the two kinds of inquiry.

Values and value freedom

The difference between the natural sciences and sociocultural studies is

relevant to the extent to which they can develop general systems of
concepts. There can be much greater continuity of purpose among natural
scientists, and therefore a much greater coherence to the concepts they
develop. Natural scientists are interested in natural phenomena only insofar
as those phenomena are like one another, and thus the study of an individual
instance is only a means of the studying of such phenomena in general.
Thus, natural scientists studying different individual phenomena can have
interests which coincide, allowing them to abstract mutually relevant
aspects of the phenomena from their particular features. Individual
instances of phenomena do not, as such, really matter to natural scientists.
In the study of human beings, however, it is the differences between the
individuals which is commonly of greater importance than what they have
in common, and it cannot even be assumed that the way in which one
individual will matter to one investigator will be the same as that in which it
matters to a different one.
The interest that Weber had in Western civilisation owed everything to
the fact that he was part of it, and that he was much concerned with its
future and the fate that his own particular values would meet in the face of
contemporary developments in Germany. A scholar with different interests
and values might, therefore, find Weber’s ideas, concepts and mode of
analysis neither so interesting nor so useful as they were to Weber, and
would need to set about studying the development of Western civilisation in
a very different way. The selective nature of abstract concepts would ensure
that those contrived by Weber would bear the mark of his preoccupations
because they were the ones relevant to his problems, which arose out of his
pervasive interest in the origin and fate of his own civilisation. Someone
with a different general interest would have different problems and would
need to make different selections in formulating their abstractions. In other
words, all accounts of sociocultural life are unavoidably partial and reflect,
in the end, the things that matter most to those who make them. Thus, if
Weber’s general ideas achieve any widespread acceptance it is not because
they have captured indisputably general features of reality itself, but
because of the widespread nature of the values and problems which
motivated his work. Thus, though Weber’s values were ultimately directed
to the problems of the German nation-state and the responsibilities of the
intellectual within that, his work can take on a much more general interest
throughout the modern Western world because, of course, many of the
problems of Germany are intertwined with those of the Western world as a
whole.
Accordingly, there is a fundamental arbitrariness in the creation of
abstract concepts of all kinds, though it is more marked in the social than in
the natural sciences. The acceptance of abstract concepts depends upon
their utility relative to a problem, and the validity of the problem itself is
relative to values. However, this seems to make Weber’s ‘methodology’
inescapably relativist, to the point at which anyone can proceed in whatever
way they see fit.

Value freedom and politics Weber maintained that, at bottom, intellectual

inquiry is value-relative. Indeed, the acquisition of knowledge itself is a
value, and not one that everyone shares. It is somewhat paradoxical, then,
that Weber has sometimes been chastised for espousing an idea of ‘ethical
neutrality’ or ‘value freedom’ in science which draws upon a simpleminded
contrast between science and values. Weber did indeed maintain the
importance of ‘ethical neutrality’ in science, but not on the basis of a naive
supposition that scientific work is unrelated to questions of value.
The idea that science is ‘value-free’ is often taken to mean that scientists
can be entirely irresponsible with respect to the consequences of their work,
and are free to pursue knowledge for its own sake without caring about
what is done with this knowledge. Far from encouraging such
irresponsibility Weber was concerned to advocate a ‘responsible’ and
‘professional’ approach to scientific work which was specifically concerned
with controlling the wider consequences of science. His argument draws
upon a familiar and standard distinction owed to David Hume (1711–76)
between ‘fact’ and ‘value’, between empirical statements and the expression
of evaluations. The former report how things are, the latter relate how
things are to how they ought be, characterising them as ‘good’, ‘bad’,
‘right’, ‘wrong’, and so forth. Evaluative statements cannot be logically
derived from factual ones, so Hume argued and Weber agreed. The breach
of this principle is commonly termed ‘the naturalistic fallacy’. This is taken
to mean that it is possible only to prove the truth of empirical statements;
one cannot equally conclusively demonstrate that some state of affairs is,
say, ‘bad’. This means that the difference between values cannot be
rationally decided, that moral differences cannot be settled by argument,
reasoning and proof. Values are, as a matter of fact, very diverse and are
logically irreconcilable and, therefore, their diversity is logically
irreducible. One person may believe that a certain course of action is ‘right’
and another person that this same course is ‘wrong’ and their disagreements
cannot be settled by evidence and logic. Thus, there can be no logical basis
for people to choose one set of values over another. None the less, people
will have to choose. They will have to live in one way or another, that is,
have to decide that one way is the right one for them to follow over another.
All conceptions of what is right cannot be satisfied because these
conceptions contradict one another. Thus, if confronted with a choice
between two incompatible ways of life – such as the Catholic
commendation of the monastic ideal and the Protestant condemnation of it –
we will have to make an arbitrary decision about which one is right for us.
This is why Weber’s views are sometimes termed ‘decisionist’.
Diverse values mean not only choices for the individual but also,
importantly and as previously discussed, opposition between groups of
individuals. We have already mentioned how a valued way of life often
involves personal demands and commitments, but also demands about how
others should live their lives, even if they do not agree. Such conflicts
between values cannot be resolved through rational debate; they belong to
the realm of politics. It is through conflict, struggle, confrontation and
combat that the protagonists of one set of values seek to subordinate,
perhaps even eliminate, the protagonists of some other set. The struggle
may be for domination for its own sake, but it is often as much, and often
even more, about ensuring the domination of certain values and their
associated way of life as it is about the possession of power for its own
sake.
There is an important difference between Weber and Marx that is worth
noting at this point. As we have seen, the latter was a wayward follower of
Hegel, whose dialectical philosophy had been specifically intended to show
that, in the course of history, all the ‘contradictions’ which philosophy had
made seem irreconcilable could be overcome. History was a ‘working out’
of contradictions. Marx adapted the idea to claim that it was through class
conflict that such ‘working out’ took place, ensuring that contradictions of
human life would be reconciled. In this respect, Hegel and Marx were
optimists. Weber was not. There was, for him, no prospect that human life
could change its basic nature with respect to the diversity and antagonism
of values: the things which different people want are often in outright
conflict, and their different demands cannot be ‘reconciled’ in any logical
sense. Social conflict, arising from opposed values, would remain a
constant feature of history. The idea that history has any kind of unifying
purpose, let alone that this might be to overcome all contradictions of life,
was utterly foreign to Weber.
 Political struggle is the medium through which values contend with each
other. It is the means by which we decide – or it is decided for us – which of
rival ‘Gods’ and ‘Devils’ will rule our lives. Politics is about the question:
how are we to live, what are we to do? This question is, in Weber’s
judgement, the most important one we can ask. However interesting and
useful they might be, the empirical questions which science asks are not so
important as those that confront politics, for these also include the question
of the use we are to make of scientific knowledge.
Weber used such arguments as a basis for attacking what he saw as an
undesirable state of affairs in the universities of his day, where many of his
contemporaries were presenting their scholarly work as though it carried
political implications. Since questions of fact and value are sharply distinct,
there can be no question of one value being ‘scientifically’ shown to be
superior to another. The choice between values is necessarily a matter of
decision and of faith. Hence, however eminent scientists might be, they are
authorities on the subject-matter of their specialism only, and have no
special or unusual competence in connection with matters of value. When it
comes to matter of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ there are no experts, and therefore it
just is not possible for one person to be more of an expert than another.
Weber’s essential complaint was that university teachers who pressed their
political views from their academic position were abusing their authority,
exploiting the opportunity that their authority as distinguished scholars gave
them to impress their values upon’ their relatively susceptible students.
They were collapsing the difference between their scholarly work and their
ideological and political views, presenting the latter as though they were
supported by the weight of the former when, as Weber saw it, this could not
possibly be the case.
Weber’s call for ‘value freedom’ was, in many ways, an attempt to
prevent this abuse of scholarly and scientific mission by calling for
acceptance and preservation of the distinction, and logical gap, between ‘is’
and ‘ought’, between empirical knowledge and value judgements, and,
thereby, between the scientist’s scientific work and political involvement.
As should be clear, it was not a claim about the irrelevance of values to
science, nor a demand that scientists should take no responsibility for the
consequences of their work. What it does mean is that, first of all, there is a
difference between a lecture and a sermon, between a sober presentation of
the procedures and products of a piece of scholarly work conducted under
the established standards of scientific inquiry, and an exhortation on behalf
of a certain outlook. The scientist should respect that distinction, excluding
the personal statement from the professional, particularly the teaching
context, and making it in a more appropriate place, namely, the political
forum. This did not deny the scientist a voice, nor an opportunity to say
what, in value terms, his scientific work might mean. But it was meant to
divest the scientist’s voice of any particular privilege within the political
forum. The scientist is, of course, ‘privileged’ with respect to the statement
of what his or her work means in scientific terms. It is by this means that the
scientist may have a part to play in the political process; but that part can be
only an advisory one. The scientist can explain scientific work to laypersons
and can use scientific knowledge to advise upon the empirical
consequences of policy decisions. However, when it comes to establishing
the political meaning of scientific work, then the scientist – as scientist –
has no privilege whatsoever. In political debate the scientist’s voice is no
more important than anyone else’s, for questions as to whether something is
worth doing, whether it is more worthwhile than something else, are
questions about which no one is more or less entitled to a view than anyone
else.
Scientific inquiry itself, like all other forms of human activity, originates
in ‘irrational’ considerations in the sense that it is motivated by values
which cannot themselves be rationally chosen. ‘Rational’ is, in Weber’s
terminology, a term which applies to the selection of means not of ends.
Scientific inquiries cannot, therefore, ultimately be objective, but this does
not mean that they cannot be objective at all. It was part of Weber’s
argument on science and politics to call for a sober adherence to the
established standards of scientific inquiry, for it was this which would
ensure such objectivity as inquiries can have. Scientific research might
originate in the personal motivations of the inquirer, but the activity of
inquiry could be subjected to impersonal standards which apply across the
sciences and which require, for example, logical consistency in argument,
and the provision of sufficient and appropriate evidence in support of
claims. Responsibility to such public standards of proof means that
scientists are able to subject each other’s work to careful and impersonal
scrutiny, and thus to make a reasoned decision whether, given the initial
problem, to accept a scientist’s claimed conclusions.
The nature of sociology

Weber was far from regarding sociology as any kind of ‘master science’.
He generally held that the main concern of the sociocultural studies was
with understanding actual historical situations, and thus the principal form
of investigation was into the specifics of particular situations, and the kind
of inquiry conducted by history. Sociology was an ancillary discipline. It
was not that there could not be law-like generalities about social action, but
that these could not, for the reasons discussed, be interesting for their own
sake. Their value lies in their use in disentangling the complex problems of
causality in historical investigations, much as Weber’s own general ideas
about ‘stratification’ and ‘domination’ had been intended to clarify the
causal interactions, particularly between ‘material’ and ‘ideal’ interests, in
the creation of modern capitalism; a problem which Weber had inherited
from his historian predecessors Werner Sombart (1863–1941) and Ernst
Troelsch (1865–1923). Indeed, and again as we mentioned earlier, Weber
undertook, but did not complete, a major project, translated as Economy
and Society, to work out a system of general sociological concepts,
beginning from the categorisation of the types of social action we outlined
earlier. In this work he continued his early interest in economics, and sought
to elaborate a general account of the various forms that the relationship
between economic and social organisational factors could take: the issue of
the origin of modern capitalism is but an instance of that general
relationship. In Economy and Society Weber reviewed, in a very general
way and among other things, such topics as ‘typical measures of rational
economic action’, ‘the primary consequences of the use of money’, ‘the
concept and types of profit-making’, ‘the concept of trade and its principal
forms’ and ‘the financing of political bodies’.
Of particular concern to the ‘methodological Weber’ are his views on the
nature of the generalities which sociology had to offer, views which
followed from his ideas about knowledge and science. They were, in terms
which he did not invent but did employ, ‘ideal types’.

The ideal type It was, recall, the role of the mind to impose organisation on
reality. There is no abstract, general order intrinsic to reality itself. The
mind must project such an abstract, general order, because concrete,
individual reality is itself too complex for the mind to be able to represent
in its totality. It is only by simplifying reality that thought can comprehend
it. The interrelationship of elements in reality is a causal one, but that which
connects ideas is a logical one, and it is the function of systems of ideas to
provide the process of thought with organisation and structure.
The construction of concepts must of course be based upon the
examination of reality, and Weber himself was assiduous in surveying the
historical evidence. But the development of concepts is inevitably a process
of ‘idealisation’, that is, conceiving things in terms which can exist only in
‘the ideal’ world of thought and not in reality. The notion of ‘ideal’ in the
ideal type is the same as that involved in the natural scientist’s idealisation
of the ‘frictionless engine’ or the economist’s notion of ‘perfect
competition’. There can be no such thing as a frictionless engine, but it is
helpful to think through certain physical problems by imagining that there
could be such a machine. In conceiving of a frictionless machine the
scientist takes the calculations which show the consequences of reducing
friction and extends these to the extreme, the case in which friction is
reduced to zero.
Weber argues that the social scientist also takes things which one finds in
reality and extends them to logical, and unreal, extremes. Thus, the ideal
type of bureaucracy is based upon an examination of administrative
organisations in societies as diverse as those of his contemporary Prussia
and traditional Imperial China. In these Weber noted tendencies to put
administration in the hands of administrative specialists. He is not,
however, content to leave these as different, unrelated phenomena but
seeks, rather, to achieve a level of generalisation which shows what they
have in common. To do so, he projects the tendencies toward specialist
administrators found in the historical materials in the direction of a logically
coherent extreme. The full, ‘pure’ development of specialist administration
would involve, for example, the administrator considering all problems
from a purely technical administrative point of view in terms of their
requirement for efficient solution, entirely without fear or favour. This
would mean that the administration should be free of all influences which
might interfere with such technical consideration. However, the principle of
specialist administration will, in reality, always be taken less far than it can
in the ‘idealising’ imagination. It might be, for example, that the principle
of efficiency will conflict with that of tradition, and will, accordingly, be
compromised to accommodate to this. The real administrator is, further,
likely to be concerned for his own job security and advancement and may
let these affect his technical judgement. Thus, we are unlikely to find
anywhere in reality a ‘full-blown’ bureaucracy which has all the
characteristics Weber listed. That the actual bureaucracies of Prussia and
China do not correspond entirely with his type was no surprise to Weber, for
his was only a theoretical model which intentionally misrepresents what
things are actually like.
But what is the point of this elaborate, and seemingly roundabout,
procedure? We must recall Weber’s insistence that we are imposing order
on reality through introducing order and discipline into our intellectual life,
and the role of the ‘ideal type’ is to focus inquiry by providing coherence
and direction.
One of the clearest illustrations of an ‘ideal type’ may be taken not from
sociology but from economics. It is an ideal type known as homo
oeconomicus (or ‘economic man’). This conceives of a person who is
exclusively devoted to extracting every last drop of satisfaction from their
resources. It is assumed that this person will unrelentingly seek to maximise
their satisfaction, that they will know exactly what they are doing, will have
full knowledge of the situation under which they are doing it, and so forth.
Many sociologists criticise economists because of the patent ‘unreality’ of
this construction. For example, real people do not have full knowledge of
their situation, put other things before material satisfactions, and so on.
Nevertheless, people do engage in economic maximising. Confronted with
two items of the same type which are identical in everything except their
price, persons will prefer the cheaper of the two. Economists take this
tendency to maximise and exaggerate it to a logical extreme.
By doing this, economics has made considerable gains, at least in respect
of constructing itself as a logically coherent system. Because it has assumed
that economic maximising is pursued unrelentingly, it is able to work out,
with unrelenting thoroughness, how this might be done. The formulation of
the problem in this way has provided a focus to the inquiries of many
economists, working on the common problem of how economic
maximising is to be achieved and what its consequences are. But of what
value is such theorising if its central constructs bear no relationship to
reality? On a Weberian view, the purpose of such constructs is to provide an
aide for examining what people actually do. At its simplest, the ideal type
provides some idea of where to look for explanations of how people do
behave.
For example, other things being equal, people will prefer the most
economically rewarding of two options. This is the premise of the
argument. The economic model, then, tells us how, in pursuing the
‘rational’, that is, the ‘ideally’ most effective means, people should behave.
In fact, they often do something other than the model predicts. This raises
questions such as the following: in what ways do people depart from this
ideal, rational course of action, and why do they do so? Is there anything
which obstructs them from following the rational course? Are they, for
example, following tradition, are they being coerced, were they ignorant of
relevant considerations? In other words, by looking to see where the
assumptions of the model do not obtain we are given some clues as to why
people have acted as they did.
Weber’s concept of bureaucracy is similarly developed on the assumption
that there would be no practical problems in putting together the requisites
of efficient administration, concentrating expertise and effectively
regulating its deployment. Thus, it is assumed that the official is exclusively
devoted to the ideal of administrative efficiency and puts this before
personal interest, that the rules governing relations between officials are
spelled out unequivocally and consistently. Such assumptions are quite
unrealistic. However, constructing the type involves the logical working
through of the organisational conditions for efficient, specialist
administration. Having achieved this, one can then apply the conception to
reality and determine how far, and in what ways, an actual bureaucracy
departs from the ‘ideal’, and can thus point to aspects of the case which
need explaining and in directions in which explanation might be sought.
Thus, a source of a bureaucracy’s inefficiency might be sought in a conflict
between the requirements of good decision-making and the personal
interests of officials. A further understanding of this conflict may then be
looked for in the way in which the ‘design’ of the bureaucracy has failed to
segregate personal and professional considerations and so on.
Thus, the ideal type explicitly distorts reality, giving a logically extreme,
rather than an empirically generalised, depiction of the things it covers. Its
role is to organise inquiries, giving focus to the questions they can ask and
guidance as to where, in the unmanageable complexity of actual cases, to
look for relevant causal connections.
 It should also be recognised that Weber is not claiming that the
production of ‘ideal types’ is a distinctive feature of his practice. Given his
views on knowledge and science, his view must be that all general ideas are
effectively ‘ideal types’ which must inevitably misrepresent reality, but, of
course, in spelling out the idea and its logic Weber is suggesting that those
who think otherwise are deluded about the nature of their concepts,
believing that they have somehow captured the intrinsic nature of reality.
This was a mistake he thought Marx had made in taking a ‘realist’ view of
‘social classes’ and other concepts. He also felt it important to encourage a
greater self-consciousness, and therefore more systematic methodology, in
the deployment of general concepts, such as ideal types, in social scientific
investigations.

Weber’s individualism

Reality is made up of concrete, unique individuals. There are no real

abstract or general entities. We have referred to this as Weber’s
‘nominalism’ and it applies to social life as it does to the rest of reality.
Hence, social life consists of human individuals. These individuals may join
together in large and complicated patterns of activity, which we term
‘groups’, ‘societies’ and ‘civilisations’, for example. However, only
individuals really exist. The terms such as ‘group’ and ‘society’ cannot refer
to any reality other than that of individuals and their actions.
On this point, then, Weber was sharply opposed to both Marx and
Durkheim. As we have indicated, Marx supposed, for example, that ‘class’
was something which had real existence, and which could have interests
different from those as perceived by its members. Durkheim argued that
society must be more than the sum of the individuals composing it,
analogically comparing society to an ‘organism’ with functional needs of its
own. Weber forcefully rejected the idea that the interests of a social class
could be anything other than the interests of its individual members, as they
saw them, and rejected, just as firmly, an ‘organicist’ conception of society.
Weber’s individualism does not mean that such terms as ‘society’ and
‘class’ should be eliminated from the sociological vocabulary, only that it
should be correctly understood what they are referring to. Any temptation to
think that they refer to a ‘superhuman’ phenomenon which plays a
regulating role in human conduct must be resisted. It is, instead, to be
recognised that they refer only to the actions of individuals. If we talk about
the behaviour of ‘the state’, for example, we are in fact talking about the
behaviour of politicians and/or civil servants and other state functionaries.
If we say that the state has done this or that what we actually mean is that
certain politicians or civil servants have done these things. Similarly, when
we talk about the actions of ‘the working class’ we mean only the actions
of, for example, plumbers, engine-drivers and so forth. ‘The state’, for
example, is a complex of co-ordinated actions of many individuals and part
of the sociological task is to understand how the patterns of action of those
many individuals make up that complex.
Of course, such collective phenomena as ‘society’, ‘the state’ and ‘the
working class’ are made up of very many individuals and one cannot
describe the activity of all those who are involved in some pattern of action
– one could not hope to describe the actions of all the soldiers involved in
one side in a battle, though this is what one is talking about when one talks
about, say, ‘the advance of the British army’. Hence, what one is very
commonly talking about when one uses such collective terms is the typical
individual; thus, to say that ‘the state’ does certain things is, in effect, to
speak of what the typical civil servant is doing. And this is, of course, what
Weber was doing when he talked about ‘the Calvinist’ and ‘the capitalist’.
He was seeking to provide a generalised characterisation of such
individuals, in full recognition of the fact that, of course, there is
considerable variety amongst Calvinists and among capitalists, and all do
not conform to the same degree to his depiction of them. None the less, his
aim is to provide a characterisation of a representative figure, one who has
characteristics that are common amongst Calvinists or capitalists and salient
to their conduct as capitalist or Calvinist.
Weber’s arguments prefigure the views of ‘methodological
individualists’, such as the philosopher of science, Karl Popper, who sought
to condemn ‘holism’, that is, ideas which claim the existence of real social
wholes such as ‘class’ and ‘society’, views particularly associated with
Marx. ‘Methodological individualists’ argue that holistic ideas are not only
intellectually misleading in that they falsely suggest that supra-individual
entities are real, but are also, and more importantly, politically dangerous.
The idea that social wholes exist and have needs of their own encourages
the further idea that these wholes are greater and more important than
individual human beings, and that, therefore, the needs of the whole may
require the sacrifice of the life of individuals.
Such criticism arose particularly in the 1940s, after the rise of totalitarian
regimes in Germany and the Soviet Union, with, in the latter case, the
holistic ideas of Marx being blamed for the totalitarian character of the
regime and for the wanton disposal of human life. The ‘methodological
individualists’ objection to the holistic interpretation of words, such as
‘class’, ‘state’ and so on are much the same as Weber’s; that these terms are
actually ‘shorthand’ expressions which refer to the actions of (typical)
individuals, and that failure to keep this fact clearly in mind leads to
confusion. Methodological individualists differ from Weber in a way which
is indicated by the appendage ‘methodological’. They do not necessarily
argue, as Weber did, that only individuals are real, but claim, rather, to be
making a methodological point, which is that a much fuller and more
effective explanation of a collective event is given when it is described in
terms of the actions of individuals. To talk of ‘the army advancing’ without
saying anything about how squads of soldiers deployed themselves and
what they did is to give a less informative and, therefore, less adequately
explanatory account of what went on in a battle than if the latter sorts of
consideration are given some detailing. There is, of course, an unavoidable
practical limit on the extent to which individual actions can be detailed, but
mention of some of these, albeit in the generalised ‘typical’ form, is more
explanatory than talk of the abstraction ‘the army’.

Verstehen Weber accepted Kant’s idea that individual human beings are
resident within both the realm of natural causality and the world of values,
ideas and beliefs. Against those who argued that this called for a complete
separation of the natural sciences from human studies, Weber claimed that it
did not, other than to provide a distinctive cast to the human sciences.
Social scientists can seek to ‘understand’ their subject-matter in a way that
natural scientists cannot. The natural scientist seeks to determine how the
causal interactions between phenomena produce events, and does not have
to ask why, for what purpose or with what understandings the phenomena
behave as they do. The social scientist, on the other hand, must do this if the
explanation is to be adequate. When social actors go about their affairs they
are typically pursuing certain ends, and they pursue those ends through the
deployment of means which, they conceive, will be effective in delivering
the ends they seek. Their choice of means will depend upon their beliefs in
many and complex ways and also upon the conceptions they hold of how
things happen in the world, of what causes what, and of what should be
done to control and manipulate these causes. Thus, if we want a proper
explanation of human courses of action, then it will have to be effective at
‘the level of meaning’. That is, if we want to understand the pattern of
action of some ‘typical individuals’, we shall want an explanation which
makes appeal to how they see the world, and one which, given that they
may not see the world in the way that we do, will none the less make sense
to us. For example, we are not Reformation Calvinists, but Weber’s attempt
to explain how these individuals ‘typically’ came to act as sober, hard-
working businessmen involves laying out the complexities of the Calvinist
belief system in a way which allows us to see a logic in the connection
between these beliefs and their conduct. It makes sense to us that someone
in the situation of the devout Calvinist would indeed be anxious about the
fate of their immortal soul and, feeling this way, seek to assuage themselves
of the tensions they were experiencing and so on.
Weber’s account of the Protestant ethic and its role in the rise of
capitalism is an application of his arguments for the ‘verstehende’ or
‘understanding’ sociology we have just outlined. It was intended to
complement his analysis of the rise of modern capitalism ‘adequate at the
level of causality’ by an analysis ‘adequate at the level of meaning’ by
attempting to comprehend the sense of the connection between economic
activity and the explicit teachings of the Protestant leaders against the
sinfulness of possessions. Looking at matters from the standpoint of the
devout believer, Weber showed how anxieties about the salvation of the
soul could be transmuted into a whole attitude of mind toward conduct in
the secular world. He sought to show how the logic of theological doctrines,
and the lessons drawn from them, encouraged self-denial and planning in
the pursuit of economic gain.
If we were simply told that, as a matter of established fact, Calvinists did
engage in sober, systematically disciplined business practice, we might
accept that this was a causal contribution to the origin of capitalism. But,
and this is Weber’s point, we should not feel that we fully understood this
causal relationship on the basis of the bare conjunction between religious
affiliation and business practice. The nature of the causal relationship only
becomes clear to us if we understand the connection from the point of view
of those involved in it. If the ways in which the Calvinist typically sees the
world are described, then the relationship between their religious affiliation
and their business practice is clarified for us, so that we can see how those
Calvinists were motivated by their beliefs into engaging in their particular
kind of business activity.
For Weber, then, the social sciences involved the use of this distinctive
verstehen method, or, as it is sometimes alternatively called, ‘the
interpretative’ (or hermeneutic) approach. It is the social scientist’s task to
understand other human beings, often those who have quite different values
and beliefs to those of the investigator and engage in very different
practices. The investigator is, therefore, working from the assumption that
the ways in which different individuals ‘interpret’ or ‘make sense of’ the
world around them is very different from that with which the researcher is
familiar and, typically, takes for granted. So, the aim of research is to
understand how those individuals ‘interpret’ the world around them, and to
try to understand how their beliefs and values lead them to act in the ways
that they do. It follows that the researcher is, thus, also acting as an
‘interpreter’ of the beliefs and conduct of other people, seeking to explain
them in a way which makes sense to him or herself and those who will read
the study, even though those being studied belong to a very different
cultural tradition.
The fact that sociological investigations require this ‘understanding’ or
‘interpretative’ methodology may distinguish them from the natural
sciences, argues Weber, but this does not mean that the methodology of
sociology is any less scientific or demanding than that of those natural
sciences. The demand for explanation ‘at the level of meaning’ does not
mean that intuition and empathy displace the need for rigorous empirical
proof. Achieving explanation ‘at the level of meaning’ involves the
scientifically disciplined examination of evidence about the activities,
beliefs, values and so forth of the people being studied, and is no less an
empirical venture. Furthermore, providing an explanation which makes
sense of a particular connection is by no means the end of the story. It does
not dispense with the necessity to establish explanation at the level of
objective causality. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism may
have succeeded in explaining the connection between the world views of
the Reformation sects and capitalist business activity in that one could see
how, unintentionally, one led to the other, but the question remains: was this
in fact the connection? Did the economic ethic of the Protestant sects
engender increased capitalist activity of the requisite sort? Such a question
involves much more than just the interpretation of the point of view of the
typical Calvinist and the making of an intelligible connection with
disciplined business activity. It also requires the examination of the vast
multiplicity of circumstances involved in the historical situation of the
Western world at the relevant time: the development of its economic base,
the organisation of its legal system, the character of its cities, the nature of
its political problems and so on, as well as comparative analysis of related
situations in other civilisations. This is a task which, as we have seen, took
up much of Weber’s life.

The antipathy to one-sided explanation As we have emphasised, Weber’s

methodological arguments were meant to complement his socio-historical
studies. The studies involved both the inspection of the complexities of
specific historical ‘individuals’, such as the civilisations of traditional China
and India, and the articulation of a scheme of generalised concepts for
sociological analysis. The generalised theory-building of sociology was
itself subordinate to historical investigations, for the focus of the latter was
upon specific, concrete phenomena and, through this, upon reality. Reality,
in Weber’s eyes, consisted in concrete phenomena which could not be
directly represented by the abstractions which are, of course, the stuff of
sociological schemes. Through these studies Weber worked out an
underlying ‘image of society’ as an arena with which groups of individuals
contest, more or less directly, sometimes violently, often by other means,
for power over each other and, in doing so, bring about changes in the
nature of the society, occasionally transforming its structure entirely.
Weber, however, could not accept the idea of a single pattern or purpose
to human history as a whole that can be found in Marx. The history of
human societies has not been a unified one, and different civilisations have
followed very different courses. The tremendously stable, long-lasting
arrangements of traditional China and India are in stark contrast with the
dynamic, unstable development centred on Western Europe, for example.
The configuration of economic, political and cultural elements makes, in
each case, a unique complex, as does the formation of social groups which
are the actual bearers of various economic, political and cultural interests.
Thus, the way that traditional China’s civilisation gave a pivotal role to the
administrator, the Mandarin, contrasts with the way the Indian caste system
was centred upon the priest/teacher. Both of these contrast with our own
world, in which the business entrepreneur is assigned such a significant
role.
It is worth inserting here the reminder that Weber’s emphasis upon the
role of ‘culture’, particularly of religious belief, does not make him an
idealist, in the sense of believing that ideas are the only driving force of
history. Such a position involves the kind of outlook that Weber is
condemning, namely, the ‘single-factor’ view of explanation. He rejects, for
example, the argument of the Marxists of his day that economic factors
uniquely shape the course of history, but not on the grounds that the wrong
factor has been identified and that it is culture that is responsible. The
prominence which Weber gives to cultural factors is a corrective protest
against the preoccupation with economic factors at the expense of cultural
ones; a protest which is meant to manifest the importance of cultural factors
as well as economic and ‘material’ ones. Weber’s major work is, after all,
called Economy and Society and it was a routine feature of his
investigations to balance the argument that cultural factors shaped
economic developments with equally common and persistent reminders that
economic developments reciprocally shaped cultural ones.
One purpose of the methodological writings was to remind us of the vast
gap between the inevitably and immensely simplified portrayals provided,
for example, in The Religion of India and The Religion of China and the
incomprehensibly complex concrete realities that they depict. The
portrayals are, as sociological descriptions of social orders go, complex and
highly detailed and his elaborate and highly qualified accounts are designed
to remind us that the description of the interplay of varied forces involved
in real historical configurations are resistant to formulaic representation.
Weber’s general methodology, however, also reminds us that making these
studies even more full and detailed cannot really take us closer to the
complete depiction of how reality is, so to speak, ‘in itself’. The complexity
of the concrete case is such as to defy even the greatest of intellectual
powers.
In many ways, the methodology was intended as a corrective to the
overestimation of the importance of knowledge. The contrast between our
pallid, austere intellectual schemes and rich, teeming actuality is a perpetual
reminder of the Kantian assumption that the capacity for knowledge of
reality is limited and that, therefore, it cannot be through the advancement
of science that confrontation with the great practical problems of human life
takes place. Though the development of science may be one of the supreme
achievements of ‘rationalisation’, it needs, in Weber’s view, to be
recognised and repeatedly recalled that the process of rationalisation itself
has non-rational roots and that it is the product of a specific and contingent
conjunction of socio-historical circumstances. Like Durkheim, Weber
argues that modern Western science is an offshoot of religious
developments and motivations. The further development of science may
give us much greater practical capacity to achieve our objectives, but it
cannot reduce or ease the difficulty of having to choose between objectives.
Though science may have the potential to relieve much suffering, it may
serve as a vehicle for, and even be a source of, the growth of a deeply
unhappy and oppressive society.

The Legacy

Weber’s impact upon Anglo-American sociology was affected by the

manner of his introduction into it. A major step in drawing attention to
Weber’s theoretical significance was through his inclusion as one of the
four major figures (Durkheim was another) in Talcott Parsons’ (1902–79)
The Structure of Social Action (1937). This meant that Weber was
understood in terms of Parsons’ interpretation of his ideas. As we have
mentioned, the translation of Weber’s work was a protracted and
fragmentary affair, and is still by no means complete. None the less, despite
these unfavourable conditions, Weber’s work has had a significant impact
on many different disciplines. The 1980s, for example, saw a growing
interest in the implications of his work for the understanding of law
(Kronman, 1983; Turner and Factor, forthcoming). In this concluding
section we cannot survey the range or the complexity of the issues
surrounding Weber’s impact and will mention only the sociological
implications of Weber’s work, and only some of those.

Conflict theory
Parsons was concerned to interpret Weber in relationship to his own
theoretical problems which had to do with the conditions for cohesion in
complex society, and Weber’s emphasis upon the social origin and role of
values in society was critical to this campaign. Parsons’ own theory rose to
prominence in the late 1940s and early 1950s and very shortly thereafter
was under criticism from those who identified themselves with a
‘Weberian’ point of view. The criticism of Parsons’ theory – who, it can be
argued, was much more interested in a general theory of action and values
than in a theory of capitalism – was that it minimised the extent of
inequality and injustice in society and thus the extent to which there was
antagonism arising from these. Parsons’ interpretation of Weber was
criticised for minimising the prominence Weber gave to value conflicts and
group antagonisms. Even the details of Parsons’ translations from Weber
were faulted for the same failing, allegedly choosing words which played
down the element of ‘domination’ which Weber saw in social relations.
Weber has sometimes been termed a ‘bourgeois Marx’, and we have
indicated the respects in which he has much in common with Marx, despite
certain prominent features of disagreement. One of the crucial points of
difference was in respect of the prominence accorded to ‘class conflict’.
Marx’s views provided too close an identification between economic and
political power. There might have been a virtual identity of the two in the
formative period of capitalism but in the world of developed capitalism the
two were separated – Weber had always insisted that economic and political
power were distinct elements in stratification. Marx’s approach to social
conflict was, furthermore, ‘reductionist’ in that all significant social
conflicts were essentially to be understood as class conflict. Conflicts based
on such divisions as nationality, ethnicity or religion were to be understood
as superficial phenomena, even as the distorted expression of the struggle
for class domination. Thus, one finds Marxist theorists recanting on the
grounds that they have now come to see that, for example, nationalism is a
more important and authentic source of social struggle than Marxist theory
could allow it to be (Cohen, 1988). Weber’s attraction was in emphasising
the plurality of sources of social conflict and the diversity of bases on which
groups could oppose each other, something which allowed the recognition
of the diminishing importance of ‘class conflict’ within modern industrial
societies and took ready account of the rise to prominence of ‘status’-based
struggles such as those rooted in differences of ethnicity or gender.
 Thus, there was an attempt to develop a theoretical alternative, which
stood between the ‘consensus functionalism’ of Parsons and the fixation
upon ‘class conflict’ which was seen to handicap Marxism. Weber was,
thus, the inspiration for a ‘conflict theory’ which would recognise the
importance of values in society (as ‘consensus functionalism’ did) but
which would equally recognise the extent to which values were diverse and
antagonistic. In addition, this theory would recognise the extent to which
social life was a continuing contest for domination, also accommodating the
extent to which material and class interests entered into the context (cf.
Collins, 1975; Lockwood, 1956; Parkin, 1979; Rex, 1961). This ‘conflict’
theory was commended as allowing a more flexible interpretation of the
forces involved in political struggle and social change than did Marx’s more
‘formulaic’ interpretation in terms of class interests.
The divergence between Marx and Weber on these matters is obviously
one which bears upon that focal issue of the analysis of ‘stratification’, and
much contemporary argument in stratification theorising is between the
protagonists of these two views. In the 1950s (Lockwood, 1958) it was
argued that Weber’s account of stratification provided one of the best
explanations as to why Marx’s predictions about a proletarian revolution
had failed. By emphasising the difference between ‘class’ and ‘status’, it
was argued, one could explain why it was that the rapidly expanding ‘black-
coated’ (later ‘white-collar’) workers who might, in a crude sense, occupy
the same class position as manual workers were more inclined to identify
with their employers than with their ‘fellow workers’. It was the status
differences which they perceived between themselves and manual workers
which was decisive. Such views did not, of course, settle matters, and
whether the position of the ‘middle classes’ within the current situation is
best understood in terms of basically Marxist or basically Weberian terms is
still a matter of heated debate (cf. Marshall et al, 1989; Wright, 1985).

The rise of the West

Weber’s ideas about domination and conflict have had an impact upon
general theorising, particularly insofar as this has been concerned with
conceiving social organisation at the level of the whole society and made a
formative contribution to the ‘third’ stream which sought to position itself
between consensus functionalism and Marxism.
 It would be surprising if Weber’s own central preoccupation, which was
with the rise of Western society, and which had involved the construction of
a comparative sociology, had not, itself, given rise to a significant body of
further work. Weber’s name is prominently invoked in those arguments
which advocate that sociology should be predominantly an historical and
comparative discipline, and which has concerned itself with the
examination of the general conditions for the rise and change of societies.
Again, there was an initial tendency for Weber’s conceptions to be adapted
into a relatively benign and somewhat ethnocentric view of social
development, one inclined to accept that American capitalism, particularly,
was exemplary for all other societies. The essential problematic was to
understand the conditions for ‘nation-building and citizenship’ (Bendix,
1977) as a way of assisting in the political and economic development of
‘underdeveloped’ societies. Such views, however, came into some
disrepute: they overstated the benign motivations of the ‘advanced’
capitalist societies, and they – again – underestimated the extent to which
the struggle for domination is a feature of relations within and between
societies. There was thus a tendency to take a more neutrally comparative
view of social development, one which did not presume that the United
States was the yardstick by which all other societies must be judged, and
one which, furthermore, placed a less exclusive emphasis upon the
importance of ‘cultural’, particularly value, elements in promoting change.
This recognised – as, of course, Weber had insisted in doing – the extent to
which culture, including values, was embedded in political relations and
social struggles and a much more explicit emphasis was given to the role of
power in these matters (Moore, 1967; Bendix, 1977; Mann, 1986).

Interpretative sociology

Like Marx and Durkheim, Weber’s sociology was primarily concerned with
the historical analysis of society as a whole. But his ‘individualism’, and the
associated conception of sociology as the study of ‘social action’, provided
potent support for a strand of sociological thought which is often far
removed from this concern with society as a whole. The idea that sociology
is the study of the actions of individuals provides one pretext for this kind
of inquiry. The study of ‘society as a whole’ in Weber is, as we outlined, a
matter of attempting to comprehend the actions of great multitudes of
individuals over comparatively long stretches of time, and one is thus
dealing with the ‘typical’ individual, a figure who is reconstructed from
historical documents. There is, however, the possibility of studying the
actions of actual individuals, for one can observe and examine particular
individuals as they go about their affairs, with a view to understanding how
they organise their inter-actions.
Weber’s other emphasis was upon the ‘understanding’ of conduct,
through a grasping of the leanings which the members of society gave to
their world and their actions on the basis of their beliefs and purposes. This
is much the same emphasis that came to be associated with Symbolic
Interactionism, that is, ‘taking the actor’s point of view’, the ‘definition of
the situation’, but whose origins belong to a different intellectual tradition
than the one Weber was writing within.
The extent to which sociologists need to take account of ‘the subjective
understanding’ of the member of society is another matter of perpetually
heated dispute in contemporary sociology. Marx and Durkheim are often
held up as figures who show that it is not necessary – is indeed undesirable
– to take much account of the actor’s point of view in explaining his or her
actions. Instead, it is necessary to say much more about the situation of the
total society, both in terms of its history and overall arrangements, to
explain which individuals act in the way they do even if they are acting out
their beliefs, ideals and purposes. Against this there are those who seek to
give a much more prominent place to ‘subjective understanding’. It is not
supposed that everything can be understood from the actor’s point of view,
but much about social life will be misunderstood if it is not first understood
by being seen through the actor’s own eyes.
There is, thus, a great deal of work in sociology which provides
something of a counter-tradition to the prevailing concern with, essentially,
the power structure of the whole society. This is often termed an
‘interpretative’ (or ‘hermeneutic’) tradition because it concerns itself with
examining the ways in which people in social relations organise their
reciprocal conduct by determining (‘defining’) the meaning of each other’s
actions by ‘interpreting’ each other’s behaviour. This is a tradition which
emphasises the empirical study of the ways people behave toward each
other in actual situations, and treats the understanding of their respective
‘points of view’ and the ways in which they figure in the interaction as a
central investigative issue.
 This line of thought was given a powerful initiative by Alfred Schutz
(1899–1959 in Germany), who, in 1932, published a book-length study, The
Phenomenology of the Social World, which re-examined, from the point of
view of phenomenological philosophy (which called for the investigation of
things in terms of a person’s consciousness of them), Weber’s ideas about
social action. These were not properly worked out and clarified, Schutz
maintained, and he undertook what proved to be a lifelong task of
articulating what this could mean. Schutz went into exile in the USA in
1939, where he published many papers, which were, however, little noticed
at first in the sociological community. In the 1940s Schutz’s work had a
decisive influence on Harold Garfinkel. Schutz had intended his work to be
compatible with the conception of sociology as historical explanation found
in Weber. However, Garfinkel directed Schutz’s ideas into a radically
different conception of what sociology might be, one which took the ideas
of studying social action and the ‘interpretation’ of its meaning to its
furthest extreme. Garfinkel created that provocative and still controversial
approach ethnomethodology. But it was not until the 1960s that Garfinkel’s
own work began to draw significant attention and thereby highlight the
significance of Schutz’s work. Other work done in the 1960s, particularly in
Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality (1967), also
ensured that Schutz achieved much wider, if often strongly critical,
recognition in sociology than he had during his lifetime.
As indicated earlier, the 1920s and 1930s saw the formation of an
indigenous American tradition of ‘interpretative’ sociology, in the form of
symbolic interactionism, drawing upon the philosophical thought of George
Herbert Mead (1863–1931) and given explicitly sociological expression by
such as Herbert Blumer and Howard Becker. Though not drawing directly
from Weber, this approach had certain concerns in common with Schutz and
Ethnomethodology, and as early as the 1930s Blumer was arguing a
dissident point of view within American sociology which raised or
prefigured some of the concerns that Ethnomethodology would also pursue.

A sociologist of our time?

In this period of (alleged) ‘postmodernism’ the rival claims of Marx, Weber

and Durkheim are still being debated, and Weber has his advocates as ‘the
sociologist for our time’ (Lash and Whimster, 1987; Schroeder, 1992).
There are at least three related reasons for putting this case.
First, Weber’s scepticism about sociological theory. Weber’s nominalism
meant that he had modest expectations for sociological theory, and his
views on values meant that he did not expect that even the most successful
of theories could provide a means for overcoming the conflicts in human
life or terminating the struggle for domination. Weber was, therefore, a
‘disillusioned’ thinker from the start, who could not support either the
‘utopian’ expectations to which Marxism gave rise, or the ‘technocratic’
ambitions which those who followed Durkheim might harbour. The
incapacity of theory to capture reality led Weber to stress the personal and
provisional character of sociological theories, something which also serves
to make him attractive in a time in which confidence about and faith in
great theories has collapsed and where views are widely ‘relativist’.
Second, the lack of faith in science is part of a scepticism about the
power of reason as advocated in the ‘Enlightenment’ tradition.
Postmodernism is a strong reaction against the Enlightenment tradition, a
reaction to which Weber contributed. The kind of rationalisation to which
he referred, of scientific/calculative thought, was the ideal of the
Enlightenment tradition. Weber, however, was most insistent that the
expansion of ‘rationality’ throughout the world, throughout more and more
societies, and throughout more and more spheres of life, did not result in the
elimination of irrationality and could not do so. It was his almost
paradoxical point that ‘rationality’ was itself founded in and directed by
irrational considerations. Rational actions serve values which cannot
themselves be rationally chosen, and the pursuit of rationalisation itself was
something undertaken only because it was irrationally valued.
Third, in the 1930s, and subsequently, a group of German scholars
known as ‘the Frankfurt School’ set in motion a train of thought which has
had a most potent impact upon social science, and was a decisive
contribution to the expansion of the ‘critical’ element in sociology. The
Frankfurt School played a particularly vital role in the revaluation of the
idea of ‘science’, which they construed as ‘instrumental reason’. Science, as
practised in the capitalist world, was not a neutral, objective form of
inquiry, determined to find things out for their own sake, but was, they
argued, compromised with the needs of the ruling powers to dominate and
render docile and controllable the rest of society. Science sought to provide
knowledge which could be used to solve problems in the practical
management of the society, accepting the given social order as the
framework within which this took place. Since the early days of the
Frankfurt School the business of social criticism has become less and less a
matter of condemning material inequality and more a matter of criticising
the falsifying and controlling role of the culture, in the form of ways of
thought, the mass media and so forth, in creating a docile and subordinate
population. Weber’s notion of ‘rationalisation’ was a forerunner of this
revaluation of the idea of science, insofar as it emphasised the extent to
which the expanding power of ‘instrumental reason’ was to build up the
power of capitalist organisations and of administrative bureaucracies.
Further, Weber’s emphasis throughout was upon the role of ‘culture’ in the
struggle for domination and such views are compatible with many
contemporary critical analyses of the postmodern predicament of modern
Western society.

Select Bibliography and Further Reading

Useful selections from the full range of Weber’s work can be found in Hans
Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds), From Max Weber: Essays in sociology
(Routledge, 1948), W.G. Runciman (ed.), Max Weber: Selections
(Cambridge University Press, 1978) and J.E.T. Eldridge (ed.), Max Weber:
The interpretation of social reality (Michael Joseph, 1971). Good general,
comparatively brief and accessible characterisations of Weber are given by
Julien Freund’s The Sociology of Max Weber (Pantheon, 1968) and Ralph
Schroeder’s Max Weber and the Sociology of Culture (Sage, 1992). Randall
Collins’ Max Weber: A skeleton key (Sage, 1986), Martin Albrow’s Max
Weber’s Construction of Social Theory (Macmillan, 1990), Dirk Käsler’s
Max Weber: An introduction to his life and work (Polity, 1988), Wilhelm
Hennis’ Max Weber: Essays in reconstruction (Allen and Unwin, 1988) and
Anthony Kronman’s Max Weber (Edward Arnold, 1983) are all worth
consulting. A collection of recent essays considering Weber’s contemporary
importance is Scott Lash and Sam Whimster (eds), Max Weber, Rationality
and Modernity (Allen and Unwin, 1987). Friedrich H. Tenbruck, ‘Problems
of thematic unity in the work of Max Weber’ (British Journal of Sociology,
31, 1980) addresses the issue of the coherence of Weber’s thought. Stephan
Turner and Regis Factor’s Max Weber as Legal Scholar (Routledge,
forthcoming) is likely to prove to be an important contribution.
The primary sources for the Protestant ethic thesis are Weber’s The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Allen and Unwin, 1930),
‘The Protestant sects and the spirit of capitalism’ (in Gerth and Mills, From
Max Weber, pp. 302–22, in which Weber considers the import of the
organisation of the Protestant sects in engendering the spirit of capitalism),
‘The anti-critical last word on the spirit of capitalism’ (American
Sociological Review, 83, 1978: 1105–131), in which he seeks to answer
some of the criticisms off his thesis, and the General Economic History
(Allen and Unwin, 1923), in which the thesis is discussed in the context of a
more inclusive account of the economic history of the West – with Part 4
focusing specifically on the thesis. Brief sections from this are reprinted in
Eldridge’s Max Weber: The interpretation of social reality. Good
discussions of the thesis may be found in Gianfranco Poggi’s Calvinism and
the Capitalist Spirit: Max Weber’s Protestant ethic (Macmillan, 1983),
Gordon Marshall’s In Search of the Spirit of Capitalism: An Essay on Max
Weber’s Protestant ethic thesis (Hutchinson, 1982) and Randall Collins’
‘Weber’s last theory of capitalism: a systematisation’ (American
Sociological Review, 45, 1980: 925–42, and reprinted in Collins’ Weberian
Social Theory, Cambridge University Press, 1986), in which Collins seeks
to examine the thesis in relation to the account given in the General
Economic History. A recent collection on various aspects of the thesis is
Hartmut Lehman and Guenther Roth (eds), Weber’s Protestant Ethic:
Origins, evidence, context (Cambridge University Press, 1993) which
contains the debate over the MacKinnon thesis. There is also a running
debate, precipitated by Luciano Pellicani’s paper ‘Weber and the myth of
Calvinism’ (75 [57–85], 78 [71–95] and 81 [63–90] of the 1988–9 volumes
of Telos). Norbert Wiley (ed.), The Marx-Weber Debate (Sage, 1987)
contains papers which consider these arguments in relation to Marx’s work.
Weber’s work on the comparative studies of religion is published in
Ancient Judaism (Free Press, 1952), The Religion of China: Confucianism
and Taoism (Free Press, 1957) and The Religion of India (Free Press, 1958).
His account of the general evolution of religion is given in The Sociology of
Religion (Methuen, 1965; also published as Chapter 6 in Weber’s Economy
and Society, University of California Press, 1978). The essay on ‘The social
psychology of the world religions’ (in Gerth and Mills, From Max Weber,
pp. 267–301) provides an important statement on the role of religion in
motivation. Passages outlining the role of two important ‘status groups’ are
reprinted in Gerth and Mills, From Max Weber, as ‘India: the Brahman and
the castes’ (pp. 396–410) and ‘The Chinese literati’ (pp. 416-443). The
comparative studies are clearly summarised in Part 2 of Reinhard Bendix’s
Max Weber: An intellectual portrait (Heinemann, 1960), extensively
discussed in Wolfgang Schlucter’s The Rise of Western Rationalism: Max
Weber’s developmental history (University of California Press, 1981) and in
Chapters 2 and 3 of Ralph Schroeder’s Max Weber and the Sociology of
Culture (Sage, 1992). Stephen Kalberg, in Max Weber’s Comparative
Historical Sociology (Polity, 1994), examines the methodological
assumptions of Weber’s comparative work, connecting this to debates in
contemporary sociology.
Weber’s writings on power, stratification and domination are exemplified
by the essay ‘Class, status and party’, (in Gerth and Mills’ From Max
Weber, pp. 180–95) and Chapter 3 of Weber’s Economy and Society, ‘The
types of legitimate domination’ (esp. pp. 212–70). Chapter 9 of Economy
and Society discusses ‘bureaucracy’. Reinhard Bendix’s Max Weber: An
intellectual portrait provides, in Chapter 8, ‘Max Weber’s image of society’
(pp. 265–86) a good brief summary of Weber’s conception of society as an
arena of conflict, whilst Part 3, ‘Domination, organization and legitimacy:
Max Weber’s political sociology’, clearly covers the ground its title
identifies. David Beetham’s Max Weber and the Theory of Modern Politics
(Allen and Unwin, 1974), Wolfgang Mommsen’s The Age of Bureaucracy:
Perspectives on the political sociology of Max Weber (Blackwell, 1974) and
Anthony Giddens’ Politics and Society in Max Weber (Macmillan, 1972)
give helpful general formulations of Weber’s views on power and on the
political condition and fate of contemporary society. Reinhard Bendix’s
Nation Building and Citizenship (University of California Press, 1977) is
also worth attention, as is Charles Tilly’s ‘Historical sociology’ in McNall
and Howe (eds), Current Perspectives in Social Theory (JAI Press, 1980)
and Barrington-Moore’s Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
(Allen Lane, 1967). Michael Mann’s The Sources of Social Power, Vol. 1
(Cambridge University Press, 1986) is an extensive study of power through
the ages. David Lockwood’s ‘Some remarks on “The Social System”’
(British Journal of Sociology, 7, 1956) and his The Blackcoated Worker
(Allen and Unwin, 1958) develop Weberian notions of class and status.
Randall Collins’ Conflict Sociology: Toward an explanatory science
(Academic Press, 1975) emphasises the concern with conflict and
domination in Weber’s work.
Weber’s views on these matters and on the responsibility of the scholar in
relation to them are given some expression in his essays, ‘Politics as a
vocation’ and ‘Science as a vocation’ (both in Hans Gerth and C. Wright
Mills, From Max Weber, pp. 77–128). ‘Science as a vocation’ is published
in a new translation and with accompanying materials in Peter Lassman and
Irving Melody (eds), Max Weber’s ‘Science as a Vocation’ (Unwin Hyman,
1989).
A selection of Weber’s essays on methodological and ethical themes was
published as The Methodology of the Social Sciences (Free Press, 1949).
The crucial methodological comments which define sociology as the study
of ‘social action’ provide the opening sections of the first chapter of
Weber’s Economy and Society (esp. pp. 4–28). A classic source for the
discussion of Weber’s methodology is Talcott Parsons’ The Structure of
Social Action (Free Press, 1937). More recent discussions include Roger
Brubaker’s The Limits of Rationality: An essay on the social and moral
thought of Max Weber (Allen and Unwin, 1984), Thomas Burger’s Max
Weber’s Theory of Concept Formation (Duke University Press, 1976) and
Guy Oakes’ Weber and Rickert: Concept formation in the cultural sciences
(MIT Press, 1986). Part 3 of Stephan Turner’s The Search for a
Methodology of Social Science (Reidel, 1986), ‘Weber on action’, provides
a sophisticated reflection on Weber’s methodology.
Alfred Schutz’s The Phenomenology of the Social World (Northwestern
University Press, 1967 [originally published 1932]), Peter L. Berger and
Thomas Luckman’s The Social Construction of Reality (Allen Lane, 1967)
and Harold Garfinkel’s Studies in Ethnomethodology (Prentice Hall, 1967)
are important for seeing how the ‘subjectivism’ of Weber’s approach has
been worked out.

CHAPTER THREE SUMMARY

Weber, like Marx, has been the subject of interpretation and reinterpretation over the years,
though perhaps his influence on sociology has been less direct than that of Marx.
His major substantive impact has been in areas such as the sociology of politics, of
religion, of law, and the theory of organisations. In some respects he has been regarded as a
more benign Marx in that his account of stratification is considered to be more subtle and
flexible yet without abandoning the idea of various forms of stratification as the sources of
conflict in society.
More recently, his reflections on ‘rationality’ as an ‘iron cage’, and mediated through the
work of the Frankfurt School and not dissimilar reflections by Foucault, have attracted
considerable interest.
Methodologically, Weber insisted that the object of sociology was action constituted
through subjective meanings. This necessitated a methodology different to that used by
natural science, a method using ‘imaginative reconstruction’ to identify the values,
motivations and meanings which shaped the actions of social actors. However, this did not
imply that sociology could not be a causal science.
Weber understood the sciences to be partial and selective interested in aspects of the world,
and the social sciences were no different. They were guided by the values and interests
prevalent in our society. However, this did not imply an abandonment of rigorous
standards of scholarship in the carrying out of studies. To this end, he insisted that scholars
should be value neutral in their investigations.
Weber’s so-called ‘interpretative sociology’ has proved to be an enduring thread. Alfred
Schutz’s lifelong exploration of Weber’s ideas on social action for example, had strong
influences on Ethnomethodology and social constructionist sociologies.
 Émile Durkheim 4

BEGINNING CHAPTER FOUR

Although often regarded as a ‘conservative theoretician’, and though unlike Marx he did become
a prominent figure in intellectual and educational circles in France, there is an important critical
edge to Durkheim’s work. In this chapter we will discuss the following aspects of his sociological
thought:

His dedication to establishing sociology as an academic and scientific discipline distinct

particularly from psychology. This work produced not only theoretical concepts for
understanding the nature of the social, but also the methodological principles for a
scientific sociology.
For Durkheim scientific reasoning was the only valid form of understanding. If it could be
extended to social life to show that social activities were subject to cause and effect in the
same way as natural phenomena, this could provide a sound basis for the planning and
reconstruction of society.
Society, for Durkheim, had reality over and above that of individuals and constituted a
moral order of social facts.
He made enduring contributions to methodology, the relationship between thought and
society, the sociology of religion, and the idea of sociology as a diagnostic discipline
concerned to identify social pathologies and, in doing so, inform remedial action.

Émile Durkheim was born on 15 April 1858 in Épinal, the regional capital
of the Vosges region of France. Originally destined for the rabbinate, like
his father, grandfather and great-grandfather before him, Durkheim
abandoned this ambition in his youth and, with his father’s agreement,
decided to pursue his academic studies. He was finally admitted to the
prestigious École Normale Supérieure in Paris, and began his studies along
with a number of fellow students who were to become eminent in French
intellectual life. It was here that he developed an interest in social reform
and national regeneration. However, though exhilarated by the atmosphere
of the École, he was critical of its style of education, which he felt
insufficiently scientifically robust. After graduation he became a philosophy
teacher, and chose the topic of the relations between individualism and
socialism for his doctoral thesis. At this time sociology was not highly
regarded in France and was normally associated with the followers of
August Comte (1798–1857), who had sought to bring the study of society
within the orbit of the ‘positive’ sciences but who had eccentric ideas about
creating a new ‘religion of humanity’. Apart from Frédéric Le Play’s
(1806–82) studies of family life, sociology had remained at the level of
philosophical generalities. Between the years 1884 and 1886, Durkheim’s
ideas had begun to coalesce around the problem of the relation between the
individual and society, reaching the conclusion that the solution to this
problem must come from the relatively new science of sociology. Sociology
could identify the processes of social change and the conditions of social
order and thus enable the more effective management of both. Like many
others in the France of this time, Durkheim was preoccupied with the need
to revive the Republic through the establishment of new forms of social
membership and the establishment of a new liberal secular civic morality, a
concern that never left him. As he saw it, the attempt to reorganise society
could only be effective if guided by scientific knowledge and so the first
task was to place sociology on a sound scientific footing, with its own
distinctive and independent subject-matter dealing with causally operative
forces.
In 1887 Durkheim was awarded a post in the Faculty of Letters at
Bordeaux and began an immensely productive fifteen years of scholarship.
During this period, apart from reviews and incidental articles, he published
The Division of Labour (published in France 1893), a study of
Montesquieu, The Rules of Sociological Method (1895) and Suicide (1897).
In 1902 he founded and edited the Année Sociologique. He lectured widely
on ‘social solidarity’, moral education, the family, suicide, legal sociology,
political sociology, criminology, religion, the history of socialism and more.
He also took an active part in the administration of the University, in the
movement for secular education and in educational reform more generally.
It was his work on education that gained him an appointment in the Science
of Education at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1902.
 Despite some resistance to his appointment, Durkheim became a very
influential figure. His education courses were the only compulsory ones at
the Sorbonne for those students seeking teaching degrees in philosophy,
history, literature and languages, and he became a considerable authority
within the French education system. At this time, his sociological work
began to focus more directly on morality, a preoccupation which is, in
various guises, apparent throughout his work, though he was not to finish
his intended book on that topic. He always had a great respect for
philosophy, though he sought to restate some of philosophy’s central
epistemological problems in what he regarded as more suitably scientific
terms. This work appeared as Primitive Classification, in 1903, written with
Marcel Mauss. His attempt to turn the philosophical questions about
knowledge into those of a sociology of knowledge also figured significantly
in another major book which appeared in 1912, The Elementary Forms of
Religious Life. In 1914, at the outbreak of war, Durkheim devoted all his
energies to the national war effort until ill-health intervened in 1916, almost
certainly aggravated by the news of the death of his only son on the
Bulgarian front. In that year, after one of the innumerable committee
meetings he attended, he suffered a stroke and had to rest for several
months. He died on 15 November, aged 59, his major work on morality still
unfinished.
Unlike Marx, Durkheim became a prominent figure in the intellectual
and educational establishments. His work was also to have wide influence
among politicians even though he himself exhibited no little disdain for
those of his day. However, this did not blunt the critical edge which is
visible in much of his work, and it is somewhat ironic that in sociology he
is often characterised as a conservative theoretician. Much the same kind of
criticism was advanced against his work by the Marxists of his day.
Georges Sorel (1847–1922), for example, while acknowledging the rare
subtlety of The Rules of Sociological Method, also saw it as a treatise
supporting ‘conservative democracy’ which ignored the historical
importance of class conflict and was insufficiently materialistic in its
analysis. Though certainly no Marxist socialist, Durkheim was intensely
concerned to create more justice in economic relations, encouraging
national education and moral development and provoking industry to
become more scientific in its outlook. Durkheim was liberal in his moral
outlook, an anti-clerical and, above all, a moralist whose socialism owed
more to the non-Marxist French tradition with its idealism and distaste for
party politics. His socialism was reformist rather than revolutionary and
focused not on a particular class nor on what were regarded as outdated
doctrines of economic materialism, the theory of value and class conflict,
but, as he saw it, on a properly scientific analysis of society as a whole. In
this respect, in a socialist society the state would perform a major role in
conjunction with other centres of influence, subject to the state but strongly
constituted so as not to be entirely subordinate to it. However, although
Durkheim acknowledged that historically socialism and sociology had had
an interleaved development, the former was not a scientific enterprise. It
was only through the development of a scientific sociology that the malaise
to which the rise of socialism bears witness could be properly addressed.
Many of Durkheim’s followers also espoused this abstract, intellectual,
reformist socialism which was inspired by the ideals of co-operation and
organisation and was to be buttressed by a fully developed science of
society. Thus, whereas Marx saw revolution as the only likely means to cure
the ills of society, for Durkheim what was required was an appropriately
informed reform of education, of morality, and of social membership to
produce the much needed social changes.
However, Durkheim himself felt that it was not the place of an academic
to become involved in party politics. Like Weber, he argued that while a
citizen had a duty to take a stand on public and political issues, academic
authority should not be used for political ends. Such a view did not prevent
Durkheim becoming involved in one of the greatest issues in the France of
his day, the Dreyfus Affair. Durkheim regarded this as a party political
affair, and though he normally had a distaste for these, in this case he
regarded the affair as one with serious moral consequences for French
society. The trial and imprisonment of Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer
accused of espionage, had virtually polarised French society between those
who sought to preserve the institutions of the army, the church and the law
and those who sought to fight the injustice of Dreyfus’ case through an
attack on those very institutions which had brought the crisis about.
Durkheim supported the Dreyfusards and he became an active member of
the Ligue pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme, becoming the secretary
of the Bordeaux branch, which was committed to the view that Dreyfus’
conviction was a travesty of Republican justice and a victory for the forces
of reaction.
 For Durkheim the malaise which afflicted French society derived from a
dissolution of the authority and unanimity of moral beliefs. It was these
rather than the economic inequalities about which socialism complained
that were the true social problem. The task of the sociologist was to
discover the ways in which these moral beliefs could be re-established,
principally through reform of the educational system and beginning with
the educators. At the height of the Dreyfus Affair Durkheim helped to found
at Bordeaux an association of university teachers and students known as La
Jeunesse Laïque which discussed political and ideological issues. Along
with similar associations throughout France, it became increasingly political
and moved in a socialist and anti-militarist direction. As far as education
was concerned, Durkheim argued that the relation of the science of
sociology to education was one of theory to practice and, in this respect,
would provide a more rational substitute for traditional religion. Children
should be taught to think about society and its moral obligations and, by
this means, provide the basis for a more effective and secular morality. It
was his appointment to the Sorbonne, in 1902, which enabled him to
become a major influence on the formation of a national system of free and
secular education which would, it was hoped, secure the moral foundations
of French society.
However, although of our three thinkers Durkheim had perhaps the most
immediate impact on his society during his life, though both Marx and
Weber were politically active, within the discipline of sociology he has
worn less well. His main contribution has often been seen as only his study
of suicide, to the neglect of the wider range of his work. Nevertheless, it
would be wrong to underestimate the contribution he made in identifying
some of the key problems of the discipline and the way in which his ideas,
often in bowdlerised forms, have become part of the general outlook of
sociology. We begin with what is perhaps a surprising topic in view of the
contemporary structuralist reading of Durkheim, namely, the theme of
social action. It was in addressing this topic that he began his attack on the
individualistic presuppositions that had dominated social thought since the
Enlightenment.

The Study of Social Action

Durkheim’s efforts were devoted to establishing sociology as an academic
discipline which could justify its existence as an independent form of
inquiry, distinct particularly from psychology. The idea of the ‘social’ as a
topic of study was not, by any means, so well developed in French
intellectual life as it was in Germany before and during Weber’s time.
Durkheim did, however, have some distinguished predecessors. One was
Comte, who, as was pointed out in the Introduction, coined the word
‘sociology’ and founded the doctrine of ‘positivism’ which proposed that
scientific knowledge should become the dominant mode of thought in
modern society replacing religious and metaphysical thinking. Another was
Montesquieu (1689–1755), whose Spirit of Laws (1748) had sought to show
that there was a systematic relationship between the laws of society and
other aspects of its organisation. Durkheim regarded this as important
preparatory work in the definition of sociology’s subject-matter.
Durkheim was satisfied that Comte’s contribution was to have
‘established that the laws of societies are no different from those governing
the rest of nature and that the method by which they are discovered is
identical with that of other sciences’ (quoted in Lukes, 1973: 68). However,
although Durkheim’s own views on the unity of the scientific method have
led him to be frequently termed a ‘positivist’, he did not regard himself as
such. Comte had sought to make positivism the basis of a new ‘religion of
humanity’ and Durkheim was eager to distance himself from such a notion.
The positivist aspects of his own thought were the products of his
underlying rationalist convictions. For him scientific reasoning was the only
valid form of understanding, and it could be extended to the study of social
life to show that social activities were subject to cause and effect in the
same way as natural phenomena. An understanding of these cause and
effect relations was the only sound basis for planning and the reconstruction
of society.
In contemporary sociology it is common to allocate sociologists to one of
two supposedly contrasting interests – with ‘social action’ or with ‘social
structure’. Weber is typically counted as the leading exemplar of the former
type of sociological concern, and Durkheim as the leading exemplar of the
other. Such a division is not wholly inappropriate if the basic issue is about
whether society consists of anything more than a collection of individuals.
Weber denied that it did, holding that collective terms such as ‘society’,
‘class’, ‘social structure’ and so on, were nothing more than shorthand
expressions for the actions of large numbers of individuals. Durkheim,
however, maintained that social collectivities were more than just
aggregates of individuals. They were holistic phenomena possessing
properties which were not those of separate individuals. The development
and working of such wholes is a product of laws which distinctively apply
to them, and whose identification was to be the task of the science of
sociology. However, although Durkheim thought it necessary for the new
science of sociology to press the case forcibly for the independence of the
social whole against what he saw as a deeply entrenched prejudice, namely,
that social life was to be understood exclusively through the psychology of
individuals. His intention was to show that the antithesis between the
‘individual’ and ‘society’ was a false one. It was a persistent concern of his
work to determine how the elements ‘individual’ and ‘society’ were
interrelated rather than simply opposed to one to the other.
The highly influential study we have previously mentioned, The
Structure of Social Action (1937) by Talcott Parsons, sought to trace out a
convergence in the ideas of some economists and sociologists writing
around the turn of the century who were, in his judgement, breaking out of
the frames of reference which had dominated thinking about social life for
several centuries. The two most important figures in this ‘convergence’
were Durkheim and Weber; both scholars who had become dissatisfied with
the largely unexamined assumptions built into economic, political and
social theory. These assumptions, Parsons argued, were drawn from the
utilitarian tradition which could be traced as far back as Thomas Hobbes’
Leviathan (1651). It was the utilitarianism of the nineteenth-century British
sociologist Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) that was the butt of much of
Durkheim’s attack. Spencer was perhaps the foremost exponent of
evolutionary theory in analysing the state and progress of societies; a theory
combined with utilitarian individualism. His Principles of Sociology,
published in 1874, advanced an organic theory of society in which the
‘fittest forms’ would survive because they were functional for the social
system. Social systems, like organisms, adapt to their environment by a
process of internal differentiation and integration. In the early days of social
evolution a struggle for survival was the main mechanism of adaptation, but
in more advanced societies co-operation and altruism would predominate.

Utilitarianism and Durkheim’s critique

At its simplest, utilitarianism argues that human behaviour is basically
driven by the desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Human thought
is, essentially, a form of calculation working out the most efficient ways of
obtaining what is desired, so maximising the amount of pleasure the
individual gets and, correspondingly, minimising the pain experienced. If
we imagine an individual with a variety of wants or desires and a fixed
income, then the individual will seek to allocate that income in such a way
as to maximise the amount of satisfaction to be gained, and will do so by
calculating that combination of wants which will yield the most pleasure for
that amount of income. Such assumptions have served economics well.
They have enabled the construction of the idealisation ‘economic man’
upon which an elaborate body of theory could be built. But, however useful
such assumptions may have proved to economics, they could not be, so far
as Durkheim was concerned, useful in the creation of an emerging
sociology.
One of the things to which Durkheim took exception was the utilitarian
picture of individual action. Human beings are portrayed as acting on the
basis of straightforwardly self-interested calculations. While Durkheim did
not want to say that individuals never acted in such a way, he did not think
they did so for most of the time. In any event, such a picture was of little
use for sociology. Of course, utilitarianism did not claim that people always
acted rationally; on the contrary, people could frequently be irrational.
However, for Durkheim, this relegated ‘irrationality’ to the status of a
regrettable fact about human behaviour, whereas conduct which lacks the
strictly rational character stipulated by utilitarianism is very important to
understanding how society works.
Take the example of the universal phenomenon, crime. Although not all
societies have laws, courts, police forces and such like, Durkheim insisted
that all do, that all must, draw a distinction between activities which are
allowed and those which are prohibited; a distinction which the laws, courts
and police are prominent in enforcing in societies like our own. The
particular mix of the allowed and the prohibited will vary from society to
society, but all make this distinction between permitted and proscribed
activities, or ‘crimes’. In simple terms, utilitarianism argued that crime is
forbidden because it is harmful, a cause of pain, and criminal activities are
punished to serve as a painful deterrent to potential criminals. Such an
analysis was, for Durkheim, seriously flawed. For one thing he notes that
the reaction of people to crime is not what would be expected from a
rational, instrumental, calculative transaction. People’s reactions to crime
are deep and strongly felt. From a utilitarian viewpoint, however, such
reactions do not make sense. Yet, Durkheim argues, they are the key to a
sociological understanding of crime, and a major component in
understanding the nature of society itself.

The social significance of expressive action

Our reactions to crime are ‘expressive’, that is, modes of action which do
not have a directly practical or ‘instrumental’ purpose; they express our
feelings, such as an outburst of anger or a show of affection. Durkheim
divides our expressive behaviours into two kinds, those through which we
express our separation from others, and those through which we express our
unity with them. Our reactions to crime cut both ways. Our outrage does not
just apply to the actions of the criminal, but is also directed toward the
person who performs the act. We do not just want to stop such actions, we
want to make the perpetrator suffer. In the more extreme cases, our reaction
is to look on the criminal as a vile and odious person, someone who is
completely unlike the rest of us. Thus, in our reactions against the criminal
we are setting that person apart; in effect, we are drawing a line between a
‘normal’ person ‘like ourselves’ and an ‘abnormal’ one like the criminal, a
line which is sometimes physically represented by the prison in which the
criminal is segregated from the rest of society.
However, this setting apart also involves a putting together. As we
distance ourselves from the criminal, so we place ourselves with other
members of the society who are ‘like us’. Our outrage is not just something
that we individually happen to feel against the criminal; it is typically
something we share with others. We do not feel that it is just our own
quirky reactions against the criminal that give rise to our outrage. We feel
what any ‘normal’ person would feel, and part of the strength of our feeling
is our confidence that a great many other people, the rest of our group so to
speak, will feel exactly the same way. In expressing our distance from the
criminal we are, at the same time, expressing our closeness to the other
members of society. We have a feeling of ‘solidarity’, of togetherness and
unity, with them.
 Durkheim suggests, then, that actions which are identified as crimes go
against strong and widely held ‘sentiments’. Thus, for example, in our
society there are some very strong and very common feelings about the
sexual inviolability of children. It is because these are both so strong and so
widespread that paedophile activities, for example, provoke such an intense
response. There are also widespread feelings about people’s right to private
property and so theft also occasions outrage and punishment, though not
such intense reactions as paedophilia involves. Criminals are punished
because this assuages the outraged emotions that their offending behaviour
has caused: we want to see them suffer and are gratified when they do.
Thus, our expressive responses are an important basis for our understanding
of crime.

The symbolic character of action

However, for Durkheim, there is also a ‘symbolic’ aspect involved. The

criminal may be punished, deprived of liberty and so forth, but there is
another respect in which punishment plays a vital role in the business of
crime and that is in symbolising the disapproval of the community. Part of
the punishment of being convicted as a criminal is the shame it inflicts due
to the disapproval of others. Durkheim wants us to note the very public
character of the way in which crime is treated, of the way in which the
occurrence of crimes and the identification and punishment of criminals is
noised about throughout the community, as well as the very public nature of
the proceedings through which criminals are handled. For the less hardened,
the public trial and conviction for an offence is a humiliating experience.
The criminal is meant to feel the disapproval of the whole community.
Thus, the treatment of criminals symbolises the community’s disapproval
and, at the same time, symbolises the contrast between those things that the
community will not stand for, namely, those acts the criminal performs, and
those things it does stand for. There is, for Durkheim, a very strong
connection between our strong positive and negative feelings, on the one
hand, and those things which serve to symbolise our society on the other, a
connection which acquires great significance in the case of religion, as we
shall see.
It is important to realise from the outset that although Durkheim is so
thoroughly opposed to ‘individualistic’ theories of the kind proposed by
utilitarianism, both in terms of their intellectual content and their moral and
political implications, he is not proposing an opposite but equally extreme
view that only society is important. Where, for example, the utilitarians
recognise nothing is real save the individual and his or her instrumental
purposes, Durkheim is sometimes read as opposing this view by an
unrelenting insistence that only society is real. It is to avoid this reading of
Durkheim’s case that we have begun with a discussion of his conception of
individual action. As we shall see in what follows, Durkheim’s resolute
purpose was to reject the idea that it is a question of the individual versus
society. In significant respects, Durkheim’s work has a rhetorical point to it.
Because initially it might seem that the ‘individual’ is the obvious, tangible,
indubitably real unit and ‘society’ an intangible and unreal one, arguments
to the effect that society is a reality in its own right and the individual a
creation of society will seem implausible, especially in a climate dominated
by utilitarian assumptions. Accordingly, Durkheim regards his claims, as
the position requiring the greater burden of proof, as needing to be made
forcefully and overwhelmingly. Thus, his emphasis upon the reality and the
consequentiality of society can appear to leave no room for individuals
partly because of the intense manner in which he feels it necessary to state
his case. We do not deny that the vigour and determination with which he
states his case can result in excess. However, we propose that these are
overstatements of Durkheim’s essential argument, which, as we shall try to
show, is much less implausible than it is often made to seem. Durkheim
does not seek to deny the reality of the individual but, rather, to understand
his or her nature and this, he felt, could only be done through an
understanding of society.
Although we have stressed that an important key to understanding
Durkheim is through his conception of individual action, the manner in
which he attended to this was, as we have indicated, informed by one of his
main preoccupations with the way in which such actions contribute to the
cohesiveness of society as a whole.

The Reality of Society

Basically, a society is a bounded unit. However, although societies are often
identified with an area of territory, society itself is not an essentially
geographical unit. For example, the Australian Aboriginal societies, whose
rituals were the central focus of Durkheim’s Elementary Forms of Religious
Life, were societies but were not based upon territory in the ways that ours
are. Part of what provoked Durkheim’s interest in the Australian
Aboriginals was the question of how they maintained themselves as
societies despite the fact that they were, for most of the time, dispersed in
small groups wandering about the vast Australian landscape. Solving this
problem, he felt, could provide insights into the sources of social solidarity
of all societies. A society is essentially defined on the basis of membership,
that is, on the distinction between those who are within it and those who are
outside it; a distinction which, as we have seen, is at the root, according to
Durkheim, of the treatment of the criminal. It is a matter of drawing the
boundary of society, distinguishing between those who are members of the
society and those who fall outside it, who are not a part of its normal life
and are, in practice, to be denied the privileges that any normal member of
the society may possess. The boundary around the society is, in this case, a
moral one, and displays, so far as Durkheim is concerned, the fact that
society is essentially a moral phenomenon; that is, about the standards of
conduct that ‘we’ as opposed to ‘they’ subscribe to.

The moral character of society

The conception of society as a moral phenomenon stands in stark contrast

to the utilitarian picture in which individuals assess their actions in terms of
their efficacy; that is, the extent to which they will lead to pleasure or to the
avoidance of pain. Although, no doubt, people often do concern themselves
with just such issues, they do not only concern themselves with questions of
efficacy. They are also directed in their conduct by considerations of right
and wrong; concerned, that is, about the moral character of behaviour. For
Durkheim, this fact was so critical to the understanding of social life that he
would speak of sociology as the science of moral facts. While we do have
‘instrumental’ purposes and we do have ‘utilitarian’ concerns, we do not
have purely instrumental and purely utilitarian concerns.
For example, hunger is an unpleasant sensation, a painful one in the
utilitarian picture, and is to be avoided. From a strictly instrumental view,
one concerned entirely with the alleviation of the discomfort of hunger
through the acquisition of nutrients, cooking and eating a baby would serve
as effectively as any other to stop the discomfort of hunger. Of course, in
real cases, when people are feeling hungry they look in the kitchen, in the
refrigerator or the larder for food, not in the baby’s bedroom. More to the
point, very few of us would even think of eating the baby as a way of
assuaging our hunger. Indeed, even the fantasy suggestion of eating the
baby is likely to provoke disgust, as it did when Jonathan Swift, in his A
Modest Proposal (1729), made the satirical suggestion that the Irish famine
could be alleviated by such a practice. So, even when we act in a broadly
instrumental, utilitarian way we are not just weighing all the possibly
efficacious ways of doing things even though, from a practical point of
view, they would serve our ends. Eating the baby is not an option because it
is, for us, outrageous, immoral and wicked. What is ‘rational’ conduct for
the vast majority of us for the overwhelming proportion of the time is
confined within the same space that the fellow members of our society find
acceptable. Similarly, our aims in life, and the ways we will seriously
consider pursuing them, are likely to be broadly the same as those of
everyone else, as the kinds of things that we and they together accept are
right, allowable, proper – in a word they are moral. It seldom, if ever,
occurs to us to consider, let alone actually resort to, ways of doing things
which, though practically efficacious, are prohibited within our community.
For Durkheim the utilitarian picture was far too narrow in its exclusive
emphasis on the ‘rational’ character of social conduct and, as a result,
obscured the importance of the expressive, symbolic and moral aspects of
social action and society. However, his objective was not to play up these
hitherto neglected aspects of action simply as a corrective to the utilitarian
view. He did so because he felt that they were vital in understanding the
possibility and nature of society itself. As we mentioned previously, a
particular target of Durkheim was Herbert Spencer, who had argued, in a
series of substantial works, that society could be understood as though it
were a series of transactions between individuals in the market. Like
Hobbes and other social contract theorists before him, Spencer argued that
society could best be understood as based on a contractual agreement. The
fact that society is not out and out conflict between ruthless individuals
each pursuing their own interests can be explained by thinking of society’s
members as having made, and living by, contractual arrangements, albeit
implicit ones. Therefore, just as the market operates through individuals
making agreements with each other, so society can be thought of in the
same way, though on a larger and broader scale. The members of society
agree to abide by certain restrictions on their conduct. Durkheim, however,
thought otherwise. Indeed, his objection to Spencer’s conception, as it was
to utilitarian assumptions more generally, was that it put the cart before the
horse, as did all arguments which sought to understand society by inferring
from assumptions about the nature of individuals. For Durkheim, society
was more than the sum of the individuals who comprise it, and this
‘something more’ is the distinctive domain of study for the science of
sociology.
Of course, the science of sociology did not exist as a proper science and
the distinctive domain that Durkheim was pointing to had not been hitherto
systematically studied. To do so, argued Durkheim, it was necessary to
confront some fundamental methodological questions, not least those
arising from the inadequacy of utilitarian assumptions.

The domain of sociology

Utilitarianism retained the Enlightenment conception that society is nothing

more than the individuals who make it up. ‘Society’ is simply the name for
the interaction of all of these individuals, that is, the name of whatever
pattern results from their going about their business on the basis of their
instrumental, utilitarian purposes. Understanding ‘society’ is much the same
as understanding ‘price’ in economics, that is, as an interaction between
‘supply’ and ‘demand’, which are themselves the outcomes of the decisions
of individuals. ‘Demand’ is simply the aggregated total of all the decisions
individuals make to spend part of their income on a particular good, just as
‘supply’ is defined simply by adding up all the decisions of individuals to
produce and market some good. Thus, understanding how price is
determined essentially involves understanding how individuals make
economic decisions, and in economics it is broadly utilitarian assumptions
that are often drawn upon to shape the model that is proposed. By the same
token, then, ‘society’ is just the name for the aggregate pattern of individual
actions and an understanding of how it works calls for a comparable
analysis of the ways individuals organise their actions.
 It is just such arguments that Durkheim regarded as ruling out the
possibility of sociology. If there could be a science of sociology it would
have to be because there was a ‘level’ of reality with which it, and it alone,
could deal. If sociology was to be ‘the science of society’, then society had
to be a reality in its own right. ‘Society’ could not just be the name for the
aggregated actions of individuals, for then it would be merely the study of
the thought processes and actions of individuals, a domain already
belonging to psychology. The project of sociology called for a real
phenomenon, society, which was ‘more than’ just a collection of
individuals, and which could provide a genuine subject-matter for a distinct
and independent science of sociology. Durkheim was confident that there
was such a level of reality. However, establishing this involved, in vital
part, destroying what he saw as the hegemony of utilitarian assumptions
which misconceived the relationship between the individual, or
psychological, level of reality, and the collective, or social, level of reality.
Justifying his conviction and making it intelligible involved Durkheim in no
little tortuous argument.
The book The Rules of Sociological Method, first published in 1895 –
which contains the account of crime sketched above – was his initial
attempt to establish the consequences of the view that the study of society is
a scientific venture, and is most notorious for its injunction to ‘treat social
facts as things’. For Durkheim, the hallmark of a science is that it deals in
facts. Each of the natural sciences studied natural facts. So, for sociology to
be a science it, too, must deal in facts, but ones which, though they are no
less facts, no less real than those with which the natural sciences deal, must
be of a different kind: they must be ‘social facts’.

Social facts The injunction to ‘consider social facts as things’ really

consists of two crucial elements: first, the claim that social facts are just as
much facts, and just as real, as natural facts, and, second, the claim that in
order to construct a science of such facts it is necessary to adopt the same
inquiring stance toward them as the natural sciences take to their facts.
Durkheim approaches the issue through the general question of what
makes something a fact in the first place. His answer is that natural facts
have two principal generic characteristics, namely, they are external and
constraining.
 The externality of facts. Facts are external to our thoughts and exist
independently of whatever we, as human beings, might believe. Facts are
things about which it is possible for us to be right or wrong because what
those facts are does not depend upon the ideas human beings may have
about them. It is this independence which gives point to science, namely,
investigating things to determine what they are actually like. One of the
distinctive features of science is that it investigates matters about which
human beings already have preconceptions. But it does so on the
assumption that the methodic investigation of things may reveal them to be
quite otherwise than they are imagined. What the actual facts about the
nature of, say, the movement of the planets proved to be, on methodic
investigation, varied significantly from what had previously been believed.
Similarly, Durkheim insists, the actual facts about social life will prove,
again on methodic investigation, to be otherwise than they have been
thought to be.
The constraint of facts. Facts are also ‘constraining’, that is they are
capable of shaping the course of human behaviour, even if we are not
always aware of their doing so. Try as we might we can only jump a certain
height in the air. The force of gravity limits and counters what it is human
beings are capable of achieving in jumping. We readily accept that there are
many natural facts which constrain our activities and our behaviour in
fundamental ways. What we are perhaps less inclined to do is accept that
there might be social facts which similarly constrain us. Yet, argues
Durkheim, there are social facts which partake of the character of facts in
general in possessing the properties of externality and constraint. What
challenged Durkheim was our seeming reluctance to accept this in
connection with society as readily as we do in other connections.
Durkheim begins his argument by drawing attention to familiar and
recognisable experiences. Human beings do many of the activities they
engage in because they want to do them, and for much of the time they are
also doing what they are supposed to do. Our motives for taking a particular
job, for example, might be because it is just the sort of job that we have
always wanted to do. Many small boys want to be soldiers, and if they grow
up to be soldiers they will have achieved what they wanted to do. However,
those small boys did not invent the job of soldier in order to realise their
ambitions. The job already existed and small boys want to do it because
they suppose what soldiers do is exciting. The position of soldier is a
socially established and standardised one which has particular obligatory
activities attached to it. If soldiers do not do as they are told by superior
officers, abide by the army’s rules and so forth, then they will soon find
themselves being treated as military criminals, charged, convicted and
possibly even discharged from the force altogether. Others, and it may be
that it is their duty to do so, will interfere with the freedom of the individual
soldier to do whatever he wants, and will do so in the name of the imposed
impersonal obligations covering them both.
Accordingly, while we may not feel that we are ‘constrained’ in much of
our daily lives and that we spontaneously do what we want, such feelings
are sometimes illusory. We do not feel constrained insofar as what we do
coincides with what we are standardly required to do. So long as we are
motivated to carry out the standard responsibilities that attach to the various
social positions we occupy then we do not feel constrained. But if our
motivations get out of step with those standard requirements we will feel
constraint, perhaps of the quite literal physical kind as we are manhandled
into a police van, into a cell, into the dock and so forth. Being constrained
by both natural and social facts is not a matter necessarily of feeling
constrained. We are constrained to breathe, after all, but we are not
normally even conscious that we are breathing, let alone possessed of any
sense that we are compelled to keep on breathing if we want to live –
though we will become aware of the compulsion if we try to hold our
breath. The facts of, for example, standard obligations are ones which are
the products of our collective life in the sense that we did not invent them.
They arise out of the patterns of our individual relations. Moreover, though
we encounter these obligations individually, they apply to anyone who
occupies the relevant social position – and if we do not feel that they are
constraining, we shall become aware that they are if we try to defy them.
The first of the two elements which we identified as constituents of the
invitation to ‘consider social facts as things’ is to be understood as saying
‘treat social facts as facts’; that is, as no less real and independent
conditions of our individual actions than are natural physical facts even
though, as we shall shortly indicate, social facts are not themselves physical
ones.
The second element we identified was the requirement that the study of
social facts be approached in just the same spirit or attitude as the study of
natural facts. Natural scientists have, or so Durkheim holds, appreciated that
in undertaking their investigations they start from a position of ignorance.
They are proposing to study phenomena which exist in themselves and
which may or may not conform to any preconceptions we have about them.
Thus, in order to initiate investigations natural scientists have been prepared
to set aside their preconceptions and to systematically examine the
phenomena to identify their actual and hitherto unknown properties.
Similarly, the establishment of sociology requires the adoption of the same
spirit in the study of social phenomena. We need to accept that social facts
are not transparent to us and that their nature may not conform to the
preconceptions that we have about them. Accordingly, it is necessary to set
aside any convictions we hold about social phenomena prior to the making
of systematic investigations into them. Although we are, as individuals,
aware of the standard obligations which apply to us in our various social
positions, this does not mean, says Durkheim, that we properly and fully
know and understand these familiar social facts. We may be aware of what,
as members of families, we and others are supposed to do, but that is very
far from understanding how the family has grown up as a standard part of
social organisation, or what part the family unit plays in the organisation of
the society as a whole, or of how the organisation of the family changes
over time and, thus, of how the things that we as family members require of
each other have come to be as they are, and with what consequences.
Without sociological investigation we are ignorant of these matters. Indeed,
to the extent that we are ignorant of why the elements of society are the way
that they are, there is an important respect in which we are to the same
extent ignorant of why we, as individuals, are doing the things we do.
So far Durkheim is not, or does not appear to be, asking us to accept
anything that is beyond our own ordinary experience of social life. Most
would accept that we behave in the ways that we do because we have been
brought up to do so, have learned from others how to behave, but that we
have no idea how the social activities we are standardly required to do came
to be the way that they are. However, the argument so far has been about
the properties of facts and how they should be studied. What has not yet
been established is how social facts are a level of reality which is the proper
domain of sociology.

The emergent nature of social facts Durkheim’s case for social facts is
made by way of an argument which, nowadays, is called one of
‘emergence’. This argues that the interaction of phenomena can give rise to
new phenomena which have characteristics different from the phenomena
which constitute them. The simplest example is the interaction of two gases,
hydrogen and oxygen, which, combined in the right proportions and under
the right conditions, produce a new phenomenon, water. Water has
properties which its constituent phenomena do not have. For one, water has
‘liquidity’, a property which neither oxygen nor hydrogen, being gases,
possesses. So, if we can accept the idea that physical phenomena can
combine to give rise to emergent phenomena, the idea of individuals
interacting to give rise to new social, or collective, phenomena at least
becomes a plausible one.
The fact that social phenomena are ‘emergent’ from the interactions of
individual life means that they are likely to require explanation at their own
‘level’, that is, as a phenomenon relative to other facts of collective life.
Just as we suppose that the behaviour of water when spilled, for example, is
to be explained in terms of its liquidity and not in terms of the
characteristics of gases, so we must expect that the facts of our collective
life must also be explained in terms of the laws which govern the behaviour
of collectivities and not in terms of those which apply to the behaviour of
individuals, which are the business of psychology. In this connection
Durkheim makes a strong claim: social life is a natural product of human
life ‘because it arises from that special process of elaboration which
individual consciousnesses undergo through their association with each
other and whence evolves a new form of existence’ (Durkheim, 1982: 144).
However, if social facts are not natural, physical facts, what kind of
reality do they have? In the light of what Durkheim says about the hallmark
of a fact being its independence of individual consciousness, what he goes
on to say about the nature of social facts may, initially, seem paradoxical;
but only because he was struggling to find a way of saying things to which
many of us would now give ready acceptance and easy expression. Social
facts are not physical but mental facts. They are facts of our collective
mental life. Society, in essential respects, consists of what Durkheim terms
‘collective representations’, that is, ‘ways of acting, thinking and feeling
which possess the remarkable property of existing outside the
consciousness of the individual’ (ibid.: 51). Among the examples he cites is
the case of religious belief and how
 the believer has discovered from birth, ready fashioned, the beliefs and practices of his religious
life; if they existed before he did, it follows that they exist outside him. The system of signs that
I employ to express my thoughts, the monetary system I use to pay my debts, the credit
instruments l utilise in my commercial relationships, the practices I follow in my profession,
etc., all function independently of the use I make of them. (ibid.: 54)

The first important point to make in respect of this passage is that it

means that these ways of acting, thinking and feeling exist outside the
consciousness of the single individual. They are things which are common
to the various individual consciousnesses and are, effectively, what we
would nowadays quite readily talk about as ‘shared meanings’ or ‘common
culture’ without any danger of being understood as suggesting, as some of
his contemporaries inferred, that there is any kind of ‘group mind’.
Moreover, they are things which are not just incidentally common, such as
the fact that we have eyes and arms, but are shared. Thus, the language that
any one of us speaks is not the personal possession of that single individual
for it is the essence of a language that many individuals speak it in the same
way, that they mean the same things by the same words, and so on. They
come to share the same language not because of any mysterious process,
but because they learn it from one another. The language is, then, part of the
consciousness of any individual, but that does not make it the possession of
any one of them; it is shared by the members of the linguistic community.
So, just as we do not strain at the idea of ‘the language’ having an existence
– as a system whose organisation as a system the linguistic investigator can
describe – within the community at large, Durkheim suggests that we need
have no difficulty with the idea that practices other than our ways of
speaking, our ways of organising our economic transactions, of arranging
our work activities or of conducting our religious affairs, and more, also
have the same existence within the community at large. It is this that makes
them ‘collective’ phenomena.
Durkheim is referring here to shared ‘ways of doing things’. What is
common to the members of a collectivity is their acceptance of
prescriptions for conduct; prescriptions which portray, or represent, how a
person should act. The analogy with language is, once again, a useful one
here. When we say that a language is shared we mean that its rules
prescribing how persons are to order their words, what can be said, when
and how, and so on, are commonly held. In the same way, when we say that
‘ways of acting’ are shared we also mean that the rules for doing various
things are common to individuals. Thus, social reality is external to the
consciousness of any given individual and consists, in important respects, in
the dispersal throughout the consciousnesses of many individuals of
standardised understandings. ‘Social facts’ are, to that extent, facts of our
‘mental life’ but this does nothing to diminish their reality. If we want to
speak to other human beings we are compelled to use the language they
understand. That others hold to this way of talking means that its necessity
is imposed also upon us. Similarly, if we wish to use money in payment
then we must use the currency that is accepted among the rest of the
community; if they put their confidence only in certain kinds of coinage,
then, if we are to transact business with them, we are also constrained to
employ the appropriate coins. Durkheim’s talk about social life as a
phenomenon of our ‘mental life’ points to nothing other than the reality that
such things as language and currency have as products of common
understandings. But the recognition that they are phenomena of collective
mental life does nothing to diminish their reality, for the conventions of the
language and the currency effectively impose themselves upon the
particular individual.
Over the course of Durkheim’s career there are detectable changes in the
kind of social facts that concerned him, as well as in his conception of the
way in which they exercised their constraining power. Durkheim saw
society as a composite of both ‘material’ and ‘ideal’ elements, if we may
use the same terms we used in reference to Marx and Weber. That is, he saw
society as made up of what are nowadays called ‘structural relations’ among
parts of society, such as the different groups into which persons are
distributed and the necessary arrangements for the conduct of their daily
life, and ‘cultural aspects’, such as religious beliefs, shared systems of
meaning, language and so on. In his early work, Durkheim placed a greater
emphasis on the ‘material aspects’ of social organisation, but came to pay
the latter much more attention, to the point at which, in Elementary Forms
of the Religious Life, it was charged that he was giving them too great an
importance.
A parallel movement is in respect of the notion of ‘constraint’. In his
early work, and consistent with his insistence that an essential feature of
social facts was their externality, he treated constraint as an external
limitation on the individual, stressing the extent to which social rules,
particularly, were features of an individual’s environment and whose
control was supported by sanctions. By the time of Suicide, in 1897, he
treated constraint as an ‘internal’ phenomenon, a matter of the individual’s
own convictions, through social learning, becoming identical with the
requirements of social rules. Typically, the individual followed social rules
not because of a fear of punishment for deviation, but because of an inner
conviction that these were the right ways to behave.

The study of social facts

How are social facts to be studied? Durkheim’s short answer is that, first,
they should be studied scientifically and objectively; they should be treated
not as ideas but as external things. The sociologist must ‘emancipate
himself from the fallacious ideas that dominate the mind of the layman’; in
other words, approach the subject-matter anew, systematically and
methodically, rather than from common-sense ideas and beliefs which are a
product of confused and fragmentary human experience.

They are not due to some transcendental insight into reality but result from all sorts of
impressions and emotions accumulated according to circumstances, without order and without
methodical interpretation. (Durkheim, 1982: 33)

The second step requires the sociologist to define the subject-matter of the
research in terms of common external characteristics. Thus, and to use a
previous example, certain acts have a common external characteristic in that
they evoke a particular reaction from society known as punishment. These
are defined as crime and become the object of the science of criminology.
We can also observe that within all known societies there are small groups
whose special characteristic is that they are preponderantly composed of
individuals who are blood-kin and united by legal bonds. These are
classified as families. Such categorisations of facts are, of course, only the
beginning.
The next task is to explain those social facts, and here Durkheim is at
great pains to dispose of the argument that social facts are ultimately
explicable in terms of psychology. For him, sociology is not a corollary of
psychology. The explanation of social life must be sought in the nature of
society itself, and for reasons reviewed earlier. As a methodological rule he
sets it out as follows:

The determining cause of a social fact should be sought among the social facts preceding it and
not among the states of individual consciousness. (Durkheim, 1982: 110)
The only way in which to demonstrate that a given social fact is the cause
of another is to compare cases in which they are present or absent, in order
to see if the variations they present in these different combinations indicate
that one depends on the other. This is, for Durkheim, the comparative
method of which the experiment, in which the researcher has control over
the production of facts, is a special case. Further, a given effect always
follows from a single cause. In other words, and for example, if suicide
depends on more than one cause then this is because, in reality, there are
several kinds of suicide. Durkheim, in particular, cites the method of
‘concomitant variation’ as the ‘instrument par excellence of sociological
research’ (ibid.: 132). If two phenomena vary with one another then this is a
strong indication that one is in the ‘presence of a law’ (ibid.: 133). This
method is the precursor of what, these days, social research would describe
as correlation, though, typically, without the implication that it is a method
which discovers laws. Durkheim, however, is in no doubt that the science of
sociology should seek to establish the natural laws which connect social
facts and, in this respect, is capable of ranking among the more developed
of the natural sciences. We shall look at his method more closely when we
discuss his work on suicide.
So, Durkheim’s argument for his claim that society involves more than
the sum of the individuals who comprise it is primarily that this ‘more’ is
the shared patterns of thinking, feeling and ways of acting that, these days,
we would describe as a ‘common culture’. Thus, a society is a unit
comprised of a population of changing individuals among whom are shared
certain standard ways of acting, thinking and feeling which distinguish
them from other collections of individuals united by different ways of
acting, thinking and feeling. Those who are united by shared ways
acknowledge what they have in common and hold positive feelings toward
one another. Such, at its simplest, is Durkheim’s idea of the source of the
unity of society.

The Unity of Society

Durkheim was not just interested in promoting a scientific sociology for its
own sake. He also perceived its practical necessity in intervening in a
rational way to promote a greater level of social ‘health’. The development
of a scientific understanding would give us the capacity for greater self-
conscious control of our circumstances, just as it has done in the natural
sciences, which have greatly enhanced our power to turn nature to our ends.
A scientific understanding of the nature of society would, in the same way,
enable us to have similarly self-conscious control of our social lives. Since
there were, Durkheim was convinced, matters deeply wrong with the
organisation of his own society, there was a serious need for a deliberate
and informed reconstruction of society. Understanding the manner in which
society possessed and sustained unity, that is, the presence of ‘cohesion’ or
‘solidarity’, was a principal task for the new science of society and would
contribute to an understanding of how the threats to the society’s overall
integrity could be countered.
One of the more important of these threats in the modern world was that,
as Durkheim saw it, people lacked an adequate understanding of their
relationship to society. As we mentioned earlier, his arguments about the
interrelationship of the individual to society are carried through into the
analysis of the unity of society. In his various studies, he analysed the
interrelationship between the different ‘organs’, or institutions, of society,
their relationship to the ‘conscience collective’, or socially shared values
and sentiments, and the ‘collective representations’, or systems of belief,
and the way in which these both required and created, or failed to do so, a
degree of loyalty to the society, conformity to its rules and reciprocal
solidarity among its members. Durkheim sought to determine the optimal
level of integration amongst these elements for the well-being of the
society, and for its individual members. He was convinced that appropriate
levels of social integration were necessary for individuals to flourish,
enabling them both to play a constructive part in the life of the society and
to develop their own personal capacities to the full.
Earlier we reviewed Durkheim’s arguments for his claim that society
involved ‘something more’ than individuals, showing that this ‘something
more’ consists primarily in shared patterns of behaviour or what, in more
recent sociology, would be called a ‘common culture’. This is not all there
is to it, but it is undoubtedly a significant part of it. In the following
discussion we will develop another vital theme of Durkheim, namely, the
seemingly paradoxical claim that it is only within society that ‘the
individual’ truly exists; that it is only under the ‘discipline’ of society that
an individual is genuinely free.
To speak of ‘a society’ is to speak of an entity which has both unity and
separateness. A society exists in distinction from other societies, and,
accordingly, if there are to be societies at all then there must be boundaries
which separate each of them off from other groupings and which unite them
against others. This is manifestly apparent in the case of war, when a
tremendous emphasis is placed on the respective groups within a society to
stand firmly together, and to subordinate all their internal differences to the
fight against the enemy. Thus, the notions of ‘cohesion’, ‘integration’ and
‘solidarity’ are, in Durkheim’s estimation, inseparable from, and are indeed
constituent of, the very idea of a society. It is not, therefore, surprising that
he should think that central to understanding the reality of society is
understanding the conditions which provide for its wholeness or unity. For
‘a society’ to exist as a distinctive entity it is necessary for it to have, first,
mechanisms for creating solidarity amongst its membership and, second,
ways of showing its unity. And, for Durkheim, the two are related, as has
already been suggested by our earlier discussion of Durkheim’s comments
on crime.

Mechanical and organic solidarity

The earlier discussion of crime was taken from Durkheim’s second book,
The Rules of Sociological Method, in which he intended to elucidate the
general rules of sociological inquiry which he had himself sought to
implement in his first major book, The Division of Labour in Society, first
published in 1893. There Durkheim invites us to consider two contrasting
types of society. The first type of society comes closest to society as
envisaged by Spencer and the utilitarians; that is, a society which is little
more than an aggregate of its individual members. It is a small, simple,
undifferentiated society in which the basic conditions of its members’ lives
are homogeneous. They are probably all engaged in subsistence agriculture
to provide for their own survival. Each person is virtually independent of
each other and, in going about his or her work, places little, if any, reliance
on his or her fellows. If any of them decide to break off and leave the group,
this would not materially disrupt the lives of those who remain behind. Due
to the homogeneity of the circumstances in which they live they will have
much in common, have similar experiences, and out of these will grow
similar conceptions of what the world is like. The outlook and the thoughts
of the members of such a society will be standard, widely shared and
strongly held sentiments of the kind that creates a stark distinction between
permitted and prohibited behaviour, and which engenders the outraged
reaction and the desire to see the criminal suffer that we discussed earlier.
Within such a society, Durkheim argues, the overwhelming emphasis will
be upon the maintenance of uniformity, and this will be reflected in the kind
of law characteristic of such a society. Such law will have an essentially
‘repressive’ character in that its emphasis will be upon ensuring that
conduct which departs from the shared rules, standard conceptions and
ways of thinking will be stifled by the punitive suppression of anyone who
engages in it. Durkheim, in an analogy deliberately drawn from mechanics,
particularly in the way the behaviour of a gas is considered simply as a
resultant of the interactions between the molecules composing it, describes
such a society as one united through ‘mechanical’ solidarity. That is, it is
held together by the likeness of its members and organised on utilitarian
principles simply as an aggregation of individuals.
At this point, it is worth making a reference backward to Marx’s theories,
and forward to Durkheim’s own later collaboration with Marcel Mauss, as
well as to his own work on religion. Prominent in Marx’s rejection of the
Hegelian tradition had been his insistence that ‘social being’ determines
‘consciousness’ and not the reverse. Durkheim is, in The Division of Labour
in Society, making fundamentally the same point, though he goes on to
develop it in a very different way. He is maintaining that the possibility of
developing ways of thinking and systems of belief, that is, consciousness, is
constrained by the form in which the society, that is, social being, is
organised. It is because of the uniform, undifferentiated organisation in this
‘mechanical’ model of society that a thoroughly uniform outlook is created
and sustained among its members. Clearly, by implication, the existence of
diverse ways of thinking and a plurality of belief systems is only possible in
a society with a heterogeneous and differentiated structure. This emphasis
upon the shaping of the very nature of thought by social structure is one
which Durkheim’s later collaboration with Mauss, published as Primitive
Classification (1903), and his own Elementary Forms of Religious Life
would pursue, and intended to demonstrate that even the very basic
‘categories’ in which we think, such as our notions of space and time, are in
fact shaped by the structures of the society in which they appear rather than
reflecting any supposedly general features of the human mind.
In The Division of Labour in Society Durkheim considers a second type
of society, a larger, more complex one which, he argues, is unified by
‘organic solidarity’. Such a society is one which has an elaborated ‘social
division of labour’. Playing a part in the social organisation of society is to
play a specialised role; persons tend to do one single task which is their
individual contribution to the working of society as a whole. The
organisation of work in modern society has been extensively and
elaborately organised around such a division of labour, the most famous
illustration of this, as we have discussed previously, being provided by the
economist Adam Smith (1723–90), who suggested that even in the making
of something so simple as a pin, if this was organised as a series of separate
and specialised tasks, each performed by a separate person, it would
increase the production of pins. Durkheim takes this idea from economics
and applies it to society as a whole, and suggests that in a complex modern
society economic specialisation is only one aspect of the process of
specialisation in all walks of life.
If Adam Smith had characterised an economic division of labour, then
Durkheim was concerned to talk about a ‘social division of labour’, one in
which all sorts of activities, not just those of material production, become
specialised tasks. For example, the care and education of children has
become professionalised, and, furthermore, a task which is shared out
among teachers who are trained to deal with children at different ages and
levels of educational development and with different kinds of educational
problems. The fact that individuals are specialised makes them
interdependent. A specialised contribution to the production of some
commodity is pointless on its own: it can only exist in interrelation with
other specialist activities, as one step in a more elaborate process. Further,
those who are specialised in a particular job of work are dependent on
others for their needs. If our activities are solely devoted to the carrying out
of a single task, then we are unable to provide for our own subsistence
through that single task. We can only devote ourselves single-mindedly to
our specialist preoccupation if we can count on the other members of the
society to be doing other things which complement our activities, busying
themselves about the provision of the things we need for our lives but
which we cannot ourselves supply.
 Of course, a society in which activities are all specialised into a complex
structure will be one with a great deal of diversity rather than the
homogeneity found in societies of the ‘mechanical’ type. The activities of
individuals will differ from each other, and their lives will therefore differ
too, so giving rise to experiences which will vary from individual to
individual and, ultimately, engendering divergent outlooks. The kind of
strong, shared sentiments which are the basis for the unity and conformity
of the mechanically solitary society cannot be found in such a society. Not,
of course, that there is no uniformity, for there will, of course, be the
standardisation of language, of the currency and more besides. However,
the extent of uniformity will be much less and will be interwoven with a
vastly greater degree of diversity.
As already indicated, within a society which is thoroughly homogeneous,
there will be, correspondingly, a uniform ‘conscience collective’ which will
shape the reaction against crime and deviance. It will be ‘repressive’. In a
society which is much more differentiated, however, the ‘conscience
collective’ will not be so homogeneous and will not have underpinning it
such intensely shared and clearly defined sentiments. Without these widely
shared and deeply rooted common sentiments, the reactions which define
crime, and sanction the criminal, will be markedly less evident. The law in a
modern society is less concerned with the repression of crime than it is with
the regulation of commercial, domestic and other relationships. Law has
more of a ‘restitutive’ character, being directed toward repairing the damage
done to relations between individuals through breaches of trust or the
violation of contract, and toward making matters right again.
‘Organic solidarity’ draws on an analogy from biology rather than one
from mechanics. It refers to the kind of unity found in the organism in
which differentiated and specialised parts are combined into a single,
functioning whole, with each part’s own operations depending upon the
whole – the human body being a prime example of this. Though it might be
tempting to think that diversity means conflict, this is not necessarily the
case. The diversity which is created through a ‘social division of labour’
means interdependence and mutual indispensability. The loss of a part from
a mechanically solidary society has little or no implications for the other
parts, but the loss of one part from a whole made up of internally
differentiated, functionally interrelated parts can have great consequences
for the others. The loss of just one hand, for example, can make much of
our life difficult even though our other parts are in good working order.
The two types of society were, Durkheim argued, historically related in
that the ‘organically solidary’ society had evolved out of the ‘mechanical’
type. In placing the two types of society in this relationship of succession
Durkheim was, like Marx, Spencer and many other nineteenth-century
thinkers, taking an evolutionary view of society as an entity which
developed historically, from ‘lower’, less complex forms of organisation to
‘higher’, more complex ones through a sequence of distinct ‘stages’.
Durkheim would retain such evolutionary views throughout his career, and
his last great work on religion was based on the idea that the totemic
practices of the Australian Aboriginals could be viewed as representing the
earliest stage in the evolutionary development of religion.
However, it is worth pointing out, even if only as an aside, that although
they have the word ‘evolution’ in common with him, the nineteenth century
evolutionists of the social sciences do not otherwise share much with
Charles Darwin (1809–82), whose evolutionary theories are the basis of
modern biology. The latter’s theories are about the emergence of diverse
species from common origins, a process which certainly does not take place
through the unilinear succession of stages which was the idea common to
nineteenth-century theories about society. Nor do Darwinian theories
involve the evolution of ‘higher’ forms out of ‘lower’ ones.
Though Durkheim’s account of the development of organically solidary
societies out of mechanically solidary ones is not the same kind of theory as
Darwin’s biological scheme, none the less the mechanism which Durkheim
postulated as instigating such a development was one which Darwin
employed within his theories and which he, in his turn, had taken from the
political economist Thomas Malthus (1766–1834). This mechanism was the
process of competition for survival under the pressure of population growth.
Malthus argued that the rate of growth of populations tends to be such that
they eventually outstrip the capacity of their environment to support them.
This principle led Darwin to the view that the diversity of animal species is
a consequence of the pressure of population on the environment. Part of his
argument is the assumption that a much larger number of organisms can be
sustained within a given environment if those organisms are diverse in
character, as, for example, belonging to different species. Different species
make different demands on the environment and are not necessarily in
direct competition with each other. The only way in which life could
continue to expand over very long periods without exhausting its
environment, Darwin concluded, was to diversify. Durkheim argued
similarly. The population which a given environment can support will be
much smaller if everyone is doing the same thing than if everyone is doing
something different and, accordingly, exploiting diverse aspects of that
environment. If, for example, we are all dependent upon subsistence
agriculture and all require a certain amount of land to sustain us, substantial
population growth will ensure that we will soon run out of land and
starvation will threaten. Population expansion would, Durkheim argued,
mean that the situation of a mechanically solidary society could not remain
stable indefinitely. Eventually the pressure of population expansion would
bring about change: either the population would exhaust the potential of its
environment to meet its needs, or the society would need to adapt its
structure. Since the adaptation would have to sustain a growing population
within the same environment, the only way in which this could be achieved
would be through the development of diversity within the society.
In drawing upon the ‘biological’ fact of population expansion in
explanation of the mechanism of change from the mechanically to the
organically solidary society, many critics have found Durkheim guilty of
deviation from one of his own prime rules of method, namely, that one
should explain facts by facts of the same kind. In other words, that one
should explain one social fact by another social fact. Durkheim, himself,
however, was aware of the risk of falling foul of his own rules and, in The
Division of Labour in Society, tried to argue that it was not population as
such which was the cause of the development, but what he called the
increasing ‘moral density’ which was the corollary of population growth.
This increasing ‘moral density’ was, Durkheim insisted, a proper social fact,
pertaining to the intensification of interactions amongst the members of
society. Critics have, however, often found this manoeuvre unconvincing, as
merely a roundabout way of talking about population pressure as the cause
of social change and an attempt to conceal the fact that a social fact is being
explained by a biological one.
It is in contrasting the two types of society that Durkheim makes one of
his more decisive moves in his battle against ‘individualist’ theories and, in
so doing, provides a meaning for the contention we mentioned earlier,
namely, that the individual is the creation of society.
The individual and society

We have said that the ‘mechanically solidary’ society is more like that
envisaged by the utilitarians than is the ‘organically’ based one. The basis of
mechanical solidarity is homogeneity: the lives, thoughts and outlooks of
the members of society are alike and it is this likeness which is prized.
‘Repressive’ law regulates activities closely, and in detail, and penalises that
which deviates from uniformity. By contrast, ‘organically solidary’ societies
are characterised by diversity, differences in outlook, more complex
structures, interdependence and ‘restitutive law’ which regulates interaction
and repairs relationships between individuals that have arisen through
breaches of contract and violations of trust.
If we think of ‘the individual’ as simply the particular, physical human
beings then, of course, all societies contain individuals, and one cannot say
– and Durkheim does not say – that this kind of individual is possible in
only one type of society. However, in the thought of modern Western
societies, the idea of ‘the individual’ is more than this. It is the notion of
each separate human being as the locus of an irreducible distinctiveness, as
the possessor of a set of unique characteristics, and ‘individual’ in the sense
of special and worthy of respect for this fact alone. Not only are we
possessors of such ‘individuality’ but we are also aware of it: we think of
ourselves as quite different from our fellows and pride ourselves on this. It
is to this latter conception of ‘the individual’ that Durkheim’s polemics are
directed, especially insofar as theorists mistake this distinct, socially and
historically specific conception of the ‘individual’ for a general one
characterising human beings in all kinds of societies. Since this conception
of the individual is found, and can be realised, only in certain kinds of
society, it cannot be the basis for any general sociological theory. The whole
point of the ‘mechanic’–’organic’ contrast is to show that it is not possible
for human beings to be ‘individuals’ in ‘mechanically solidary’ societies. It
is only possible for them to be ‘individuals’ in a society with requisite
characteristics – those of the ‘organic’ type.
We have already mentioned Durkheim’s version of much the same idea
as Marx’s that ‘social being determines consciousness’, and his argument
about the nature of the ‘individual’ is an application of this principle. He is
maintaining the position that particular ideas can only originate under
definite social conditions. Thus, the members of the mechanically solidary
type of society simply cannot think of themselves as ‘individuals’. After all,
if they were to do so, it would be false: they are not such individuals, for the
nature of their lives is such that they are like each other. Furthermore, the
‘conscience collective’, and the ‘collective representations’ of the society
with which they are instilled, are ones which prize uniformity; ones which
lead people to value themselves for being alike unto, not different from,
their fellows. ‘Individuality’ can only come with a change in the basis of
social solidarity, that is, with the emergence of the interdependence that
comes in the context of the complex, organically integrated social system.
The variety of lives, activities and experiences which are possible within
such a society implies a diversity of possibilities within such a setting so
that each person will indeed differ in many important respects from the
next. Though there are, of course, elements of ‘repressive’ law still present,
these are less prominent than in the mechanical type of society and are
proportionately less significant than the elements of ‘restitutive law’. There
is less close, and intense, monitoring of individual behaviour and some lack
of uniformity in conduct is tolerated, even valued, rather than condemned.
Far from contesting the reality of ‘the individual’, then, Durkheim is
attempting to show what that reality consists in. There is no doubt that in
modern organically solidary society we are individuals in this specific
sense. In such a society, our ‘social being’, with its complex social division
of labour, means that we are very individualised creatures; the collective
consciousness which develops is one which leads us to think of ourselves
primarily in terms of our differences from others and to value ourselves,
and each other, because of our uniqueness. This is reflected in our social
and political thinking, which, in modern societies, tends to be about the
extent to which our personal rights and liberties are to be enhanced or
constrained, based on our conviction that there is nothing more important or
valuable than our individual selves which can have the right to interfere in,
or limit, the things we want to do. Durkheim’s concern, not to say fear,
however, was the development of an excessive individualism; that is, of an
individualism so intense that it pathologically exaggerates the extent to
which we are distinct from each other, to the neglect of the extent to which,
even in modern organically solidary society, the members of society are
regulated within a collective life. In thinking about the life of such a society
and the problems that it faces, an exclusive emphasis upon individualism
may unduly distort the way in which the society is analysed, and the way its
problems are consequently identified and tackled. Thus, and we cannot
emphasise this strongly enough, Durkheim is neither denying the reality of
the individual nor attacking individualism. His target is not individualism as
such, but excessive individualism, and it is this that he seeks to correct.
Thus, the recognition of the differences that there are between the
individuals in modern society should not be at the expense of the things that
those individuals share as members of one society. The particular individual
is, for Durkheim, a composite of two parts, one which is the product of the
distinctive, perhaps unique, experiences of a person, and one which is
created through our participation with others in the institutions of the
society. So, in the modern individual there is always a tension between the
claims of society and those of the independent individual. In his preface to
the second edition of The Rules of Sociological Method, Durkheim puts the
point this way:

the coercive power that we attribute to the social fact represents so small a part of its totality that
it can equally well display the opposite characteristic. For, while institutions bear down upon us,
we nevertheless cling to them; they impose obligations on us, and yet we love them; they place
constraints upon us, and yet we find satisfaction in the way they function, and in that very
constraint. (1982: 47)

However, from a sociological point of view, the individualism of modern

society is no herald of a return to utilitarian principles. Though the
individual members of modern society are free to contract relationships
with one another, this is not the basis on which society is founded.

The institution of contract Identifying society only with its individuals

and seeing those individuals as freely contracting economic and social
relationships with each other is to fall into the temptation, as Durkheim
accused Spencer of doing, of thinking that it is through their specific
relations with each other that individuals are creating society. Thus, in the
sphere of business, people will decide with whom they will do business,
with whom they will make partners in what they hope will be profitable
activities, and will formalise their mutual agreement in a contract which
specifies the terms of their future relationship. In social life more generally
people likewise make decisions as to with which other person they will
share their life and enter into the ‘contract’ of marriage to create their
family unit. Thus, the idea that society can be conceived as the product of
contractual agreements between its individual members has some appeal.
Social units, like the business firm or the family, are set up through
contracts among their individual members. It is at this juncture that
Durkheim emphasises the point, specifically against Spencer’s ideas, of
what he calls ‘the non-contractual elements in contract’. Although
Durkheim’s argument is directed against Spencer particularly, it is one
which tells against any attempt to see society as originating in a ‘contract’
among its members and, in so doing, highlights a wider difficulty in
thinking about society. The general problem lies in attempting to understand
how society could possibly exist and giving an account of this in a way that
presupposes the very thing that it is intended to explain. The making of
contractual relationships is a very prominent and vital feature of a modern
society, but the idea that society is a product of contractual relations among
its members is untenable because the making of contractual relationships is
something which can only take place within an already established society.
Durkheim is adamant that ‘contract’ cannot be the basis of society for it
is an institution of society. While it is true that in a society of the
organically solidary kind the individual members of society are relatively
free to make all kinds of contract and to create relationships through
contract, they are not free to make any kind of contract whatsoever. There
are rules governing the kinds of contracts that can be made. In our society,
for example, people cannot sell themselves into slavery. Nor can they
contract marriage with someone below a certain age. A particular
relationship may be created through a contract, but the practice of making a
contract is not created at the same time. Individuals making contracts are
taking advantage of the pre-existence of the practice of making contracts, a
practice which exists in society-at-large. In making any individual-to-
individual contractual agreement persons are depending upon generally
circulating prior understandings and rules about what kinds of matters can
be legitimately agreed in a contract, as well as understandings about the
availability of socially organised ways of enforcing the terms of contracts.
The whole point of making a contract between two individuals is that one
thereby gains the assurance that should one party default the other will have
the support of others, ultimately that of the courts, in enforcing the contract.
A properly made contract does not just bind the two parties to it but
demands also that the legitimacy of the contract’s claims be recognised by
other members of the society. In short, and to repeat, ‘contract’ is a social
institution and it is, therefore, circular to explain society in terms of
contractual relations between individuals, for that is simply to presuppose
the existence of social institutions; that is, the very thing that is purportedly
being explained.
The cumulative force of The Division of Labour in Society is to argue
that far from society being explained in terms of the nature and decisions of
individuals, the opposite is the case. Indeed, the nature of the individual and
his or her capacity to make individual decisions has to be understood as a
product of society. The very ‘individualism’ of modern society is a result of
its social structure. The notion of individualism through which we celebrate
our independence and our diversity is itself a socially shared and
standardised ideology. It is important to stress that Durkheim does not seek
to assert society over the individual, but only to reject a false opposition
between ‘individual’ and ‘society’, reminding us that our undoubted
autonomy from other individuals is concomitant with our mutual
dependence with those same individuals in the social division of labour.
And nowhere is the attempt to emphasise this balance in the relationship
between individual and society more apparent than in Durkheim’s most
famous, not to say notorious, study, Suicide (1893).

Autonomy and Constraint

Suicide achieved its notoriety through its promotion as the model for
sociology as a scientific discipline, and this, largely, because it features the
extensive use of statistics. Though Durkheim drew, for this work, upon a
well-established French tradition of the study of suicide statistics, his use of
such statistics was pioneering. In seeking to understand the causes of
stability and change in the suicide rate, Durkheim recognised the fact that in
the study of social life the experimental method, which he felt to be so
decisive for the success of the natural sciences, cannot be employed. The
experimental method is decisive in the natural sciences in singling out
causes, and if sociology is to be a science and therefore, on Durkheim’s
understanding, to give causal explanations of phenomena, it must contrive
some alternative to the experiment. Durkheim thought that one could isolate
causes through the manipulation of statistics, and it is in his use of statistics,
in an attempt to isolate contributory causes, that his book is pioneering.
 We earlier noted that Durkheim’s recommendation ‘consider social facts
as things’, involved the claim that the subject-matter of sociology was
‘social facts’ and that sociologists should adopt the same attitude to those
facts that the natural scientist takes to natural facts. This latter claim meant
that social facts should be studied with detachment and without
preconceptions. However, because the notion of ‘science’ is, in so many
minds, closely wedded to the notion of ‘quantification’ (more crudely, to the
use of numbers) it was Durkheim’s extensive use of statistics in his study
that became the main feature which established Suicide’s claim to
exemplary scientific status.
In The Structure of Social Action (1937) Parsons noted another common
thread in the work of Durkheim and Weber, namely, their claims about the
impact of Protestantism on the ‘mentalities’ of Western European societies.
Weber, as we have seen, traced the origin of the capitalist economic
organisation which held sway throughout those societies to certain
unintended consequences of Protestant, most specifically, Calvinist,
teaching; creating, for example, the motivation for capitalist accumulation.
For Weber the pursuit of capitalist accumulation required the kind of
determined motivation which would abandon all attachment to traditional
social ties and a willingness to overthrow their customs and practices. Thus,
Weber’s view of the Protestant Reformation was that it had provided a
tremendous boost to individualism, and contributed decisively to the idea
that individuals should go about their lives guided by the rational
calculation of their own interests rather than in accord with the dictates of
tradition. Durkheim shared Weber’s view that Protestantism was a source of
individualism and placed particular emphasis on the way that this led to the
separation of the individual from a supportive religious community. Both
Weber and Durkheim also claimed that the way in which Protestantism
made people individually responsible for their religious salvation placed a
considerable burden upon each believer’s shoulders, making each feel his or
her isolation from his or her fellows in the face of God. While Weber’s
essay on The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism begins from the
observation that Protestants are disproportionately represented among
successful businessmen, Durkheim notes that they are disproportionately
represented among suicides.

The study of suicide

Suicide was intended as a decisive demonstration of Durkheim’s case about
the reality of the level of social facts and the necessity of using them in
sociological explanation. The study would strike a blow against the idea
that facts about individuals could be understood entirely in terms of other
facts about those individuals. There were, rather, some facts about
individuals which could only be understood in terms of social facts. The
case of suicide provided the possibility of such a decisive demonstration not
least because committing suicide is normally seen as something strictly
personal, to be decided in complete independence of anyone or anything
else. However, such a view would have to be reconciled with the observed
stability Durkheim’s predecessors had found in suicide rates. Without
denying that whether or not a particular individual takes his or her own life
is a matter for that individual, we have to come to terms with the way that,
according to these statistics, the proportion of individuals committing
suicide within a given population remains relatively stable over long
periods of time and shows, furthermore, a similarity of pattern across
different societies. If individuals are making the decision to take their own
life, then they are doing so in a way which generates remarkably regular
statistical rates. It is essential to remember, then, that Durkheim’s purpose
in Suicide is not to explain why individuals commit suicide but to explain
why suicide rates exhibit such stability.
Suicide also continued Durkheim’s preoccupation with understanding the
relationship between the individual and society. Its primary case can be
stated as follows: there is a correct balance between the individual’s
dependence upon and independence of society, a balance which promotes
the individual’s well-being. Too little or too much independence from
society are both harmful. And what could be a better sign of a lack of
individual well-being than that individuals should destroy themselves?
Hence, what better setting for an evaluation of the relationship between
individual and society than the examination of the patterns of suicide?
The study is also a demonstration of not only the injunction to treat social
facts as things but also the method by which this can be done. The statistical
rates were not themselves social facts but, rather, indicative of them. The
stability of the suicide rates is caused by the ‘moral constitution of groups’
and these rates thus ‘differ from group to group and in each of them remain
for long periods practically the same’ (1951: 305). The rates are reflections
of ‘suicidogenic currents’ within groups. But by comparing rates with the
characteristics of relevant groups within society the social facts could be
ascertained and the causal relations identified. Durkheim’s method has two
components: first, comparing suicide rates between various subgroups and,
second, eliminating alternative explanations by comparing suicide rates
with the rates of other potentially related factors. For example, he suggests
that one explanation of suicide is that it is due to mental illness. He then
applies such statistics as can be found relating insanity and suicide. In
certain respects there is a connection. Both suicide and insanity are more
frequent in urban areas than in rural. Both tend to rise and fall together year
by year. However, Durkheim suggests that there are other matters which
suggest that there is not a strong connection between insanity and suicide.
For example, the number of women in mental institutions is slightly higher
than is the number of men, but women in the population as a whole
constitute only about 20 per cent of the suicides. Among Jews the insanity
rate is above average yet their suicide rate is very low. Catholics exhibit a
slightly less than average insanity rate but commit suicide much less often.
There is also a discrepancy at the ages in which insanity and suicide
tendencies show themselves. The suicide rate increases with age but
insanity is highest between the ages of 30 and 45 years. Further, although
high insanity rates and high suicide rates are often found together, some
countries with low suicide rates have high insanity rates. Nor does close
examination of the data available to him show any consistent relationship
between alcoholism and suicide. In this fashion, by carefully correlating the
statistical rates with other factors, Durkheim felt able to show that suicide is
not consistently related to factors such as race, heredity, climate, imitation,
and so on, and having disposed of non-social causes to his satisfaction, he
feels that he has successfully made the case that variations in the suicide
rate are due to social causes.
Durkheim identified four types of suicide, though he gives only passing
mention to the fourth, ‘fatalistic’ type, which he includes ‘for completeness
sake’, because it has ‘so little contemporary importance … that it seems
useless to dwell upon it’ (ibid.: 276). However, it is a balancing contrast to
‘anomic’ suicide in the similar way that ‘egoistic’ and ‘altruistic’ suicides
contrast with one another. ‘Anomic’ suicide, as we shall see, arises when
the individual is insufficiently regulated by society, and the ‘fatalistic’ kind
is one in which the individual is excessively regulated by social
circumstances in which individuals find themselves ‘with futures pitilessly
blocked and passions violently choked’ as, for example, in the suicides of
slaves or those subject to despotism.
Durkheim’s main attention is reserved for the three other types of suicide.
The statistics showed that in societies of roughly comparable character the
average number of suicides per million inhabitants was much higher for
Protestants than for Catholics. Rejecting the readiest explanation that this
difference is due to the intensity of the Catholic prohibition of suicide,
Durkheim proposes, instead, as a ‘first conclusion’ that the ‘proclivity of
Protestantism for suicide must relate to the spirit of free inquiry which
animates this relation’ (1951: 158). However, this relationship must be
understood ‘correctly’ for it is not that there is some intrinsic desirability to
free inquiry. The demand for free inquiry must be understood as ‘only the
effect of another cause’, something which has arisen because it has been
made necessary by social change. Durkheim, in fact, reverses what might
otherwise be imagined as the causal order. It might be expected that the
spirit of free inquiry would have led to the overthrow of traditional beliefs
but, he argues, it is because traditional beliefs have been overthrown that
the demand for free inquiry has arisen ‘to fill the gap which has appeared,
but which it has not created’. In a passage which states the essence of the
argument that he later developed in Elementary Forms of Religious Life
(1912), Durkheim asserts,

If a new system of beliefs were constituted which seemed as indisputable to everyone as the old,
no one would think of discussing it any longer. Its discussion would no longer even be
permitted; for ideas shared by an entire society draw from this consensus an authority that
makes them sacrosanct and raises them above dispute. For them to have become more tolerant,
they must first already have become the object of less general and complete assent and been
weakened by preliminary controversy. (1951: 159)

We will return to this passage at a later and more appropriate moment, but
at this point we can detect a reiteration of the argument in The Division of
Labour in Society about the transition from the mechanically to the
organically solidary society. Where there is a homogeneity of sentiments
and beliefs, as in mechanical solidarity, these will be rigorously enforced,
and any discussion of the validity of the established beliefs and sentiments
would require placing them into question. But even to suggest that
established beliefs were questionable would itself be a form of deviation
and, therefore, prohibited and punishable. Thus, it can only be in a situation
where the ‘conscience collective’ is less homogeneous, more differentiated,
that such questioning becomes possible. There cannot, accordingly, be a
uniform acceptance of beliefs if there is to be any possibility of discussing
and questioning them. Therefore, the sentiments and beliefs of a group must
have less authority than they did previously in order for the idea of ‘free
inquiry’ into them to be even thinkable. Thus, the esteem of free inquiry
must be a product of social change, not the source of it.
As far as the religions of Western Europe are concerned, Durkheim
considers that the Catholic church produces more of a ‘mechanically’
solidary grouping than do the Protestant churches. In the former there is still
a great deal of homogeneity of belief and sentiment which possesses,
therefore, unquestioned authority. The Protestant churches’ ‘concessions’ to
individual judgements mean that there is no longer any consensus to serve
as communal authority. However, the disproportionate inclination of
Protestants to suicide is not caused by their commitment to free inquiry, but
by their desire for knowledge caused by the ‘loss of cohesion of religious
society’ (ibid.: 169).
Durkheim, then, turns his attention to the organisation of the family and
of political society. Looking at the statistical relationships again he finds
that in general, though not invariably, married people are less inclined to
suicide than are unmarried ones. Considering political society he invokes
statistics which show that political crises often reduce, rather than increase,
the number of suicides: for example, ‘all the revolutions that have occurred
in France during this [the nineteenth] century reduced the number of
suicides at the moment of their occurrence’ (1951: 203). Durkheim tries to
eliminate all other possible causes which might explain the statistical
correlations in order that he may press the conclusion that it is membership
in a closely knit social group which ‘protects’ the individual against the
inclination to suicide. It is the fact of membership in a family, of having
strong and active social ties with other individuals, which is the essential
influence that ‘marital status’ has on the suicide rate, and it is the capacity
of ‘great popular wars and great social disturbances’ to ‘rouse collective
sentiment, stimulate partisan spirit and patriotism, political and national
faith, alike, and concentrating activity toward a single end, at least
temporarily cause a stronger integration’ (ibid.: 208) of social groups which
explains the way that political disturbances bring down suicide rates.
In all these cases, then, what prevents suicide is the extent to which an
individual is part of – ‘integrated in’, to use Durkheim’s own way of putting
it – a social group within which there are strong and active ties to other
individuals and within which there are strongly shared sentiments and
beliefs.

Suicide and social solidarity There are two aspects to this which we
should emphasise. One is that within the strongly united group it is the
group as such which controls the individual and puts the sacrificing of the
individual’s life at the group’s disposal. The other, and for Durkheim the
more important, is the extent to which ‘excessive individualism’ not only
leads to greater tolerance of the idea of suicide, but also itself causes
suicide. Although it might be thought that in an individualistic society
individual lives might become more fulfilled by people doing what they
want to do, Durkheim insists that this is not the case. Some of our greatest
satisfactions, those which give most meaning to our lives, are those which
are involved in our acting in and for groups. Even in societies characterised
by highly developed individualism it does not follow, he argued, that
individuals derive their entire and greatest satisfactions from activities
which are self-serving. Even in such societies, many of the things we do,
and take great satisfaction from, are ones which serve the purpose of the
groups that we belong to, such as our family or our country, and which may
involve service to others and even self-sacrifice on our part.
Again, we are reiterating Durkheim’s deep and abiding point that though
the development of individualism is, in many respects, a beneficial
development, it must not be conceived as the straightforward antithesis of
social regulation. Although that development must be, in certain respects at
the expense of social regulation, it should not be invariably at its expense.
The well-being of both the society and its individual members necessitates
the social regulation of the lives of those members. Durkheim can, perhaps,
be understood as saying the same thing, though from a very different
perspective, as the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, when he
argued that the price of civilised life is the acceptance, on the part of the
individual of a measure of constraint and the subordination of purely
personal gratifications to other purposes.
‘Excessive individualism’ leads individuals to become the entire object of
their own preoccupations. Without ties to a family, religious or political
group, without attachment to a social unit larger and more important than
themselves, individuals may truly and powerfully feel their own
insignificance and mortality, find themselves living a life that has no true
meaning or larger purpose, one which ‘is not worth the trouble of being
lived’, with the result, says Durkheim, that ‘everything becomes a pretext to
rid ourselves of it’ (1951: 213). ‘Egoistic’ suicide gets its name from the
nature of its cause, namely, the reduction of a human life to nothing more
than the manifestation of the immediate concerns of a socially isolated ego.
‘Altruistic suicide’ is the opposite of the ‘egoistic’, and relates to the
earlier point about the way in which the strongly solidary social group has
the individual’s life at its disposal. In the typical case, the group’s rules will
demand that individuals preserve their life. But there are circumstances
under which this will be forfeit. ‘Altruistic suicide’ is possible only where
the individual is very strongly bound into the group, to the extent that the
individual’s own life seems of less value than the well-being of the group;
where the individual’s sense of his or her own worth, relative to the values
of the group, is so weak that his or her life can be demanded on behalf of
that group. Durkheim looks to what were then termed ‘lower’ societies,
because they were held to be less structurally complex in their organisation,
and would be typically of the ‘mechanically’ solidary sort. It was alleged,
he says (ibid.: 217), that in such societies suicide was unknown, and it
would be a consequence of Durkheim’s argument that the intense
integration of such a society in terms of shared beliefs and sentiments
would mean that suicide would be forbidden. Hence, ‘egoistic suicide’ is
not to be found in such societies. However, he cites cases in which suicide
was commended as a matter of honour and suggests suicides in such
societies fall into three categories: those in which the old or the sick are
required to die, those in which the widowed are required to do so, and those
in which those who have lost their leader must follow him into death. In
such cases the suicide is not a matter of individual motivation but of what is
required: it is, in a phrase, a matter of duty.
Put simply, Durkheim’s point here is that the individual’s entire being is
tied up with his or her socially defined position, the loss of which will
render him or her entirely without worth in the group. Thus, old age or
sickness deprives a man of his position as a competent warrior; the position
of wife defines the woman for the society and widowhood takes away this
vital position; one’s attachment to a leader’s band provides one’s position
and the death of the leader destroys it. Without a position to make one’s life
valid then one is required to remove oneself from the society. Such
‘altruistic’ suicides are not commonly found in our society, save in those
groups which, like certain sectors of the military, are tightly solidary. The
name of ‘altruism’ then attaches by virtue of the individuals putting the
group before themselves. Of course, important to Durkheim’s development
of this point is that ‘altruistic’ suicides occur in groups which are so
strongly integrated that the individual has no very strong sense of having a
separate, individual existence; conceptions of self are so strongly wedded
into social positions, and into membership of the group, that there is little
sense of personal independence from the group.
The ‘egoistic suicide’, the contrary to ‘altruistic suicide’, is the result of
insufficient integration into the social group so that it cannot provide the
individual with the meaningfulness of life that comes from the feeling of
being part of something greater than oneself. The fourth type, ‘anomic
suicide’, is the opposite of the ‘fatalistic’ type mentioned earlier. This latter
type involves the stifling of the individual’s hopes and objectives by the
oppressiveness of social circumstances, as the slave’s imposed position may
render his or her life hopeless. The ‘anomic’ type, therefore, results from the
absence of society’s control over the individual’s hopes and aspirations, and
is of considerable importance to Durkheim.
A life in which desires were disproportionate to the means available to
satisfy them would be unbearable. Imagine an insatiable thirst: the desire
for drink would be an acute torture with no prospect of alleviation. Of
course, in human life we rarely have wants which are so unrealistically
related to the possibility of their satisfaction. Like other animals, there are
natural limits to our wants. Our thirst is not endlessly demanding and a
modest amount of drinking will satisfy it. However, unlike other animals
our wants are not exhausted by our material needs. We have many other
desires, such as those for well-being, comfort and luxury, for example, and
there is no natural, biological limit to these. Accordingly, in Durkheim’s
view, such appetites are inherently infinite. Normally, desires are regulated
by our conscience, our inner sense of what is right and wrong, of what is
appropriate and inappropriate. But why should the strength of conscience be
capable of containing potentially insatiable needs? Because the limitation
which is set is recognised to be a just one, that is, as a limitation which has
authority deriving from a source which individuals recognise as greater than
and superior to themselves. In Durkheim’s scheme of things there is only
one source which has the requisite greatness and superiority to provoke the
respect which is given to the morality which regulates social life: society
itself. Hence, a crucial part of our individual mentalities is made up by the
moral rules of the society.

The internalisation of the moral order In more contemporary terms, this

making over of aspects of the society’s rules into features of our individual
personalities is called ‘internalisation’ and involves the making of society’s
‘external’ requirements a part of the individual’s own ‘internal’ personality.
This, of course, explains why it is that though social facts are external and
constraining they are not necessarily experienced directly as such. The
notion which is nowadays complementary to that of ‘internalisation’ is that
of ‘socialisation’, the process whereby the new member of society is trained
in, learns and identifies with the ways of the group he or she is entering.
Through this learning the new members come to share, that is, internalise,
the ways, beliefs and the sentiments of the group. In the typical case, then,
individuals rightly feel that their actions are spontaneous, springing from
their own desires, not being done because of the imposition of any external
requirement. The individual is indeed acting spontaneously, but the psychic
make-up from ‘which the action originates is one which itself consists of a
moral sensibility which has been derived from society. Through
internalisation the society’s requirements have become the individual’s own
feelings, attitudes, convictions and responses, so what the individual wants
to do and what society requires are one and the same thing. Thus, it is
through this emphasis upon what we now call ‘internalisation’ and
‘socialisation’ that Durkheim seeks to bridge the gap that others find
between the ‘freely acting’ individual and the ‘constraining’ society.
It is society, then, that defines a particular individual’s wants. By this
Durkheim did not mean to nominate society as some supernatural agency,
only that the organisation of society will typically consist of arrangements
in which standards of individual want and aspiration will be made
compatible with their satisfaction, and that these standards will be
‘internalised’ by the individual. Not surprisingly, given the logic of his
argument, one of the primary ways in which such standards will be set is
through the stratification arrangements of a society. It is important,
Durkheim maintains, that our wants should be proportionate to the
resources that we have to satisfy them, but, of course, the resources that
people have access to are unevenly distributed. This uneven distribution of
resources is a stratification arrangement, and it is, therefore, the next logical
step to argue that standards should specify a properly proportionate
relationship between wants and resources for different strata. What is a
realistic aspiration for someone in a higher stratum would be unrealistic for
someone in a lower one. Thus, individuals who have internalised the
standards of their social class would have a realistic relationship between
their expectations and the likelihood of their satisfaction, and though life
may be, as a result, in varying ways pleasant and unpleasant depending on
one’s place within the stratification order, it is not the perpetual torture
alluded to above. Durkheim argues that in the typical case the standards
associated with the class system will be such as to make individuals feel
that inequities in the distribution of resources and the conditions of life are
legitimate ones such that those who have more resources and better
conditions are regarded as deserving of them. Such legitimacy is not
automatic for there can surely be cases in which people doubt their justice,
as in the modern societies of Durkheim’s time when ‘aristocratic prejudices
begin to lose their old ascendancy’ (1951: 251). But in such cases the
arrangements are unstable and ‘appetites superficially restrained are ready
to revolt’.
Earlier we offered Durkheim’s view that the individual could only truly
flourish under the ‘discipline’ of a society, and his account of the way in
which institutionalised standards of life discipline what would otherwise be
unrealistic and insatiable appetites is one of the best examples of what is
meant by this. If individuals were left entirely to themselves they would be
ruled by completely uncontrollable desires and would, on Durkheim’s
argument, be constantly tortured by frustrated aspirations. It is because
people live within a framework which sets realistic limits to what they want
that they can have the satisfaction that comes from fulfilling, at least
temporarily, those desires.
Accordingly, and to return to the discussion of ‘anomic suicide’, while
fatalistic suicide is one which results from society’s excessive limitation of
individual aspirations, ‘anomic suicide’ results from society’s insufficient
regulation of them. Since individuals are brought up within their society’s
stratification arrangements, there will typically be a regulation of
individual’s wants in a way that will ‘adjust’ them to what is realistically
appropriate for someone in that social position. Thus, the situation of
anomie will develop when the discipline of desires established through
internalisation breaks down, when the standards which have become part of
the individual’s conscience are rendered inappropriate to external
circumstance. Such situations can occur when there are rapid
socioeconomic changes, when people’s social positions are rapidly
readjusted, more rapidly than will allow the adjustment of their expectations
to their new situations: situations when individuals move rapidly down and
up the socioeconomic scale. Times of social crisis or economic boom and
bust are ones which will produce the tendency to anomic suicide. The
internalised standards which regulate appetites are rendered inapplicable by
the change in the individual’s social and economic circumstances, which
means that the limitations upon appetites are lifted, and the experience of
uncontrolled, unsatisfied desires is such that life would be unbearable.
Furthermore, during times of such rapid, drastic change the whole order of
society is perturbed and other features of social life which could serve to
constrain and calm the individual are also inoperative, the end result being
suicide. ‘Anomic suicide’ is, then, to a large extent the product of periodic
disruption of the social order. But within industrial society there is also a
constant source of such suicide, namely, economic activity. Durkheim
thought that the economic sphere had become too independent of other
areas of social life, so much so that it was able to go its own way, without
regard for the consequences of its activity for the rest of society, with both
religious and political powers losing their capacity to regulate it. Industry,
instead of being still regarded as a means to an end, has taken on a life of its
own and has become the supreme end of individuals and societies alike
(1951: 255). Together with the tremendous success of economic activity,
this loss of regulation has made the possibilities of economic activity seem
unlimited, with the (otherwise) pointless pursuit of novelty and with the
whole frenzied atmosphere of economic expansion bordering upon fantasy.
In such a context, inevitable economic setbacks will be more shocking and
shattering than they might otherwise be to individuals who have invested
their whole life in such frenetic activity.
While Durkheim distinguishes four types of suicide, ‘fatalistic’,
‘egoistic’, ‘altruistic’ and ‘anomic’, each distinguished by its causal
characteristics, he does recognise that more than one of these types may be
involved in any actual instance of suicide, as when anomie and altruism
combine. An example of this could be when someone is bankrupted and
thus placed in an anomic relationship to his or her environment, but
commits suicide for the altruistic reasons of sparing the rest of the family
the social disgrace thereby incurred.
As noted earlier, the various things that we might ordinarily consider as
motivations for suicide, such as depression, financial setbacks, divorce,
poverty and so forth, are all considered by Durkheim in the course of his
study. Typically, they are considered with the purpose of showing that they
are not invariantly associated with suicide and cannot, therefore, be its true
cause. It is only under certain external, and, for Durkheim, therefore social,
conditions that these factors are associated with suicide. The suicide rate is
not determined by features of individuals at all but is, in fact, set by the
properties of the organisation of the collective life. It is because the
organisation of the collective life remains stable over long periods that
suicide rates show their remarkable stability. The properties of that
organisation create varying types of situation and these act upon
individuals. But they act upon individuals differentially – some individuals
are more prone to desperation in a desperate situation etc. – and the
operation of forces at work throughout a community will, therefore, impact
upon individuals who are more predisposed to respond to the situation by
taking their own life. Durkheim talks of ‘suicidogenic currents’ which can
sometimes sweep through society, and can, in their effect, be analogous to
the wind shaking leaves off a tree. It is the strength of the wind, and not the
characteristics of the leaves, which is the cause of their fall, though, of
course, the wind will most easily remove those leaves which are less
strongly attached to the tree and, thus, poorly protected from the wind’s
strength. Once again, one of Durkheim’s very strange and implausible
sounding contentions – that society ‘demands’ a given rate of suicide – is
not quite so nonsensical as it might sound, but is making the point that only
if the social conditions which cause suicide are stable, then so too will be
the rate that they cause.
However, even though arguing this, Durkheim is at the same time wary
of having his arguments about the relationship between the individual and
the society taken too ‘deterministically’ as though he were implying that the
individual is only some puppet of supra-individual social forces. As a
corrective to such an impression he argues that we lead a double existence,
one which is based on the fact that our personalities are partially formed by
the internalisation of shared rules, beliefs and sentiments and another
shaped by our own, distinct, individual experience and, therefore, not
always in accordance with socially standardised obligations. This means,
says Durkheim, that we are drawn in two directions at once. As socialised
members of a collectivity we are drawn to fulfil its requirements but,
insofar as we have distinct individual personalities, we also rebel against
the collectivity’s constraints. Even as we, as individuals, kick against the
constraints imposed upon us, we expect others to respect their obligations to
us. However, although mutual pressure is important for containing
individual impulses to rebel, this is much less important for Durkheim than
the way in which society imposes its moral authority on us. In other words,
we obey the rules of society because we regard them as having the right to
our compliance.
Toward the end of Suicide Durkheim, resolutely and consistently
opposing any effort to seek the origin of social institutions in the
characteristics of individuals, makes a preliminary statement of the theme
of his last major book, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. He says:

Usually the origin of religion is ascribed to feelings of fear or reverence inspired in conscious
persons by mysterious and dreaded beings; from this point of view, religion seems merely like
the development of individual states of mind and private feelings. But this over-simple
explanation has no relation to facts.… The individual would never have risen to the conception
of forces which so immeasurably surpass him and all his surroundings had he known nothing
but himself and the physical universe.… The power thus imposed on his respect and become the
object of his adoration is society, of which the gods were only the hypostatic form. Religion is in
a word the system of symbols by means of which society becomes conscious of itself; it is the
characteristic way of thinking of collective existence. (1951: 312)

The immediately relevant point is the way in which society is encountered

by individuals as something which ‘immeasurably’ surpasses their own
capacities, as something which is commanding of respect to the point of
becoming the object of the greatest adoration, something which is surely
capable of gaining the individual’s acceptance of its moral authority.

The Solidarity of Society

Although Durkheim’s attentions after his work on suicide transferred to

religion, his sociological preoccupations remained constant. The
Elementary Forms of Religious Life represents an investigation into the way
in which religion serves as a source of society’s moral authority and also
provides, through its rituals, a mechanism for the creation of social
solidarity. Durkheim also weaves into the book an argument that he was to
develop later, namely, that even the constructs by which we think, are given
to us by society. The whole book elaborates the remarks in Suicide about
the gods being the hypostatic form of society’s power and religion being
‘the system of symbols by means of which society becomes conscious of
itself’.

The study of religion

Durkheim starts from the assumption that religion is not to be explained in

its own terms, that is, as a response to the presence of supernatural powers
in the world. There are no superhuman powers, except those of society. In
this respect, Durkheim’s views are comparable to those of Feuerbach, so
significant an influence on Marx, who held that to think of God as creating
humankind is to get matters the wrong way around. God is a human
creation. However, while it may be that there is no God, Durkheim does not
want to dismiss religion as simple error or complete delusion, but, like
Marx, argues that to understand the hold that religion has upon people one
must investigate its social role. The very fact that religion is such a
widespread phenomenon testifies, for Durkheim, that there must be
something to it. The problem is, therefore, to determine what truth religion
represents. In this connection, Durkheim takes a very different direction to
that of Marx. The latter supposes that religion is the ideological expression
of the inadequate capacity of existing social conditions to realise the full
human potential of people, whilst for Durkheim religion expresses some
profound truths about the relationship between society and its members.
There are two directions in which his search could have gone, one of which
we have already seen that Durkheim does not favour, namely, seeing
religion as the ‘development of individual states of mind and private
feelings’. The other is, of course, to examine religion as the product of
collective life.
For this purpose a general account of religion is required, and the first
step is the identification of the range of phenomena to be covered by it. Not
all things we should want to call religious phenomena necessarily involve
notions of the supernatural, and the very capacity to make a distinction
between a ‘natural’ order of things and a ‘supernatural’ one is found only in
certain kinds of societies. Nor do religions necessarily involve any
divinities: the Buddha is a focus of worship but is not himself a divine
being. Religions typically involve two main parts, beliefs and rites.
Religious beliefs separate the things of the world into two kinds, those
which are ‘profane’ and those which are ‘sacred’. The sacred is identified
by being set apart within our lives, segregated from profane matters, and is
the recipient of a special attitude of exceptional respect: we look upon the
sacred with awe. Rites are activities which have a sacred aspect and which
perform the actions that relate us to sacred things. This distinction between
the sacred and the profane Durkheim alleges to be universal. The heart of
religion, then, is a set of beliefs about the sacred and a set of rites which
relate us to the sacred. However, these beliefs and practices make up a
unified system and are, further, associated with a social group, what
Durkheim terms ‘a church’, that is, a group of people, whatever
organisational form it might take, who hold in common the relevant set of
beliefs and rites.
The second task becomes that of understanding the nature of the beliefs
and rites involved in religion. For the purpose of this investigation
Durkheim chose to focus upon the religion of the Australian Aborigines, on
the grounds that the very small and simple structures of their society meant
that the religion found there must be the underlying form of religion to be
found in all societies, including much more complex ones. We earlier
mentioned that Durkheim held characteristically nineteenth-century views
about the evolutionary development of complex societies out of simpler
ones, views which are no longer generally accepted, and certainly no one
accepts that any existing society, like that of the Aborigines, can be thought
of as representing any primitive evolutionary precursor of other, structurally
more complex societies. It was, however, his evolutionary ideas which
allowed Durkheim to suppose that the religion found in the smallest,
simplest societies must contain the essentials of religion – must possess its
‘elementary forms’ – out of which all religion could develop. Hence,
through the re-examination of the anthropological studies of the Aborigines
Durkheim thought he was examining the early beginnings of society and
religion.
The religion of the Aborigines was a ‘totemic’ one. The society was
divided into groups, each of which was associated with a ‘totem’, that is,
with some natural object which was the recipient of special attitudes and
treatments. These natural phenomena were quite ordinary, such things as a
place, for example, a particular rock or lake, or some species of animal,
such as a parrot or a wallaby. The group would identify itself by the name
of the totem. In fact, these totemic practices served the purpose of
Durkheim’s argument well. He could make the crucial point that the totemic
objects themselves were hardly awe-inspiring things. They were very
ordinary and utterly profane in all respects save that in which they were
approached by the totemic group. There was nothing intrinsic to the totems
which made them deserving of the respect that they received. Their role
had, rather, to be a symbolic one: they were treated with respect because
what they stood for deserved respect.
The nature of the totemic practices readily enabled Durkheim to make a
further vital argument. The totem was associated with a group, and the role
of the totem was in many ways comparable to that which the flag plays in
our society, as an object ‘standing for’ the group. Thus, Durkheim makes
the connection between religious symbolism and the collective life: the
totem symbolises the group with which it is associated. Since it is not the
totemic item itself which is capable of evoking the awe and the respect
which is directed toward it, and if there is no genuine level of supernatural
phenomena for it to symbolise, then, since the totem symbolises the social
group, it must be this which is capable of giving rise to the responses which
are associated with the totem, and with the sacred more generally.
In the passage cited above Durkheim speaks of the gods as ‘only the
hypostatic’ form of society, that is, as standing for that which is in fact the
true object of religious adoration. However, even if it is conceded that
society is the sort of entity capable of generating the responses that are
associated with the sacred, the question remains as to why the ‘worship of
society’, if we may provisionally put it that way, takes ‘hypostatised’ form;
that is, why is it done in this oblique symbolic way, with ‘the gods’ or
‘totems’ being the ostensible focus of religious observance? Durkheim’s
answer is that the conceptions involved are not really ‘digestible’ by the
human intellect, save in a symbolic form. The human mind cannot directly
comprehend the fact of its relation of dependence upon and subordination to
society. In its most basic terms, his case is that systems of religious beliefs
do represent a reality; the fact that they are so ubiquitous throughout human
history and human societies signifies that they cannot be entirely illusion.
Were it so, then presumably that illusion would be exposed for what it is,
and could not persist so extensively in the face of the facts which patently
negated it. However, religion is extensively persistent and it cannot,
therefore, be viewed as being opposed to the facts but must – or so
Durkheim argued – be seen to be compatible with them. Since there is no
‘supernatural’ reality to conform to, religious beliefs must therefore be
conforming to that which exists only naturally. Insofar as religious belief
appears to postulate something which is different from the natural world,
then it cannot truly be so doing, since there is nothing of that kind.
Underlying these arguments is Durkheim’s assumption that the major
creations of the human mind cannot be products of pure imagination: ideas
cannot just come from nowhere. Ideas must, for Durkheim, be inspired by
some external model. Hence, if we are to explain where religious ideas –
such as those of superhuman, immortal and impersonal forces – come from,
then we will have to look for something in the world external to the human
mind from which those ideas can be derived, upon which they can be
modelled. Religious belief, therefore, must be modelled upon natural
realities, even though it represents them in forms which do not naturally
occur. Accordingly, religious representations must capture a reality which
naturally exists but expresses this in indirect symbolic form. Inanimate
nature has often been offered as a candidate reality which religion seeks to
apprehend, inspiring thoughts of greater-than-human forces in us by its
powers and glories, but Durkheim rejected this possibility. However
inspirational natural phenomena may be, there is nothing about them to
suggest the idea of a higher, indeed exalted, level of reality, and it is, of
course, the conception of just such a higher, sacred level that is one of the
essentials of religious belief. If we cannot look to the world of inanimate
natural phenomena, then there is only one place within the world of natural
phenomena which remains as a possibility. It is to social reality that we
must look – to society itself – for there we can find something which could
give rise in the human mind to the idea of something greater and more
exalted than our individual selves.
The notion of impersonal forces which control individual behaviour is
one which is very prominent in our scientific thinking. That our behaviour
is governed by the inexorable laws of physics is one which is nowadays
readily acceptable. Durkheim alleged that science has taken over this notion
of impersonal forces from religion and, thus, the comprehension of nature
in terms of scientific laws means their comprehension in terms of an idea
which is modelled in religion and, therefore, as we shall see, on society.
Totemism may focus upon particular totemic objects but the object of
worship is an anonymous and impersonal force which is independent of
individuals, which is not itself mortal in the way that they are, but which is
capable of entering into those individuals: both the totemic object and the
members of the totemic group partake of this force, and individuals are
affected by it, made to feel exalted and exceptionally powerful. The force is,
then, abstract and intangible, one which can only be made manifest in the
form of some visible object, ‘the material form in which the imagination
represents this immaterial substance’ (Durkheim, 1976: 189). The capacity
to form an idea of an abstract and universal force is itself something that
can only be achieved under appropriate social conditions, and those of the
Australian Aboriginal groups are not so appropriate. Their society is divided
into sub-groups which, organised on a totemic basis, lead them to think of
themselves as groups which are essentially distinct from each other. Their
identification with their respective totems makes them different kinds of
beings and they cannot, therefore, think of themselves as embodiments of
the same principle. The capacity to develop the idea of a universal and
impersonal social force requires the emergence of forms of organisations
which can subsume divergent groups under a wider unity.
As we have said, Durkheim is developing his argument about religion on
the supposition that the human imagination cannot create something from
nothing; that is, it cannot create ideas which are purely its own products,
which envisage things that are utterly imaginary. Durkheim sees the
imagination, rather, as a faculty for the recombination of extant ideas, and
this is dependent upon there being things to model them after. Thus,
religious ideas are modelled on social arrangements and so the religious
ideas that are possible in a society will be limited to those for which there
are exemplary instances of social organisation. It is not the ‘primitiveness’
or ‘simplicity’ of intelligence or imagination of the individual Aborigines
which confines them to producing certain kinds of representations and
disables them from making the representations available in our society. It is,
rather, the relative simplicity of the Aboriginal social organisation which
ensures this. We will return to the topic of how ideas are generated shortly.
Since they inhabit society, no matter how simple or how basic its form,
the Aborigines do experience society and so experience its superiority to,
and its transcendence over, their individual selves. They experience society
as something that is independent of their individual existence, greater and
more powerful than their individual selves and which prevails,
impersonally, over them all, which can alter their feelings about themselves
and make them feel more powerful than mere individuals. These
characteristics of immortality, of transcendence, of superior power, of the
capacity to control individual lives and to bring us to exaltation, are all ones
which are characteristic of the sacred. Though they experience these
features of society, the Aborigines lack the conceptual apparatus to conceive
of the influence of society as abstract and universal, and must therefore
comprehend society in terms of the concepts that are available. Expressing
the idea of society in a concrete way must, then, involve the employment of
something tangible, something from the material world; hence, the totem.
For Durkheim, then, it is society that is symbolised in religious ideas.
The fact that society is something greater than and dominant over
individuals and upon which they are dependent is drawn upon to make the
case. However, the assertion that society is capable of creating exaltation in
individuals, of lifting them to a new level of being, is something that may
be more puzzling. It is here that we need to examine Durkheim’s analysis of
rites.

Rites Society can affect our feelings, can make us feel more powerful than
each of us might as an isolated individual. It is common and familiar
enough that we feel more powerful when we have the collaboration and
support of a group. If society can make us feel more potent, then it can also
lift us to levels of exaltation, and it is in this connection that Durkheim
invokes the Aborigines’ rites. The life of an Aboriginal group is divided into
two phases, one in which the group is scattered across the landscape
sustaining its livelihood, and another when the group reassembles and
engages in rituals. The period of assembly is one in which people are
altogether more excitable and what Durkheim calls a ‘collective
effervescence’ is created among the individuals through their association
and interaction with each other. It is the kind of excitement which is visible
in crowds, at parties and on other group occasions, but which people tend
not exhibit when they are alone. Among the Aborigines, this excitement is
created by their joint ceremonials.
Thus, argues Durkheim, our participation in collective activity can
engender exaltation which, in the course of rites, can reach such intensity
that we feel we are altogether lifted out of ourselves, made over into some
new being, as in the way masks and decorations are used in ritual to enable
participants to represent figures other than themselves. The rites give rise to
exceptional and intense emotions which are often experienced as coming to
us from the outside. And since the rite is focused upon the sacred object it is
natural to attribute the effects produced by ‘collective effervescence’ to the
powers that the sacred object possesses and focuses. Thus, again, in an
indirectly symbolic way true reality is apprehended. The celebrants’ ecstasy
is generated by ‘collective effervescence’, by social relations, and it is
focused upon and attributed to the sacred object. That object, of course,
symbolises society, and in treating the object as the source of their elevated
feelings the celebrants are, in Durkheim’s terms, symbolically
acknowledging that it is society which creates these feelings.
The association of the totem with the group expresses the common
membership that this involves and that which is common to, and unifying
of, the group. Thus, the totem plays a pivotal part in structuring the
organisation of Aboriginal society and uniting the group. It is the recipient
of awe and respect; as is signified by the special treatment which it is given
relative to everything else. Since the totem signifies the society, the society
is given awe and respect, but responses to the sacred are things reserved for
special occasions. If we now recall that society is for Durkheim very much
a matter of the authority of its moral rules we can appreciate that the
attitude toward the sacred consists in exhibiting respect for society’s rules.
Respect for moral rules is, of course, something that exists only if those
rules are complied with in everyday, profane, conduct. Our religious beliefs
and rites involve, then, the symbolisation of our relationship to society, but
they do not merely display the facts of our social life, of our dependence
upon the collectivity and so on; they commend the rightness of that
relationship, and reinforce the commitment which people have to those
moral rules. In Durkheim’s view, our attachment to society’s rules is subject
to attenuation: the practicalities of life, the demands and tensions this brings
and the difficulties of relations with our fellows are all likely to put a severe
strain on our moral feelings. In which case, over a protracted period of time
our sense of loyalty to the rules of the society and of solidarity with its other
members will progressively weaken. If morality is to continue to be
enforced the attachment of individuals to it cannot continuously attenuate
but must be reawakened, and it is in this necessity that Durkheim finds the
explanation for the periodic character of rites. They play the role of
renewing the individual’s attachment to other members of his or her group
and to the moral order of the society of which they are all a part.

Religion in the modern world The account in The Elementary Forms of

the Religious Life is most closely and directly linked to the totemic
practices of the Australian Aborigines but, as its title indicates, it is about
the fundamentals of religious life in general. Durkheim was, of course,
aware of the weakening hold of organised religion in the societies of
Western Europe, but did not regard his arguments about the necessity in all
societies of a division between the sacred and the profane as being
invalidated by the fact that societies like ours are less explicitly, and since
Durkheim’s day far less explicitly, religious. Though the sacred, as
symbolised by God, was increasingly less influential in modern societies he
felt that there was still an inclination to develop a new form of the sacred,
one which elevated to that level the very idea of ‘the individual’, a point
which is, of course, very much in line with the argument of The Division of
Labour in Society. In modern societies it is the rights and freedoms of the
individual that must be treated with greatest respect. The retraction of
explicit, organised religion is one of the things which Durkheim saw as an
inevitable consequence of the progression of science.
However, Durkheim’s version of this particular development is not one
which involves the opposition of science and religion, one which sees
religion as ‘retreating’ because science has revealed it to be illusory
nonsense. Note that Durkheim’s book was meant to be the first genuine and
successful scientific treatment of religion and presents the argument that
religion is not essentially in error. His account of religion’s ‘retirement’ in
the face of the rise of science is that ‘scientific thought is only the more
perfect form of religious thought’ (1976: 429), operating on the same basic
principles of thought as religion does, albeit applying them, in the case of
science, in a less dogmatic and more methodologically disciplined way.
Religious speculation provided a form of inquiry into the subjects of human
thought, nature, man and society:

Religion sets itself to translate those realities into an intelligible language which does not differ
in nature from that employed in science; the attempt is made by both to connect things with each
other, to establish internal relations between them, to classify them and to systematise them. We
have even seen that the essential ideas of scientific logic are of religious origin. It is true that in
order to utilise them, science gives them a new elaboration; it purges them of all accidental
 elements; in a general way, it brings in a spirit of criticism into all its doings, which religion
ignores; it surrounds itself with precautions to ‘escape precipitation and bias’, and to hold aside
the passions, prejudices and all subjective influences. But these perfectionings of method are not
enough to differentiate it from religion. In this regard, both pursue the same end; scientific form
is only a more perfect form of religious thought. (1976: 429)

Indeed, the very growth of science is partially a product of Christian belief,

for it is through viewing matter as profane that it has been able to give over
the business of finding out about that profane reality to the work of profane
inquiry.

Thought and Society

Durkheim’s arguments invert views about the origin of religion and also,
perhaps, turn upside-down conceptions about our whole ways of thinking,
not least about our science. He set out specifically to refute views which
supposed that religious thought had been built by trying to model itself on
natural phenomena, and wanted to argue, instead, that it was to be
understood in terms of its social origins. He then argues that the basic
elements of scientific thought are the same as those of religious thought.
But religious thought is itself derived from and modelled upon society.
Therefore the way in which we think about the natural world, our most
basic categories and procedures of scientific thought, are themselves
modelled upon, derived from, the structure of society. Our classification of
nature, Durkheim says, is itself derived from society. The ways in which we
conceive the most basic categories of all experience, such as ‘time’ and
‘space’, are themselves constructed on the model of social organisation.
Earlier we mentioned Durkheim’s view that the imagination is not truly
creative, but involves only the reorganisation of given elements. This
implies that the apparatus of thought, the ideas or concepts with which we
think, must have been produced on the basis of experienced realities, such
that for people to conceive of something abstract and impersonal they must
have experienced something abstract and impersonal and have a model to
represent that experience. The Aborigines experienced society’s abstract,
impersonal reality but they could not represent it because their social
organisation did not provide them with any form upon which to model their
experience. Not unreasonably, Durkheim is supposing that the development
of our equipment for thinking, our conceptual apparatus, is an historical
development and that it has an orderly character. We do not start human
history with the complete stock of ideas inbuilt in each individual, but have
to build up that stock over time. Nor has our conceptual apparatus
accumulated in a random fashion. It has been built up under conditions
which would have constrained the course of its development. Furthermore,
the generality of our ideas or concepts is a consequence of their being used
in communication between human beings, and so they must have the same
meaning for each of us if we are to communicate. This apparatus of
communication is not the work of any single individual but an evolving
product of a great many different hands and constrained by the needs for
communication among them. Even so, reasonable as such suppositions
might sound, it still sounds odd to say that logic, time and space were built
up in, by and on the model of society. In this respect, Durkheim opposes the
view of such as Kant who argued that the basic categories of space and time
were built into our minds. But though it may not be ultimately correct, the
argument is not altogether as implausible as it might first seem.
Durkheim does not deny that it is, indeed, an innate feature of our human
endowment that we experience things in space and time. We find ourselves
placed in a world of things and in relation to them; for example, we
experience things as being nearer to and further away from us, above us or
below, and so on. We also experience things as happening one after another.
It is held that it is these and other facts about our basically animal
experience which enable us to develop the concepts of time and space, and
it is the latter suggestion that Durkheim is especially concerned to discount,
and, in so doing, enter a fundamental objection to another important
philosophical theory, and direct rival to Kant’s idealism, namely, the
empiricist account of knowledge. This holds that our knowledge of the
external world comes to us exclusively through our sensory contact with it,
and involves no contribution of ‘the mind’. Against such a view, Durkheim
argues that the concepts of space and time that we have are complex ones,
too complex simply to be found in our animal, sensory, experience.
Our experience of space is a personal one, but our concept of space is
impersonal. We experience space each from our own singular vantage point,
but we do not think of it as organised around that singular vantage point as
though it were something that radiated out from where we individually are.
Though we are each at the centre of our experience of space we do not think
of space itself as something with a centre. Rather, we think of space as a
‘totality’ which encompasses everything, including each and every one of
our individual viewpoints. We cannot, however, directly experience the
totality that we conceive space to be, so we cannot from our personal
experience of space have derived the concept that we have of it. As
Durkheim says,

the space which I know by my senses, of which I am the centre, could not be space in general,
which contains all extensions, and where these are co-ordinated by personal guidelines which
are common to everybody. (1976: 441)

He is reminding us that although our personal space is individuated, the

concept of space and our location within it is one which is common to all of
us. Since that concept cannot be extracted from the experience of our
senses, and it is from experience that Durkheim thinks our concepts must
ultimately be drawn, there is no reason why each one of us should
individually have developed a common concept of it, and so the concept
will only be the same if it is derived from a common source. Since this
cannot be experience of space itself there is, in Durkheim’s scheme of
things, only one genuine possibility: a whole from which the idea of
‘totality’ can be derived, namely, society.
Earlier we talked about the way in which our ideas are ‘modelled’ upon
social organisation, but this is not entirely accurate as a characterisation of
Durkheim’s views about the origins of logic and the categories of our
thought. The arguments in the latter part of The Elementary Forms of
Religious Life were prefigured in an essay that Durkheim co-authored with
Marcel Mauss, Primitive Classification (1903). Durkheim affirmed (1976:
432) that ‘logical thought is made up of concepts’ and so to demonstrate
that logic has a social origin is the same thing as showing that our collection
of concepts, our system of classifications, has a social origin. Primitive
Classification is, as the title indicates, about the schemes of classification of
societies that were, in Durkheim’s day, considered to be simpler than our
own: the Australian Aborigines again, Native American peoples such as the
Sioux and so on. Its purpose was to argue not that the first logical categories
were modelled on social phenomena, but that they were social categories
themselves, created out of the necessities of organising social life. Things
can only be put into what we think of as logical relations insofar as they are
clearly distinguishable from one another, insofar as they can be counted
together as members of an ensemble (in the language of logic, ‘a class’),
and as being capable of mutual combination or separation, and, finally, as
capable of being ranked in hierarchical relations of inclusion. For example,
two classes of things such as ‘bedroom’ and ‘living-room’ furniture are
contrastive, with items that are included in one class being excluded from
the other. But of course both ‘bedroom’ and ‘living-room’ furniture can be
counted together within the higher, and more inclusive, class of ‘household
furnishings’. Natural as these aspects of thought may seem to us they are
not, according to Durkheim, invariant to all human thought, and the idea of
the logical hierarchy, of the clearly demarcated class, of the unification and
decomposition of classes, must all have had an origin – even though this is
very far back in human history. Since these ideas originate from quite basic
features of social organisation, such ideas must have relatively early origins.
As we have already indicated, the setting together and keeping apart of
individuals, their inclusion and exclusion, is constitutive of Durkheim’s
whole idea of society and it can, therefore, hardly be surprising that he goes
on to argue that it is in the production of such relationships that logical
ideas are formed; that is, through the production of groups whose
memberships are sharply distinguished and mutually exclusive. There is,
thus, created the idea of the clearly demarcated ensemble of individuals
which can then be generalised as the logical notion of ‘the class’. The ways
in which individuals are collected together and set apart is, of course,
variable, with individuals who are at one point in time included within
counter-posed groupings being at another point unified as co-members of a
larger, and more inclusive, unit. Mancunians who support one of the city’s
two teams, United or City, will be in footballing matters intensely opposed
to each other, but in other contexts they will show local solidarity as
Mancunians opposed to, say, Liverpudlians or ‘Southerners’. And, of
course, Liverpudlians and even ‘Southerners’ may feel themselves unified
with Mancunians as ‘English’ against ‘foreigners’. The idea of the logical
hierarchy, of inclusion of a lower class in a higher one, is created in and by
a process which makes logical hierarchy an aspect of social hierarchy.
Further, in Primitive Classification, Durkheim argues that the way in
which the natural world is divided up is related to the ways in which social
groupings are divided up. The totemic organisation of the Australian
Aborigines again provides key examples. For if ‘totemism is, in one aspect,
the grouping of men into clans according to natural objects (the associated
totemic species), it is also, inversely, a grouping of natural objects in
accordance with social groups’ (Durkheim and Mauss, 1963: 18).
Effectively, social groups, at least those of the kind involved in totemism,
project the form of their organisation onto the natural world. Thus, if certain
groups divide themselves into two parts then this division applies equally to
nature. ‘All nature is divided into class names and said to be male and
female. The sun and moon and stars are said to be men and women, and to
belong to classes just as the blacks themselves’ (ibid.: 12). In another case, a
tribe divided itself into two groups, ‘Youngaroo’ and ‘Wootaroo’, and all
else in nature, animate and inanimate, was divided between the two, with
alligators and the sun being Youngaroo, kangaroos and the moon being
Wootaroo, and so on for all the constellations, trees and plants. Durkheim
and Mauss report the anthropologist Fison as saying that ‘Everything in
nature, according to them, is divided between the two classes. The wind
belongs to one, and the rain to the other.… If a star is pointed out they will
tell you to which division it belongs’ (ibid.). The situation is much the same
vis-à-vis the notions of how time and space are structured, for societies will
project the forms of their own social organisation onto the universe at large.
Thus, in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Durkheim argued that it
is out of the needs of groups to distribute their organisation across territory
and to co-ordinate the scheduling of their activities that the notions of space
and time are created. The forms which these notions take naturally,
therefore, conform to the structure of spatial and temporal relations which
they are developed to organise, with, for example, a group’s notion of space
as, say, a circular thing being a generalisation of the group’s circular
organisation of its residential arrangements.
Once again, Durkheim’s arguments are dependent upon much the same
distinction as that between ‘mechanical’ and ‘organic’ solidarity. The case
developed about the nature of thought depends very much upon assuming
that the totemic and classificatory schemes of the Australian Aborigines and
comparable societies represent the most basic, literally the elementary,
forms of the phenomena of religion and thought, with religion being a most
elementary vehicle for thought about the nature of things in general. The
Aboriginal, and comparable societies represent the most simple form of
social organisation, out of which all other, and more complex, forms of
society have subsequently evolved. Such a picture of these societies as
‘simple’ and the associated idea of an evolution would not, nowadays, be
accepted. But, taking Durkheim’s argument on its own terms, it was these
views which meant that though the study of Aboriginal totemism and
classificatory schemes taught us something about the essentials of religion
and thought, the lessons drawn could not be extrapolated straightforwardly
from those ‘mechanic’ type societies to more ‘organic’ ones like our own.
Both the length of evolutionary history leading to the latter type of societies
and the complexities of their structure would need to be taken into account.
Thus, it was not Durkheim’s supposition that our concepts of ‘time’,
‘space’ and the rest would show the kind of straightforward projection of
intergroup divisions onto time and space. The transformation from
‘mechanical’ to ‘organic’ solidarity means that the social control of thought
and sentiment on the part of the community is decreasingly intense and
direct, so that the elaboration of categories and thought schemes can
become, at least relatively, independent of the community’s group structure,
and directed more by its own cognitive purposes than by the requirements
for structuring the organisation of group life. In this respect, we have
already noted how the development of science involves an increasing
autonomy from religion, which also involves an increasing autonomy for
the concern to understand how things work; cognitive concerns which were
present in religion but were embedded in, and subordinated to, religion’s
role in the symbolic representation of social reality.

The Diagnosis of Society

So far we have been dealing with Durkheim as a sociological analyst, but

he was, like the other two figures described in this book, also dedicated to
the idea of providing a scholarly basis for the reform of society. While it
was part of his intention to analyse society, he also wanted to diagnose and
prescribe for it. The contrast between, broadly, the ‘mechanical’ and
‘organic’ types of society has run through our discussion as it ran through
Durkheim’s own, and a prominent purpose of that contrast was to highlight
the characteristics of the more ‘organic’ type, that is, societies like our own,
with a view to evaluating the extent to which these were ‘pathological’ and
in need of adjustment. In The Rules of Sociological Method Durkheim
specified the utility, indeed the necessity, of a contrast between ‘normal’ and
‘pathological’ states of society, a distinction which he presumed could be
adapted to society from medical science and which would, in comparable
fashion, require grounding in scientific knowledge of the character and
requirements of the society, just as medical knowledge of the nature and
conditions of the healthy organism themselves need to be grounded in
scientific knowledge of organisms.
The account of ‘crime’ given in The Rules was meant to illustrate the
point that preconceptions about what is good and bad for society, about
what is normal and pathological in it, should not be allowed to stand
without scientific re-examination. After all, what could be more readily and
universally agreed to be harmful to society than crime? However,
Durkheim’s argument about crime is precisely that it is a ‘normal’ and not a
pathological feature of society – so long, at least, as the amount of it
remains within a certain level. Durkheim does not mean that individuals
should now change their attitude toward crime and regard it as something
harmless and acceptable, for crime may indeed be harmful to individuals
and can be deeply offensive to them. Recall that Durkheim’s very definition
of crime was of activity which was offensive to strong and shared
sentiments, which means, of course, that crime necessarily involves offence
and outrage to individuals. Durkheim is talking as if he were an anatomist
of society, as if society were the equivalent of the organism, and is therefore
talking about crime as a ‘normal’ phenomenon relative to the state of
society as a whole. Crime is ‘normal’ in the sense that every society has a
crime rate, and something which is common to every instance of an
organism cannot be called ‘abnormal’ or ‘pathological’. Further, not all
crime is necessarily harmful to society. On the contrary, it can be beneficial,
providing a crucial contribution to the society’s very existence, a
mechanism for the reinforcement of social boundaries and of social
solidarity within them. Of course, features of an organism which are normal
to it can develop into pathological forms, and so it is with crime, and with
the division of labour. Thus, though the healthy society requires enough
solidarity to create crime, and thus requires that enough crime occur to
provoke the reactions that renew and reinforce the sense of moral unity
amongst individuals, there must obviously be a specifiable limit to the
amount of crime which could go on without it beginning to damage the
society.
 The development of the division of labour is likewise a normal feature of
the development of a society, but, as already pointed out, pathological
phenomena can arise out of normal ones, and Durkheim’s view of the
development of organic solidarity gave rise to abnormal forms of the
division of labour. In The Division of Labour in Society he identified three
of these. Naturally, given the disposition of his argument, these forms were
pathological in that they threatened the unity of the society by introducing
elements of disorganisation, incoherence and friction into its life.

The anomic form of the division of labour

The ‘anomic’ form of the division of labour resulted from the very essence
of the social division of labour, namely, specialisation. The word ‘anomic’
here means, as it does with respect to the similarly named type of suicide,
normlessness in the sense of inadequate regulation by rules. The division of
labour produces specialisation and as part of its development it can create
solidarity among individual parts of the specialised process through the
awareness that individuals have of their interdependence with each other.
But the development of specialisation may create situations in which
individuals are effectively enclosed and isolated in their specialism to the
extent that they are unaware of the unity of common purpose and
interdependence that they have with other specialist individuals. Durkheim
uses the case of the sciences as an instance of this. Scientists can become so
immersed in their own work and specialist discipline that there is no overall
coherence or unity to the sciences. The extent to which the appropriate
sense of solidarity will be created depends upon the interaction between
individuals: if individuals make specialised contributions to society in a
fashion which brings them into close and constant contact with other, and
complementary, specialists, then they will be aware and, typically,
appreciative of mutual interdependence. But if they conduct that specialised
activity in a solitary fashion, requiring little direct interaction with others to
carry out that task, then this awareness of the necessity of others’
contributions will be attenuated. The development of an intense and
complex social division of labour is itself a complex process and it cannot
be assured that the specialisation will automatically produce mechanisms
which will contribute to the sense of solidarity. So, from the point of view
of society, the growth in the division of labour will give rise to the necessity
of a specialist co-ordinating function as a part of social organisation, a
function which has, as its primary role, the regulation of the interrelation of
the society’s varied parts. This specialist function is performed by a
specialist organisation, the state. However, while the state may have the
task of regulating the social division of labour it is not infallible and, in
Durkheim’s view, it had not established the right kind or sufficient amount
of co-ordination within the economic sphere to prevent pathological
conditions. Thus, in economic life there were economic and commercial
crises which testified to the absence of co-ordination within the economic
domain.

The forced division of labour

This second type of abnormality of the division of labour results from the
possibility, with the increasing autonomy of individuals from a uniform
‘conscience collective’, of a discrepancy between the individual’s social
position and his or her wants and aspirations. Under a strong, uniform
‘conscience collective’, individuals may experience frustrations,
disappointments and injustices, but so dependent are they upon the group,
and so intensely is their life bound to it, that such dissatisfactions do not
turn them against the group. With the development of the division of labour
the uniformity of beliefs and sentiments is considerably attenuated and, as
noted, not only does the individual become more autonomous relative to the
society as a whole, but there are also conditions under which individuals
become less than aware of the extent to which their lives are intertwined
with, and dependent upon, the society. The result may be that such
dissatisfactions may well be turned upon the society, perhaps taking the
form, if the dissatisfactions are widespread enough, of class-based
opposition to the social order. Thus, if a society with a developed division
of labour is to be thoroughly integrated the allocation of individuals to their
roles within it will have to be such that the distribution of positions is
perceivedly legitimate. Individuals must feel that their positions are not
‘forced’ upon them, against the grain of their inclinations and abilities, or as
a consequence of essentially irrelevant contingencies and inequities of life.
It is this mismatch between position and desserts that leads Durkheim to
call this abnormal form ‘the forced division of labour’.
Lack of co-ordination

The third ‘abnormal’ form that Durkheim identifies is the case when the
functional contribution of each worker is hampered by a lack of co-
ordination which, in turn, causes a breakdown in solidarity and, instead,
creates incoherence and disorder. For Durkheim, a ‘normal’ system of
production would make sure that useless work is avoided and that each
individual is sufficiently occupied, so increasing functional activity. As
functions become more specialised, in order to maintain adequate levels of
solidarity, their mutual and co-ordinated interdependencies must also be
increased, in much the same way that in human beings compared with frogs
(the example Durkheim uses), the suppression of breathing very quickly
induces the failure of other bodily functions. In other words, in human
beings and, by analogy, complex divisions of labour, functions need to be
more ‘continuous’, more active, in order to ensure a sufficient level of
social solidarity. If co-ordination and effort is not adequate then this gives
rise to an ‘abnormal’ form of the division of labour.

Beyond socialism

It is the necessity to achieve the overall legitimacy of the allocation of

positions within the division of labour that accounts for the intense
preoccupation with equality and justice in societies like ours. The treatment
of workers in industry as though they were just human forms of machines
without appreciation of their need to be fully rounded beings would ensure
the intensification of resentments. Socialism, or so Durkheim argued in his
study called Socialism (originally called Socialism and Saint-Simon, 1926),
was a pre-scientific expression of the awareness of the economic anarchy
and injustice of the economic sphere in modern societies. Its rise would
encourage the full development of individualism, eliminating arbitrary
inequities, coordinating the operation of economic enterprises, regulating
and making more equitable contractual relations and generally mitigating
the arbitrariness and harshness of the social environment upon the
individual.
Mechanical solidarity, with its strong and uniform ‘conscience
collective’, expresses its unity through its religion, but the growing division
of labour changes the basis for such expression from a religious to a
political one. The rise of the state is associated with and necessitated by the
growth of the division of labour, with the state having the role of overseeing
the unity of the society and thus having to be, for those within the society,
the representation and expression of its overall unity. However, the
complexity of modern society, particularly in the organisation of its
economic activities, is such that it cannot possibly be overseen in sufficient
detail by the state to ensure the adequate regulation of activities in a way
that will integrate them and prevent extensive anomie. The capacity of the
state to achieve assent to its regulation is, of course, due to the moral
authority it carries by virtue of being the representative of society. So if the
activity of the state is to be supplemented by some other form of
organisation to undertake the more local and close regulation of activities,
then that form will only be able to promulgate effective rules if it, too, is a
bearer of authority.
In the ‘Preface to the second edition’ (1902) of The Division of Labour,
Durkheim held that since it is within the economic sphere where much
disorganisation reigns, and since the economic sphere is the one within
which the most competitive and self-interested conduct is legitimated, then
it is necessary to develop some form which can bring solidarity among
those who are otherwise in competition and which will possess the authority
to legitimate its regulation of economic life. Durkheim suggested that the
occupational grouping, the profession, could provide such a basis. The
professional group has a sense of unity and it typically possesses a set of
ethics which regulate the work behaviour of its members. The introduction
of organisations in the form of the profession within the economic sphere
would therefore provide the basis for the requisite moral authority. It would,
furthermore, provide a group with which the individual could immediately
identify and which could also mediate that individual’s relationship with the
society-as-a-whole in the form of the state.
Part of the development of the social division of labour is the
development of specialised agencies for child-rearing and, particularly, for
their education. In a simple and undifferentiated society the child learns
primarily within the family, but within a society like ours learning is mainly
acquired through the educational system. From the point of view of society,
a most important part of what is learned by the growing child is the
society’s morality, and not just practical skills and information. Thus, the
school is an important agent in moral education, and it was the school’s role
in imparting the common morality of society (and doing so in a way which
squared with the moral, cultural and practical diversity of the varied groups
making up society) which attracted Durkheim’s attention in the latter days
of his career. Within a secularised society, where reason is highly valued, it
is important that morality be legitimated on a reasoned basis, rather than,
say, on that of religious revelation. Durkheim thought that sociology’s
rational and scientific understanding of the importance of morality in
society, and therefore to the life of the individual, would contribute to such
legitimation and a claim that sociology itself could play a part in ‘moral
education’. Further, Durkheim had notions about how teaching should be
organised, on the way in which, for example, punishment and rewards
should be administered. The weight of rewards was too heavily on scholarly
attainments and insufficiently on the individual’s moral development, and
thus, he argued, there was a need to restructure evaluation within education,
the better more explicitly to recognise the proportionate importance of the
moral element.

The Aftermath

The reputations of Marx, Weber and Durkheim have had variable careers
within sociology. Durkheim’s standing is probably the weakest of the three
in contemporary sociology, for the affections which were hitherto bestowed
upon Marx can be more easily transferred to Weber than they can to
Durkheim. In the climate of post-1960s sociology, Durkheim stands
accused of a number of sins, briefly those of positivism, structuralism,
functionalism, reification and conservatism.

Positivism

Positivism is, most simply, the view that science is characterised by a

shared method whatever the subject-matter being investigated. Thus, the
social sciences should follow the same basic method as the natural sciences.
This is the view that Durkheim accepted. However, as mentioned,
Durkheim did not like to think of himself as a ‘positivist’ but more as a
‘rationalist’. More recently, ‘positivism’ has come to be associated with a
belief that the progress of sociology involves the adoption not only of the
scientific method but also of quantitative methods. By these standards, there
are prominent positivist aspects to Durkheim’s work. His study of suicide,
particularly, is considered as a classic in some sociological quarters because
of the way in which it uses statistical manipulation to uncover relationships
as a means of illuminating theoretical problems. However, although
quantitative methods have come a long way since Durkheim’s pioneering
effort, his own achievement has proved difficult to match, let alone surpass.
Suicide was, and remains, the classic example of this kind of social
research, and although there have been numerous further studies of suicide
after the fashion of Durkheim, as well as endless statistical studies of
numerous other social phenomena, it would be difficult to cite any which
approach its stature. Nevertheless, such a status erects Durkheim as the
arch-enemy of those sociologists more sceptical of the aspiration to make
sociology into a quantitative science, and he has become the focal point of
the campaign against ‘positivism’ in sociology. However, it is also fair to
say that within empirical social research this tradition is alive and well,
although it now owes, perhaps, less to Durkheim than to others such as Paul
Lazarsfeld and his colleagues who developed much of the current research
apparatus of modern social inquiry. It has, however, lost the strong
theoretical purpose which Durkheim invested in his own inquiries. For
although Durkheim was strongly committed to the idea of sociology
becoming a science, and although the most famous of his empirical
inquiries, Suicide, made use of statistics, it would be misleading to treat
Durkheim as arguing that scientific status could simply be achieved by the
use of quantification and statistics. This would be to take little cognisance
of his other work, which, as we have already suggested, shows a much
more rationalistic bent than it does a simpleminded equating of science with
quantification.

Structuralism, functionalism, reification and conservatism

The complaint of reification, that is, the treatment of things which are really
the creation of human actions as though they were realities in their own
right, arises from one of the prominent themes in Durkheim’s sociological
thought, namely, his idea that society is more than just an aggregate of
individuals and represents an independent reality. Much of his work can be
seen as an effort to work through just what this ‘more’ was. However, such
an effort perhaps involves the ‘reification’ of society, that is, treating
something which is entirely the product of the actions of human beings as
though it had an existence and life of its own. The strongest form of
resistance to reification is manifest in the ‘methodological individualism’
we discussed in Max Weber’s thought. This insists that there are only
individuals, and that notions of ‘society’, ‘the state’ and ‘social classes’ do
not refer to anything which exists in its own right. They are simply abstract
expressions referring to the actions of individuals. Although the term
‘structuralist’ in sociology has different uses, one of them is to identify
those sociologists who, like Durkheim (but without necessarily sharing his
specific views on this matter), want to say that society is a structure, or an
arrangement, which is ‘something more’ than a product of the actions of
individuals, so endowing the structure with the capacity to control or
determine the lives of individuals. There has been continuous debate
between the ‘structuralist’ and ‘individualist’ strands within the discipline
but, despite this, it is not always clear just what the differences are and
whether or not they are significant. Durkheim is a good example of the
confusion here. Although he campaigned vigorously, sometimes eloquently,
sometimes none too clearly, for the idea of society as ‘something more than
the sum of its parts’, and though he sometimes might have expressed
himself in ways that made it sound to his contemporaries that he was
proposing the existence of a ‘group mind’, and though he has often been
taken by some subsequent sociologists as if he were advancing a thoroughly
reified conception of society, we have suggested in the foregoing exposition
that these interpretations of his work are by no means entirely fair.
Related to this question is Durkheim’s functionalism, a structuralist
theory in the above sense and, worse, allegedly conservative in its political
inclinations. Functionalism is a mode of analysis which is reificatory in
seeking to understand society as though it were a single, unified entity in
the way that the human body is an integrated assemblage of organic parts.
Briefly, and somewhat simply put, functionalism portrays the parts of
society, its institutions, its groups, its processes, as contributing to the
survival of the whole and, in doing so, runs the risk of suggesting that
society works in the way that it does in order to fulfil this function. It
invites, as some critics of functionalism claim, the idea that given social
arrangements of society do not need change since the way they are
contributes to the harmony and continuity of society. More basically,
functionalist doctrines are charged with implying that the harmony and
unity of society is the over-riding objective, regardless of the inequity and
injustice current arrangements might involve. In this respect, Durkheim’s
account of crime as seeking to show that the occurrence of crime was
necessary to keeping society together, and his analysis of the contribution of
religion to solidarity, both exemplify such a functionalist stance. Indeed,
these studies became models for functionalist analysis in sociology and
anthropology, particularly in the hands of Talcott Parsons, who became the
most influential sociological theorist in American sociology in the 1940s
and 1950s and who promoted ‘structural-functional’ analysis. However, as
should be clear from our exposition, Durkheim’s functionalism did not
prevent him from criticising the social order nor from identifying its
injustices and inequities.
As indicated, functionalism seeks to identify the conditions under which
a society remains stable and unchanging, and it develops a methodology
which focuses upon the way in which ‘parts’ of society, institutions and
practices, contribute to holding the society together and keep it going. Such
a conception, it is often argued, is inherently conservative in its denial of
obvious facts about societies, particularly the endemic conflicts and
struggles generated by major inequalities in society, inequalities of
opportunities, of rewards, of gender, of ethnicity, of power and more.
Functionalism is, it is claimed, a social theory which supports the status quo
and is, thus, essentially ideological rather than scientific. It puts forward a
picture of society as a united harmonious whole and an argument that it is
neither necessary nor desirable to change society. Thus, functionalism is
really only a distraction from the fact that many aspects of society are
negative and disruptive, overestimating the extent to which society is
unified, let alone harmonious, and preventing people from looking into the
ways in which institutions and practices may be counterproductive and need
changing.
It is commonly Durkheim’s functionalism rather than his explicit political
views, which were liberal and inclining toward socialism, which gives rise
to the charge that he was conservative. Such a criticism is neither very
discriminating nor, by and large, very accurate. Without denying that there
are conservative elements in Durkheim’s thought, and he was certainly
opposed to revolutionary change, there are radical elements in his thought
which emphasise his sympathy for socialism, as well as the importance he
attached to the cause of reform in, for example, education and industrial
policy. Indeed, his whole conception of sociology as a diagnostic tool was
predicated on a conception that much in the society of his day needed
changing. However, this could be achieved not by returning to some
putative Golden Age, as conservative social theorists often tended to argue,
but by a serious scientific inquiry into the working of the complex social
order of industrial society to lay the basis for a rational reform of society.
However, it would be quite wrong to dismiss Durkheim as merely a
target for sociological criticism, or a minor figure among the classic
contributors to sociological thought. He has been widely influential and
upon approaches which have been, in recent years, of some vogue in the
discipline. We will mention three of these.

Some contributions: Goffman, labelling theory and the structure of

human thought

Durkheim’s concern with the drawing of social boundaries, his emphasis

upon the importance of inclusion and exclusion in the conduct of social life,
has been pervasively influential, even upon sociologists who might
otherwise consider themselves far removed from any ‘Durkheimian’
influence. The first of our three examples is from work in the
‘interactionist’ tradition of sociology, one which is normally considered to
be antithetical to the ‘structuralist’ aspects of Durkheimian work. Broadly,
the ‘interactionist’ approach, as its name implies, insists that social life
consists in the interaction between individuals, and develops such an
insistence against the threat of the reification of ‘society’ and ‘social
structures’. However, in two leading examples of the interactionist tradition,
the work of Erving Goffman (1922–82) and the ‘labelling theory of
deviance’, the Durkheimian influence is strongly manifest.
Goffman’s almost exclusive preoccupation was with ‘public order’,
namely the organisation of interaction between individuals who are
‘copresent’, that is, who are in face-to-face contact with each other. Central
to his analysis, and directly derived from Durkheim, was a concern with the
conditions under which the face-to-face encounter could be sustained as a
coherent transaction without disruption, itself a markedly Durkheimian
notion, and with the part ‘rituals of interaction’ played in preserving that
solidarity. Another Durkheimian theme in Goffman’s concerns was his use
of Durkheim’s view that, in modern society, religion is increasingly
becoming the worship of ‘the individual’, that our individual inviolability is
the thing that is most sacred to us. Applying this idea, together with the
point that rituals are a mode of relationship to the sacred, Goffman
emphasised the degree to which the ‘interaction rituals’ through which
individuals relate to one another were ones which were directed toward the
individual self, toward preserving our individual sense of our own worth.
Also from within the ‘interactionist tradition’ is the ‘labelling theory of
deviance’, an approach which is concerned with the way in which people
are ‘identified’, or ‘labelled’, as ‘deviants’. Once again, the motivation of
many of these studies was to attack the ‘structuralist’ conception of crime
and other forms of misbehaviour. The idea that the structural conditions of
society make people commit crimes was anathema to sociologists in the
interactionist tradition, and their account of the almost incidental way in
which people enter into criminal or other ‘deviant’ activities and, indeed,
into a ‘life of crime’ was meant to counterpose such conceptions. However,
in their account of the ways in which people in society are singled out as
‘criminals’, or other deviants, they followed very closely upon Durkheim’s
example, first, by confirming his observations about the importance and
consequences of the essentially public nature of the process of identifying
people, and, second, in recognising the way in which such identification –
or ‘labelling’ – was tied up with the moral boundaries of society. The classic
in the labelling genre is almost certainly Howard Becker’s (1963) book
Outsiders, which carries, in its very title, the recognition of Durkheim’s
work, for it signifies that it involves the study of those who have been set
‘outside’ of conventional moral boundaries. Third, such studies give great
emphasis to the extent to which the process of ‘labelling’ is a dramatic one,
involving rituals, through which a person is transported (effectively
degraded) from one status to another, lesser one, continuing Durkheim’s
emphasis on the public nature of the treatment of crime and criminals.
Although it is treated as, perhaps, the lesser and more insignificant part
of his work, Durkheim’s arguments in The Elementary Form of Religious
Life concerning the social origins of our categories of thought has been one
of the most influential aspects of his work. His arguments about the social
origins of classification was, of course, an extension of his interest in
‘exclusion’ and ‘inclusion’ and the way in which systems of classification
involve the inclusion of items in one category and their exclusion from
another, as well as the way in which the classification of both natural and
social things is essential to the conduct of human social life. Durkheim’s
bold suggestion that systems of classification are socially organised has
been tremendously important in respect of two bodies of work of a power
comparable with Durkheim’s own. The first is a body of writings generated
by Claude Lévi-Strauss (b. 1908) on the analysis of the fundamental
structure of human thought through the investigation of the narrative
structures of myth.
There are important differences between Lévi-Strauss and Durkheim, not
least in that the former’s view is that the basic forms of thought are
determined not by society but by the structure of the brain, but the
‘structuralist’ mode of analysis which Lévi-Strauss developed is built upon
the inclusion and exclusion properties of classification. It is not just that
Lévi-Strauss’ work is itself of a powerful quality, sufficient to earn him the
status of a classic theorist, but that it has also been potently formative on
contemporary thought not only in sociology but in other disciplines, too.
His work played a vital role in shifting the direction of social thought and
sociocultural analysis more generally. Lévi-Strauss’ ‘structuralism’ is not to
be confused with the kind of ‘structuralism’ discussed earlier, although
connections have been made. His concern was with identifying the
underlying principles of human thought. These principles would express our
common humanity and the means by which our cultural artefacts and
institutions come to express meaning in systematically structured ways. Our
forms of religion, our myths, our cuisine, our kinship systems, are not
simply the contingencies of history but are part of the collective
consciousness of humankind. In his analysis of myths, what Lévi-Strauss is
trying to draw attention to is the common logical structure which the
different myths display. It was not long before it was recognised that his
methodology could be applied not only to myth but also to the thought and
culture of society more generally. Soon a ‘structuralist’ approach developed
drawing very much on French and European thought. Although it has lately
ceded ground to ‘poststructuralism’, the fact remains that it was Lévi-
Strauss’ Durkheimian influenced work which was a significant impulse
behind this tradition of social thought and that many of the issues
considered to be central to modern sociological thought derive from this
strain of French social thought.
 A second major school which exploits Durkheim’s work on the social
origins of human thought is the programme of work in the social studies of
science, known as the Strong Programme, a tradition which originated
within British sociology but which has assumed a more international
presence. Durkheim’s insistence that the categories used to classify
‘natural’ phenomena should be understood as having social origins provided
the inspiration for the attempt to resuscitate the more or less moribund
sociology of knowledge. While the sociology of knowledge, it was argued,
had allowed that our ways of thinking about society were themselves
shaped in and through our experience of social organisation, it had typically
exempted science from such a claim. Science was independent of social
determination. However, for the Strong Programme, such an exemption
was, scientifically speaking, scandalous. The first requirement of scientific
investigation is that it treats similar phenomena in the same way and, thus,
there is no reason for subscribing to the view that our ways of thinking
about the natural world are distinct from the ways in which we think and
study the social world. Both are susceptible to sociological analysis. Thus,
the content of the natural sciences, their theories and their findings should
be subject to sociological explanation. Our conceptions of nature are shown
not to depend on ‘how nature itself is’, but upon how the social structures
and the cultures in which we live require us to think. The work of Durkheim
and Mauss on ‘primitive classification’ is invoked as a leading model for
the policies of the ‘new’ sociology of science.
As we have already suggested, Durkheim has received less charitable
treatment than either Marx or Weber. In many ways he has been treated as
the epitome of many of the wrong ways of doing sociology; guilty, that is,
of the ‘sins’ we identified at the beginning of this section. Although
Durkheim did, on a number of occasions, overstate his arguments, a
concentration on his alleged sociological misdemeanours hardly does his
thought justice. Indeed, such a concentration, as we have pointed out,
obscures, to the point of concealment, the manifold influences that his
thought has had in a number of very different sociological fields and
approaches ranging from structuralist thought and its wide-ranging
influence on the study of language and discourse as well as social structure,
to the more interactionist focus of Erving Goffman and labelling theory. Far
from being simply the scholar who tried to develop a quantitative method of
social research, Durkheim’s more theoretical ideas about the nature of
society and social life, about the sources of social solidarity, about the
social origins of the structure of our thought are all themes which have
become important issues in contemporary sociology.

Select Bibliography and Further Reading

Steven Lukes’ Émile Durkheim: His life and work, a historical and critical
study (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1973) provides a very comprehensive and
detailed discussion of all Durkheim’s writings. Peter Hamilton’s Émile
Durkheim: Critical assessments (4 vols, Routledge, 1990) provides an
immense collection of articles on all aspects of Durkheim’s work. Short and
accessible general introductions to Durkheim’s work are provided by H.
Alpert’s Émile Durkheim and his Sociology (Columbia University Press,
1939), which remains, despite the date of publication, a lucid and helpful
introduction, R.A. Jones’ Émile Durkheim: An introduction to four major
works (Sage, 1986), Kenneth Thompson’s Émile Durkheim (Ellis Horwood,
1982) and Anthony Giddens’ Durkheim (Fontana, 1978). Giddens has also
edited Émile Durkheim: Selected writings (Cambridge University Press,
1972) and Émile Durkheim on Politics and the State (Polity, 1982).
Durkheim’s main views are presented in the central books: The Rules of
Sociological Method, which, in the new 1982 translation, published by
Macmillan, contains additional selections on method, The Division of
Labour in Society (new translation, Macmillan, 1984), Suicide: A study in
sociology (Routledge, 1951) and The Elementary Forms of Religious Life
(Allen and Unwin, 1976). Also important is Primitive Classification (co-
authored with Marcel Mauss; Cohen and West, 1963), which is concerned
with the social organisation of the categories of thought. Moral Education
(Free Press, 1961), Professional Ethics and Civic Morals (Routledge, 1957)
and Socialism (Collier, 1962) involve the application of Durkheim’s
approach to the moral and political problems of society. The Giddens
selection Émile Durkheim on Politics and the State covers some of this
ground.
The view that Durkheim has often been misrepresented as a conservative
thinker – as he is by Robert A. Nisbet The Sociological Tradition (Basic
Books, 1966), for example, and in Lewis Coser’s ‘Durkheim’s conversatism
and its implications for his sociological theory’ (in Kurt Wolff (ed.), Émile
Durkheim: Essays on sociology and philosophy, Ohio State University
Press, 1960) – is indicated by the titles of two recent books, The Radical
Durkheim (by Frank Pearce, Unwin Hyman, 1989), and The Radical
Sociology of Durkheim and Mauss (edited by Mike Gane and Keith Tribe,
Routledge, 1992).
There are very many sources which provide discussion of Durkheim.
Talcott Parsons’ The Structure of Social Action (Free Press, 1937) provided
very influential interpretations of the work of both Durkheim and Weber,
and of the potential similarities between their thought. Parsons’
interpretation has been contested, as, for example, by Whitney Pope in
‘Durkheim as a functionalist’ (Sociological Quarterly, 16, 1975: 361–79)
and ‘Parsons on Durkheim, revisited’ (American Sociological Review, 40,
1975: 111–15). Whitney Pope has also written a book on Durkheim’s
Suicide: A classic analyzed (University of Chicago Press, 1976). Mike Gane
has written On Durkheim’s Rules of Sociological Method (Routledge, 1988)
and W.S.F. Pickering Durkheim’s Sociology of Religion (Routledge, 1984).
Stephen Lukes and Andrew Scull have collected scattered writings into
Durkheim and the Law (St Martin’s Press, 1983). Stephen P. Turner
provides a thoughtful discussion of ‘Durkheim as a methodologist’, as Part
3 of his The Search for a Methodology of Social Science (Reidel, 1986) and
has edited Émile Durkheim as Moralist and Critic (Routledge, 1993), a
collection of essays on current views of Durkheim. Steve Fenton’s
Durkheim and Modern Sociology (Cambridge University Press, 1984),
assembles essays which relate Durkheim’s ideas to strands in contemporary
social thought.
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Doubleday Anchor, 1959) is a
good start for Erving Goffman’s work referred to in the discussion. Howard
Becker’s Outsiders: Studies in the sociology of deviance (Free Press, 1963)
is a good example of the ‘labelling perspective’. Claude Lévi-Strauss’ The
Savage Mind (University of Chicago Press, 1966) and Structural
Anthropology (Penguin, 1968) are sources for the structuralist
developments deriving from Durkheim’s writings on the social origins of
thought. The work of the Strong Programme is extensive but see David
Bloor’s Knowledge and Social Imagery (Routledge, 1976) and Barry
Barnes’ Scientific Knowledge and Sociological Theory (Routledge, 1974)
and Interests and the Growth of Knowledge (Routledge, 1977).
 CHAPTER FOUR SUMMARY

Durkheim’s standing is probably the weakest of the three in contemporary sociology being
condemned of positivism, structuralism, functionalism, reification and conservatism. None
of these are quite as damning as many critics make out – often being based in less than
charitable readings of Durkheim – nor are they necessarily the very serious sociology sins
they are often made out to be.
Durkheim’s influences have been diverse ranging from Goffman, the labelling theory, to
explorations in the structure of human thought.
Goffman’s interactionist accounts of ‘face-to-face’ interaction and the ‘public order’
explicitly draws upon Durkheimian themes concerning the conditions under which such
encounters depend upon solidarity-preserving rituals. Durkheim’s idea that modern society
worships ‘the individual’ and that rituals are a mode of relationship to the sacred is also
taken up by Goffman in his emphasis on ‘interaction rituals’ as directed to preserving our
individual sense of worth.
Labelling theory, with its focus on the way deviant labels, and the dramas surrounding
their application, draws strongly on Durkheim’s ideas on the processes of ‘inclusion’ and
‘exclusion’ which permeate society.
Durkheim’s suggestion that systems of classification are socially organised was influential
in Claude Lévi-Strauss’ monumental analysis of myth and, later, to the Strong Programme
in the sociology of knowledge.
 Conclusion 5

BEGINNING CHAPTER FIVE

In this Chapter we discuss some of the more recent reinterpretations of Marx, Weber and
Durkheim in light of the concerns of contemporary social thought. The chapter will discuss the
following:

Changes in the nature of modern societies and their influence on social thought.
The re-discovery of Marx and European social theory, and the context for ‘the soul’ of
Marx among postmodernists and poststructuralists, as well as those who seek to update his
thought for a global capitalism.
Reinterpretations of Durkheim and attempts to link some of his ideas, especially that of
representation, to contemporary interests in the social organisation of thought.
The persistent and growing influence of Weber in a number of areas, though mediated
through various interpretations.
The relation of the classic theorists to contemporary ‘postmodern’ concerns.

What we have tried to do in the previous chapters is present as clear an

exposition as we can of the sociological ideas of Marx, Weber and
Durkheim. A large part of our objective in doing so has been to emphasise
the tradition of sociology to which they made major contributions though
this in no sense involves enunciating a canon of sociological thought. After
all, and by analogy, the great religious traditions see themselves as part of a
tradition even though they are regularly marked by major controversies of
interpretation over the so-called canonical texts. While we would not want
to push this analogy between sociology and religion too far – though in
many respects it is almost irresistible – it would be too extravagant a claim
to make that all contemporary sociology is owed to these three thinkers.
Nonetheless as the discipline stands at the moment within its tradition it
continues to make use of an intellectual apparatus which derives in
considerable part from these three thinkers; not always directly and not
always with acknowledgement, but still to an enormous extent.
This is not to say that the apparatus, the analytic frame, is a settled one. It
is still very much a framework which is evolving, which consists of
questions and problems rather than settled principles. It is, to put it another
way, in the process of determining what its tradition might be. Despite this,
we would want to stress the continuities of the discipline rather than, as
postmodernist thought would have it, the ‘break’ with Enlightenment ideas.
Again, but with some diffidence, and repeating the religious analogy we
used earlier, we are talking here of a ‘break’ not unlike that of Protestantism
and Catholicism in Europe in the 16th century. Although this was a ‘break’
of enormous consequences for the peoples and politics of Europe, we have
little difficulty of seeing this as a dispute within a body of thought, a
tradition which unfolded over the centuries from Judaism, to Catholicism to
Protestantism bearing in mind the varieties within each of these. In other
words, sociology is not some sterile discipline incapable of moving beyond
the ideas of three nineteenth-century figures and their reformulation of the
ideas of their predecessors. Rather, it is a testament to the considerable
difficulties there are in formulating an agreed upon framework for the study
and the investigation of the social. Although sociology can often seem to be
an almost endless generation of new approaches, new perspectives – we
would suggest that much of this is a recycling of ideas – there is, none the
less, a continuity of problems and questions which serve to characterise the
discipline’s tradition. By trying to see how contemporary approaches still
draw upon a discourse which was substantially though not exclusively
formed by Marx, Weber and Durkheim we can, perhaps, appreciate not only
how crucial these scholars were, but also how difficult are the problems
they were writing about. We acknowledge the possibility that in a hundred
years time the equivalent of this book may well be elaborating the thought
of entirely different scholars – though we give no prizes as to who these
might be!
As we suggested in the Introduction, if anything, the influence of Marx,
Weber and Durkheim is stronger than ever, often reaching beyond sociology
and the social sciences to pervade the humanities. So much so that in some
fields the traditional boundaries between disciplines, for example between
sociology and literary criticism, have been significantly eroded. As we
mentioned in the exposition of Marx’s theory of ideology and its subsequent
adaptations by, in particular, Gramsci and the Frankfurt School, this has
been important in shaping the assumptions of contemporary approaches in
cultural and media studies. Similarly, Durkheim’s thought was a decisive
influence on the conception of language developed by one of the founders
of modern linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913); a conception
which was, ironically, to transform much of anthropology, literary criticism
and philosophy half a century later in the hands of Claude Lévi-Strauss. His
‘structuralism’ precipitated a sequence of developments from
‘structuralism’ to ‘poststructuralism’, playing a major part in the work of
the Marxist scholar Louis Althusser (1918–90), and stimulating the work of
two dominant figures of the moment, Michel Foucault (1926–93) and
Jacques Derrida (b. 1930). Weber, in his turn, had a considerable effect
upon the work of Theodor W. Adorno, a founding figure of the Frankfurt
School of social analysis and criticism which has itself played a major part
in shaping the intellectual agenda of cultural studies, and upon Jürgen
Habermas (b. 1929), the leading theorist in Germany today. Not all that
indirectly, our three ‘classical’ scholars are at the heart of contemporary
intellectual life.
Our concern has, however, been a more modest one than trying to trace
through in detail all the ways in which Marx, Durkheim and Weber have
influenced contemporary social and cultural thought. As we have indicated
elsewhere, much of this influence has been in forming what might be
described as a sociological mentality in addition to the more direct
contributions that we have pointed to. Our concern has been primarily with
the sociological aspects of their work and the import of their ideas and we
cannot emphasise strongly enough the degree to which their theories
prefigure the continuing preoccupations of sociological thought.
In more recent contemporary social thought their place has not simply
been one of prefigurement but also one of reinterpretation, some of which
has already been discussed in the end sections of each chapter. However, in
this concluding chapter we want to try and set the scene for the more recent
contributions concerning these thinkers and, also, try to weigh their
respective contributions to contemporary thought and debates within
sociology. It is, of course, a huge jump from the deaths of these figures to
contemporary sociological debates and we would not for one moment want
to give the impression that nothing happened in sociology during this period
because much did happen and this is the subject of Understanding Modern
Sociology, a companion volume.
One of the major ‘things which changed’ since these theorists wrote their
major works was, of course, the world itself, although there are many
respects in which the changes which took place within the first half of the
twentieth century continued to be those aspects of society to which Marx,
Weber and Durkheim had given such emphasis.
The expansion of the industrial economies of the major states of Western
Europe and the United States continued, and they became even more
dominated by industrial manufacturing, while their economies became ever
more global in their reach. The division of labour on which these theorists
placed such stress reached its apogee in the development of mass-
production, exemplified by the conveyor-belt methods so paradigmatically
employed in the motor industry. It was this which earned the period of
industrial organisation dominated by the conveyor-belt approach, and which
extended into the third quarter of the century, the characterisation of
‘Fordism’. Under this system, the organisation of work was centralised and
disciplined. Work tasks were decomposed into their smallest constituents,
and the main requirements of those employed in such a system were to be
obedient and disciplined, so that they could function as adjuncts to the
machines. A great many sociologists felt that this kind of society, dominated
by mass-production and with a large industrial working class, was one to
which the analytical tools developed by one or another, or some
combination of our three theorists, could still be applied, for in important
ways there was a continuity between it and those of nineteenth-century
industrial capitalism.
However, in recent years there have been considerable changes in
industrial societies. The economic significance of industrial manufacturing
has greatly diminished within the last decade or so, certainly relative to
service work and employment which has been expanding in the post-war
period. ‘Fordism’, as a system of production, has been exported to other
parts of the world. The symbol is no longer the conveyor-belt, but the
computer; no longer the production line, but the electronic office; no longer
material goods, but information. The emphasis is less and less on the
worker as an adjunct to the machine and more on him or her as an educated,
highly skilled, autonomous decision-maker. Such changes in the economy
are also seen as ramifying throughout other areas of society and, as Marx
might well have argued, are manifesting themselves in its culture.
Naturally enough, changes such as those just alluded to have their impact
on sociology. Indeed, over the years sociological thinking has played a
major part in identifying and presenting various analyses of such changes;
changes which also had an impact on the nature of sociology itself. One of
the major changes was the increasing professionalisation of the discipline,
particularly in the United States where sociology became more and more a
university discipline with consequent attempts to standardise its theoretical
and methodological curriculum. By the 1950s Functionalism and variable
analytic methods based around the social survey had become dominant
though not universally accepted within the discipline. For a time sociology
lost much of its critical thrust in shifting toward a far less radical posture
and an acceptance of pluralist democracy and the mixed economy as ‘the
best of all possible worlds’. There was, as we have indicated, by the 1960s
some resistance to this move most notably by a resurgent Frankfurt School
of Critical Theory and, more idiosyncratically, from the Structuralist
Movement in France.
It would be easy to conclude that of the three theorists discussed in this
book that Marx was the major loser as a sociological analyst in the changes
to society we have briefly mentioned. After all, he failed to anticipate the
major transformations in the nature of industrial societies. Capitalism did
not collapse. If anything, the working class did not grow but declined both
in size and significance. Moreover, Marxists had played little role in the
disturbances of 1968 and the revelations about the Soviet Gulag, a chain of
concentration camps, further added to the disillusionment with Marxism as
a political doctrine. Yet, as we have shown in the concluding section on
Marx, Marx’s scheme remains, indirectly but often directly, hugely
influential today and perhaps the most currently influential of the three even
though that influence may take a very dilute form mediated through other
theorists and schools that are the inheritors of his influence.

Toward a Postmodern Marx?

It is more than possible to take the view that Marx’s influence is now so
dilute and indirect and, accordingly, an indication that his legacy is in poor
shape discredited both theoretically and politically. The political events of
the 1960s, along with the expansion of higher education and the arrival of
sociology as a discipline in all, and not merely a few, universities in Europe
and the UK, initially revitalised and then progressively eroded the
recognition of Marx as the relevant figure for the analysis of modern
industrial society. The very tendency to speak of ‘industrial society’
expressed the conclusion, reached in the 1950s and 1960s by many social
theorists (such as Raymond Aron and Talcott Parsons), that it was now
inappropriate to speak of ‘capitalist’ society because of the huge changes
that had taken place in the structure of Western societies, and also because
of the need to encompass the supposedly ‘socialist’ societies of Eastern
Europe with the same concept. The rediscovery of Marx ensured the
reinstatement of the term ‘capitalism’, a term which is regularly used by
contemporary protest movements who declare themselves ‘anti-capitalist’,
so returning it to currency.
However, even as Marx’s work was being rediscovered in the late 1960s
and early 1970s, the rot was setting in. In the UK the rediscovery of Marx
was, in many respects, the discovery of European social theory. The
translation of the abstrusely theoretical work of the Parisian scholar, Louis
Althusser, led to an initial enthusiasm for his ideas, but also the discovery
of a long standing tradition of ‘Western Marxism’ originating in the thought
of Georg Lukas, the Frankfurt School and others who, like Althusser,
presented Marx in a much more sophisticated way. However, even as
Althusser’s impact was being felt in the UK, his hold over French theory
was disastrously weakened by his refusal – and that of the Communist Party
to which he belonged – to take part in the student ‘revolts’ of 1968 and,
incidentally, a direct provocation to other soon-to-be-influential theorists,
such as Michel Foucault, to develop a non-Marxist method of social
critique, a development which would lead to the rise of poststructuralism.
It is perhaps difficult for many readers to realise how recently – the
1970s – serious social theorists were anticipating working-class revolution
in the relatively near future. However, as already pointed out, the long
period of increasing prosperity of Western Europe and the United States
following the post-war economic boom, the changing occupational structure
which diminished the significance and political position of the working
class, the revelations about the Soviet Gulag, the predominance of
Thatcherism in the UK through the 1980s, the fall of the Berlin Wall at the
end of that decade, were all counted to Marx’s discredit, both politically and
intellectually.
Of course, much of the resurgence in Marxism had been academically
inspired rather than due to their political significance, but within the
academy the previously strong affiliation with Marx’s theory in some
quarters began to weaken. G.A. Cohen, for example, who in 1978 had
launched a staunch and sophisticated defence of the economic determinist
interpretation of Marx’s theory of history, recanted his position. Previously,
Cohen had attempted to defend a position which Western Marxism came to
regard as vulgar and crass, namely, that Marx’s theory involved a
deterministic relationship between the economic base and the social and
ideological superstructure. This was precisely the interpretation that
Althusser had devoted his energies to exposing. Cohen had tried to treat
Marxist thought with the rigour he associated with Anglo-American
analytical philosophy and which initiated the development of ‘analytic
Marxism’, or ‘rational choice Marxism’, that tried to use the kind of formal
analytic tools found in economic modeling and in game theory to give a
stringent and discriminating treatment of Marx’s thought. This involved, for
very brief example, trying to give key concepts, such as ‘exploitation’ a
formal definition (Carver and Thomas, 1995). Cohen’s recantation came
from a realisation that nationalism was a much more autonomous and
decisive force than Marx and Marxist theory had allowed tending, as it did,
to explain this away as an epiphenomenon of the self destructive forces
within capitalism of which class was by far the most important.
However, although there has been a shift in intellectual loyalty toward
more recent tendencies and movements, such as poststructuralism and post-
modernism (and especially to Foucault), not everyone has given up on
Marx. There are some who argue that the political and intellectual
developments that have marginalised Marxism in social thought present a
challenge and one to which Marxism needs to respond. Another round of
revision is required.
Stuart Sim’s Post-Marxism (2000) offers an ‘intellectual history’ of the
response to pressures on Marxist thought since the 1970s, especially by
Hindess and Hirst, Laclau and Mouffe, Hall, Bahro, and Zizek, among
others. Laclau and Mouffe, for example, attacked the idea that Marxism
offered a uniquely adequate, self-sufficient scheme of thought that could
provide the single right guide to action. Marxism needed to be rethought
drastically, so drastically that it may well come close to its dissolution, to
provide a more pluralistic approach to political action so that Marxists
could participate on equal terms with feminists, ecologists, and
multiculturalists, among others. They attack the notion of ‘hegemony’
which had become a key idea in contemporary Marxist thought as, so to
speak, an alibi for its failings. ‘Hegemony’, they argue, sustains the false
impression that Marx’s thought is both unified and comprehensive. It is, if
we may put it this way, more a way of explaining away the thriving
development of capitalism unchallenged by any fatally threatening
opposition. The working class have shown little revolutionary intent but the
idea of hegemony explains this away by suggesting that it is because the
working class have been mentally and culturally captivated by bourgeois
ideology. Although this might seem that Marxism had understood the
dynamics of capitalism, identified the potential for revolution and also
explained how capitalism had managed to contain this threat, one could
easily argue that this shows that it had not understood capitalism. It did not
really understand why capitalism has developed in the way it has.
‘Hegemony’ is, to use a phrase from the anthropologist Evans-Prichard, a
‘secondary elaboration’ added to a belief system to explain away the failure
of its central doctrines. Slavo Zizek, drawing on psycho-analytic theory as
interpreted by another Parisian, Jacques Lacan, brought to prominence by
and after the 1960s, argues that the notion of ideology (as hegemony)
misunderstands the thought not only of Althusser but of Marx himself.
Ideology is a fantasy, one that we ourselves construct, something that we
psychologically need and which enables us to live in reality. It is not
something imposed on us by the ideological apparatus of society and nor
does it determine what we, as individuals, do. A question we posed before
in connection with Jon Elster’s suggestion, in the concluding remarks to
Chapter 2, that the extensive functionalism to be found in Marx’s thought
be eliminated, is: how much of Marx can be revised, even abandoned, while
retaining a supposed connection to Marx? Much of what remains of Marx
after such intellectual surgery can surely be little more than sociological or
even commonplace platitudes. If one is to abandon the idea that Marx’s is a
totalising intellectual scheme, reject the concept of ‘historical necessity’,
dispense with the supposed ‘laws of capitalist development’, accuse it of
failing to understand that its ‘deterministic imperatives’ are not actually
deterministic but can be deflected, denounce it for ‘essentialism’ in the false
attempt to reduce the individual to his or her social being, as well as, of
course, accuse it of being historically and politically wildly inaccurate (Sim,
2000: 16–19), then surely there remains little value in invoking Marx’s
name at all. It has instead become a heading for a wide range of unsettled
philosophical, theoretical and empirical issues.
Barry Hindess and Paul Hirst’s arguments raise much the same question.
After an initial enthusiasm for Althusser’s theory they soon cooled toward it
though retained, for some time, an intense if shifting zeal for social thought
as an essentially abstract venture and eventually turning this conception
onto the Marxist position itself. Marxism is not a science of history, for
them history is essentially an empiricist pursuit taking facts at ‘face value’
and failing to appreciate that real phenomena are known only through
theory. Marxism is not a universal science if it adheres to its teleological
ambitions. ‘Teleology’ means, crudely, ‘end driven’ and the idea that
empirically caused events can be explained by the ends they result in is
widely regarded as unscientific. To the extent to which Marxism postulates
an end toward which history is moving, then it is unscientific. However,
rejecting the teleological elements in Marxist thought comes perilously
close to destroying Marxism as understood over many years. In wanting to
purge Marxism of teleology (especially the idea that there is a succession of
stages in history), of determinism, economism (the notion that society is
determined by its economic base), idealism (which, even if foresworn by
Marxists, is the infection that is the largely unrecognised Hegelian legacy in
Marx), of the labour theory of value and related concepts such as surplus
value and exploitation (because they cannot be given real quantitative,
calculable identity), and of the idea that Marxism has any predictive value,
what is left? These are, of course, the kinds of criticisms that anti-Marxists
have been making on and off over the years, but here they are mounted
from ‘the inside’ of Marxism. As Sim’s comments of Hindess and Hirst’s
analysis: they display ‘a low interpretation of the Marxist theoretical
community, most of whom are held guilty of misinterpretation of the
Marxist classics’ (Sim, 2000: 57).
Post-Marxism is an effort to move Marxism in a ‘postmodern’ direction,
a main element of which is denying the possibility of an all-encompassing
theory of social reality. Lyotard (1984) defined postmodernity as
‘incredulity to grand narratives’, that is, an inability to believe any longer in
such theories, and it was Marxism he particularly had in mind. The grounds
for this conclusion are that the diversified and discontinuous nature of
reality itself is simply too protean to be comprehensively captured within a
unifying, single theory – the one ‘big idea’ as Sims puts it (2000: 171). This
is the inadequacy that Mouffe and Laclau were finding in Marxist theories
leaving us with, in Sim’s words again, ‘a messy complex, on the-edge-of-
chaos, reality’. It is such a position that brings on a kind of relativism
leaving us with – if there is no single theory that can comprehensively
apprehend reality – the partiality of theories and, what is more, a plurality
of theories. Lyotard uses the concept of ‘differend’ to indicate that there are
diverse ways of thinking, the differences between which cannot be resolved.
Hence, Mouffe and Laclau’s intent to convert Marxism to a pluralist politics
that can recognise points of view other than its own.
However, ‘postmodernity’ often involves going further than this. It wants
to turn away from the idea that the function of language (and theories
expressed in it) is to represent an external reality. Instead, it demands that
we recognise the textual nature of theories and assume, to put it in a
sloganised way, nothing outside the text. Lyotard’s denunciation of ‘grand
narratives’ promotes this shift as the very term invites a recognition that
these vaunted theories are only stories, narratives that relate and accept the
need to give meaning and justification for our ways of life and deserving
examination only as such.
Jacques Derrida, a key originator and protagonist of the ‘textual’
approach latterly turned his attention to Marx’s writing. Rejecting, as he
does, the separation of philosophy from literature, Derrida concerned
himself with what would have previously been considered as ‘literary’
aspects of Marx’s work, most especially to the frequency with which
references to ‘ghosts’ and ‘spectres’ appear in the writings. Derrida’s
reading sees Marx as expressing, through these literary figures, an idea
about the relation of language and reality, and the sense in which the former
is always inadequate to the latter. Such a discontinuity will always return to
‘haunt’ us. Further, the use of ghost stories, which are inventions we use
both to frighten and reassure ourselves. The specters of which Marx speaks
are sometimes, for example, ones that the bourgeoisie create for themselves
to reassure themselves that the ‘red menace’ is only a fantasy. Terrel Carver,
a Marxist, accepts the need to ‘textualise’ Marx but in what he regards as a
‘mild postmodernism’ (Carver, 1998). Though dissenting from Derrida’s
specific reading of Marx’s ‘spectral’ tropes, for him the ‘red scare’ version
of communism, ‘the spectre’, was created by reactionary powers to terrify
themselves into a witch hunt – he, nonetheless, takes the view that it is
necessary to abandon the idea that there is, or could ever be, one correct
interpretation of Marx (ibid.: 13). We need to read his work to find the
‘multiple Marxes’. For example, Carver claims that he can find in Marx’s
talk about capitalists in terms which suggest that the individuals who
occupy such positions are not themselves responsible for the existence of
that position. The fact that they occupy the position means, for the purpose
of Marx’s Capital that other aspects of the individual’s existence, including
how morally well or badly they behave, are irrelevant. This project,
according to Carver, does not entail any radical claims that individuals have
no real existence, that there is no such thing as agency, that morality and
ethics are meaningless. As he sees it, Marx’s position is carefully agnostic
and he did not claim to have explored ‘all these areas nor offered any
comprehensive albeit implicit theories’ (ibid.: 52–3). However, it does
provide for a rejection of ‘rational choice Marxism’ as based on a
misreading of Marx’s own work. The ‘rational choice model’ seeks to
derive explanation from a transhistorical conception of rationality of the
kind that Marxists, and sociologists more generally, have associated with a
misguided form of economic theorising when, as Carver argues, the very
conception itself is a ‘social construction’ associated with ‘Smith, Ricardo
and numerous other economists whom Marx despised’ (ibid.: 56).
There are, then, as many Marxes as there are reading strategies.
Recognising this means that while debate may continue, it must refuse
attempts at ‘closure and exclusion, or to put it simply, “We’re right and
you’re wrong”’ (ibid.: 234). Instead what we need to aim at is a self-
consciously constructed Marx who will pose for us questions about which
concepts are important to us in constructing the world in which we live, and
to what extent, and by what means, processes are variable and malleable?
Not everyone has converted to a postmodern Marx. ‘Critical Realism’,
for one, seeks to mount a strong resistance. As its name implies, ‘Critical
Realism’ is insistent upon the capacity of scientific discourses to make
reference to an external reality and understanding this as an irreducible
essential of what Marx sought to do. The position itself derives from a
‘realist’ conception of science as advanced by Rom Harré (1975). However,
more decisively for Critical Realism, it is Roy Bhaskar’s work (1978)
which is the more relevant. This was an effort to affirm that the natural and
the social sciences can be broadly continuous but not, it is important to
emphasise, in the way supposed by Positivism – which, almost since
Durkheim had tried to build a positivistic sociology, had been despised by
many and a growing number of sociologists. Realism argued that science
does discover real structures, ones which hitherto are undisclosed to human
consciousness. It can do so because reality itself is ‘stratified’, that is,
differentiated into levels, some of which are within the purview of human
consciousness, others not. Thus, the level of conscious human existence
needs to be taken into account in a social science but only as a part of a
more complex explanatory scheme that invokes levels of supra-individual
structures, especially those of inequality and oppression. Both the insistence
on science and, as a necessary complement to such an enterprise, a
language-independent reality, are, from the point of view of
postmodernism, retrograde moves. However, the Critical Realists insist that
they are philosophically defensible and politically necessary.
The ‘critical’ in the venture’s title connects it closely to Marxism which
originally gave it predominance in sociology as a ‘critical’ discipline and it
is the essentials of Marx’s thought which Critical Realism seeks to preserve.
Sean Craven, for example, in his Marxism and Realism (2001) uses the
concept of ‘emergence’ in an attempt to save the base/superstructure model
in the interest of theorising

… the interface between the organismic, subjectivist, interactional and structural properties of
social systems in a way which is consistent with a radicalized form of realist social theory …
Sociological emergentism (and attendant methodological realism) is indispensable to
constructing an anti-reductive understanding of the social world, which neither reduces human
agents to social structures or processes of socialization and enculturation, nor reduces social
structure or social practices to human agents. Second, a ‘materialistic’ interpretation of
sociocultural emergentism allows the theorist to avoid the error of translating the realist thesis of
the irreducibility of the distinct strata of human and social reality into an argument specifying
the mutual autonomy of the ‘ideal’ and ‘material’ elements in society
This equips the analyst to ‘resist fashionable neo-Weberian and postmodern understandings of
cultural reality as simply a kaleidoscopic combinatory of heterogeneous structures of practices
or ‘power centres’, none of which have any necessary connection or determinate relationship
with each other (Craven, 2001: 277).

But perhaps this position overlooks the fact that the emphasis on a key
explanatory role for interests does not differentiate it from a Weberian
approach which also makes interests (material and ideal) central. The
virtues Craven claims for his approach are, in many areas of sociology,
effectively those of motherhood and apple pie. Emergence, non-reduction,
materialism, and the recognition of at least a twoway traffic between the
material and the ideal aspects of social reality, or even the denial of a sharp
distinction between them, are severally claimed as virtues of innumerable
schemes of social theory over many years – the proclamation of such
virtues often arising in response to the apparent denial of them in Marx’s
own thought or in that of one or more of his interpreters.
Much of the rethinking of Marx appears to be little more than an
acceptance of long-standing criticisms that have been made of the Marxist
tradition, an acceptance seemingly following from the fact that they are
now being advanced by Marxists themselves, and the begrudging
acceptance presented as though somehow it comprised a virtue of Marxism.
The irony of Post-Marxism seems to be that it has at last come round to the
liberal value of pluralism (which it so long despised) but has done so on the
basis of a convergence with many of the non-Marxist conceptions of social
theory. The question that Carver treats as being posed by the postmodern
Marx is surely the same as that which has divided structuralists and
individualists for decades and one which has been the focus of attention of
the numerous theorists who attempt to mediate between what they see as
two extreme positions. Might a postmodern Marx have a different and
superior synthesis to offer? The problem that surely afflicts this and a
Critical Realist Marx is bound up with the same old problems of
interpretation: once Marx has been stripped of the misinterpretations and
misunderstandings, along with those faulty elements of his thought, what
substantially remains as a distinctive and telling contribution to
contemporary social thought?
Some, however, do see a renewed potential in Marx’s thought for
providing an understanding of the contemporary world that may finally see
the completion of the process that Marx identified in the nineteenth century
and the emancipation that, on Hegelian logic, will attend that completion.
Marshall Burman’s book, All that is Solid Melts into Air (1983) took a
phrase from Marx as its title to characterise many of the tendencies
regarded as distinctive of the postmodern. Frederic Jameson (1991) took
postmodernism to be the product of the ‘cultural logic of late capitalism’
and, as such, a continuation of the logic identified by Marx, namely, the
thoroughgoing conversion of everything to the commodity form, including
culture and information. These ideas have been taken up and extended
through their application to contemporary developments in information
technologies and the globalisation process. Nick Dyer-Witherford (1999)
views the ‘information radicals’, who see the rise of the ‘wired society’ as a
major potential for social change, as having affinities with Marx’s
conceptions. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, in their bestseller, Empire
(2000), attempt to adapt some of Marx’s remarks about imperialism into an
account of the revolutionary potential of globalisation that certainly flies in
the face of many ‘classical’ Marxist convictions and that draws heavily
upon such self-consciously postmodern figures as Gilles Deleuze and Felix
Guattari.
Dyer-Witherford does not align himself with those Marxists who depend
only on Marx’s remarks about technology dehumanising the worker, for
these ignore his other remarks which emphasise the potential of technology
for liberation, not least the part it plays in the constant self-transformation
that is, to Marx, such a striking feature of capitalism. The collapse of the
Soviet Union did not mark the end of Marxism nor, and more crucially, the
end of class struggle. Rather, it put an end to a version of Marxism that had
effectively suppressed alternatives and whose demolition, therefore,
provides the opportunity to develop an alternative version of Marxism.
Dyer-Witherford turns to the ‘autonomist’ Marxism that developed in Italy
during the 1970s and 80s and in which Negri, co-author of Empire, was
prominent. The mistake, as Dyer-Witherford sees it, is to take a change in
the form of the class struggle for an end to it. The autonomist notion of
‘cycles of struggle’ emphasises that the composition the class struggle is
itself part of the process of struggle. The composition of oppositional
groups is recomposed as capitalism seeks its relentless expansion, with the
leading role in opposition shifting from one grouping to another as their
relative positions change, as their respective strategies become outmoded or
as more effective ones emerge. The disappearance (or at least minimisation)
of traditional working-class conflict is just one phase in the continuing
struggle since the traditional working class is not essential to its
continuance. Globalisation is the context in which these changes have been
taking place, globalisation itself being part of capitalism’s effort to extend
its power and fragmenting the work force being one of the means of
accomplishing this. Capitalism was compelled, by the class struggles of the
mid-century, to overcome divisions within which it has previously worked,
especially those between what were often called ‘metropolitan’ and
‘peripheral’ states of the world capitalist system. The end to the division
between ‘First’ and ‘Third’ worlds would intensify processes generating
profit, and would also help to fragment the working class. However, this is
merely to restructure oppositional forces and, moreover, in a way which
gives them new potential. The global communication networks which
facilitate capitalist expansion also provide new communication links that
can be used against capitalism itself. In classic Marxist mould, the new
technology of the internet creates the potential for the abolition of existing
forms of property. One possible option is for the ‘fundamental attenuation
of the commodity form, through the generalised transgression of electronic
property rights’ (Dyer-Witherford, 1999: 203). In the meantime the internet
promotes the increasingly interconnected nature of labour and provides
electronic resources that can be appropriated for ‘counterusage’. Again, in
classic mould, Dyer-Witherford sees these tendencies as a move toward
concentration in a global confrontation of labour with capital.
Negri and Hardt emphasise the extent to which capitalism is driven
reactively to contain the insurgent and resurgent power of the ‘multitude’,
the name given to the all-inclusive opposition that was, for a time,
represented by the traditional working class but which has largely been
displaced by what are nowadays often called ‘knowledge workers’. The
‘multitude’ is not just those who work but includes all those necessary to
the reproduction of capitalism, including mothers and students. It may be,
they argue, that the full and final development of ‘empire’ offers this
multitude, united in an unprecedented way because of the abolition, by the
‘empire’ itself, of all boundaries, differentiations and discriminations, the
possibility of the usurpation of empire itself by the abolition of ‘command
structures’ that, as capitalism globalised, become increasingly precarious.
Having thus reversed the traditional Marxist treatment of the working class
as entirely subject to capitalist domination, Negri and Hardt then argue that
the development of globalisation is to be welcomed not resisted; an idea
which opposes Marx’s own disdain for ‘rural idiocy’ and the reactionary
character of the peasantry, as well as contemporary Marxism’s alignment
with the preservation of local communities through resistance to
globalisation. Lenin’s notion that imperialism is the highest state of
capitalism is also rejected. Imperialism is but one stage in a very prolonged
process going back centuries, at least to the time of Ancient Rome, in the
development of what they call ‘empire’. This notion again captures the
relentlessly expansionist character of capitalism as a phenomenon that
surpasses specific social and political forms.
In their terms, ‘empire’ is not centred in particular societies or attached to
territory. It is the process of the extension of capitalist forms and relations.
Nation states, and imperialism, are merely temporary significant elements
in the process of ‘empire’. Imperialism was an attempt to establish and
define borders. However, this later stage of empire seeks to abolish them,
except those which demarcate the outer limits of its own full, thoroughly
global expansion. It is, thus, a kind of optical illusion that current
developments are really the products of, and to the benefit of, American
power. America’s present role does not serve its interests but those of much
more generalised processes effecting the advancement of universal values.
Similarly, the fact that the traditional working class and nation states are
losing their significance does not signify the end of struggle. Indeed, the
unorganised working class of the United States is a more progressive form
than the centralised, unionised labour force of Europe. Empire involves the
development of generalised human rights as part of the coming thoroughly
global empire.
Is there a postmodern Marx? As always, it depends. It depends upon what
is understood as postmodernism as well as upon the very varied
interpretations of Marx’s own work. What is perhaps clearer is that despite
the attempts to bury him as outmoded in the new era in which we are
supposedly living, there is a reluctance to let go of his name and legacy
entirely. In some ways he is too important a figure in social thought to
dismiss simply as an irrelevance, so the debate with Marx and his work
goes on.

The Durkheimian Legacy

Despite the fact that for so many years Durkheim has generally been treated
with disdain by much of sociology due to his espousal of a positivistic
conception of the discipline, some eighty years after his death his thought is
still the subject of reinterpretation. Currently, the British Centre for
Durkheimian Studies is promoting a series of publications designed to keep
Durkheim up to date. A volume on Durkheim Today is scheduled and there
are already volumes on his ideas on religion, on representations, and on
suicide, all attempting to give assessments of his work. Of course, any
assessment must hinge on the interpretation and understanding of his
thought.
The collection on ‘representations’ mainly argues against an
interpretation, promoted by Talcott parsons in the 1930s in his The
Structure of Social Action (1937), which suggested that Durkheim’s
understanding of social reality had moved from a ‘realist’ to an ‘idealist’
emphasis. In Parson’s view Durkheim had rightly changed his position to
reduce the positivist elements in his thought but had gone too far, especially
in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, in the direction of idealism.
This idealism involved treating social reality as consisting of mental
phenomena, in the collective ‘representations’ (or systems of ideas) that
were created by the association of individuals and that came to regulate
their life. The Pickering volume argues that this change in Durkheim’s way
of thought is illusory. ‘Representations’, it is argued, were vital to
Durkheim’s thought throughout: ‘From his earliest writings, Durkheim used
the concept of representation – he was never suddenly converted to it –
though it is true that he used it more frequently as the years went by,
notably of course in Les Formes Elementaires (Pickering, 2000a: 111).
However, Parsons’ point is not that Durkheim became an idealist simply by
adopting the concept of ‘representations’, but rather about the place he gave
the notion in his account of the religious character of society, that is, as both
the source and the object of the experience of sacredness. Even if the notion
of representation is agreed to be important throughout Durkheim’s career,
the contemporary scholars included in this volume cannot agree on what the
actual role of the concept is in his social thought, or whether it is worth
keeping. (see Warren Schmaus and David Bloor’s contributions to this
collection.)
A substantial part of the discussion wrestles with the question: what do
representations represent? Do they really represent reality? Durkheim
certainly insisted that the representations contained in religion must have
something to do with reality – they could not be mere illusion – but not in
any straightforward sense. There is no supernatural for religious
representations to represent. There is only the natural reality known to or
knowable by science, and this includes social reality. It was the latter that
they are connected with, but they ‘present’ social reality in a symbolic way.
In many respects what they give expression to is the effect that society has
upon its members as something greater than themselves, upon which they
are dependent, that can induce powerful transcendent feelings in them, and
that has the power to impose a sense of obligation on them. We would argue
that Durkheim is effectively saying that religious representations present the
reality of society, that society is real enough to affect individuals, rather
than portraying what society is actually and specifically like. It seems fair to
say that both of these volumes mostly involve marginal modifications to our
understanding of Durkheim and have little engagement in making any
difference to contemporary social thought.
The collection on the ‘century of research and debate’ over Durkheim’s
Suicide (Pickering, 2000b) treats the book as a sociological classic in
respect of teaching, one that, even if flawed, still retains a great deal of
merit. Indeed, an interesting feature of the collection is that after a hundred
years so many of the papers have an antiquarian interest. It is only in the
tenth and eleventh chapters that the empirical standing of Durkheim’s
theory is raised at all. The chapter by Besnard tells us that many recent
studies of suicide ‘make numerous references to the effects of marriage and
divorce on suicide, and in almost all cases Durkheim’s study is cited or
appealed to … often their conclusion seems to support Durkheim’s theory,
but the units of analysis are so coarse … as to make them insufficient tests
of the theory’ (Pickering, 2000b: 135). Besnard’s own study, in the words of
his editors, ‘gives fragmentary but convergent results that tend to confirm
Durkheim’s theory of marital regulation: marriage as an institution protects
men from the risk of suicide more than women’ (8). Unfortunately, Breault
and Kpowsa’s companion study of ‘social integration and marital status’
finds remarkably little support for Durkheim’s theory of social integration.
For example, ‘while Durkheim views single status as the most risky one for
suicide, this study generally shows opposite or non-significant results’
(173). This does not, however, lead them to call for abandoning Durkheim’s
theory but, as so often in sociology, for further research.
However, the key question bearing upon this exemplary status of the
work is not asked: how can it retain this status today? The book was meant
as an example of the way in which a mighty science of society could be
built, but it is now offered as a good basis for giving sociology students an
idea of the basics of one kind of approach to sociology; an approach,
moreover, which no one else has been able to develop. There are lots of
examples of sociological studies of suicide, but these do not really even
begin to match up to, let alone build upon Durkheim’s example. And where
are studies of other social phenomena that equal and progress beyond
Durkheim’s study? Durkheim had had lots of followers but they have not
managed to do very much with his legacy, Accordingly, rather than
adopting a defensive attitude to the concepts he put forward or to his
general approach, it may be just as well to recognise that Durkheim’s
studies were not the initial building blocks of the science he envisaged.
Durkheim was not himself one for showing cautious respect for receive
doctrines and so why not do him the honour of investigating fundamentally
and rigorously why the concept of sociology that he expressed through his
fascinating and challenging writings does not work? One might say the
same of Marx and Weber no less.
A rather bolder and more radical attempt at reassessing Durkheim is
Anne Rawls (1996) who, interestingly, tries to show that the Durkheim to
be found in some parts of The Elementary Forms of Religious Life is almost
a proto-Ethnomethodologist. It is at least an effort to overturn eighty years
of Durkheim scholarship by taking up a ‘neglected’ epistemological
argument about the social origins of the basic categories of thought, and
adopting the view that social representations are not the primary
constitution of society, for these originate in ‘enacted social practice’, in the
embodied activity of ritual occasions. That Durkheim saw thought as
originating in society is a long-standing interpretation, but that thought
originates in practice is one that has only developed any prominence in
sociology during the last half century or so since the so-called ‘linguistic
turn’, with Ethnomethodology being one of the most drastic incarnations of
that conception. Rawls argues that this view was there all along in
Durkheim’s thought.
The rapprochement between Durkheim and Ethnomethodology is striking
insofar as it has always seemed that Ethnomethodology is unrelentingly
hostile to Durkheim’s thought, not least to his idea of social facts and,
accordingly, it may come as an especial surprise to note that Rawls’
argument that Durkheim anticipates Ethnomethodology is echoed by its
founder. Harold Garfinkel, publishing his first book since 1967 (edited and
introduced by Rawls), Ethnomethodology’s Program subtitles it Working
Out Durkheim’s Aphorism, an allusion to the central concern that
Ethnomethodology has always shown with the ways in which the properties
of Durkheim’s ‘social facts’ – such as the constancy of practices over
changes of personnel – are produced in society. Garfinkel thus seems to
officially acknowledge at least some of the case earlier developed by
Richard Hilbert (1993) about the classic roots of Ethnomethodology.
Less drastic by way of interpretation is Robert Alun Jones’ (1999)
proposal for a profound change in attitude to Durkheimian scholarship with
consequences for our understanding of his thought. His is an attempt to
adopt a method that effectively originated in political philosophy through
the ideas of Quentin Skinner, Richard Rorty and others, which emphasises
the way that the understanding of texts is modified by the context in which
they are understood. The idea of context, like that of practice, is a product
of the last half century and the ‘linguistic turn’ and, as such, of much wider
currency than political philosophy as, for example, in the decisive influence
on the history of natural science through the work of Thomas Kuhn (1970).
However, the idea is that the interest of scholars in continuing dialogues
with their deceased intellectual forebears often involves a misreading of
their thought. Too often they are understood as if they shared a context with
us, as though when they use the same words as us they mean the same thing
by them. But they do not share a context with us or, rather, if they do then it
needs to be proved rather than assumed. We need to recognise the
possibility that our intellectual predecessors may be much more remote
from us than they seem and that the false impression of intellectual
proximity results from an ignorance of the actual context in which they
were thinking and writing. At best we have a shallow idea of who their
contemporaries were and what their intellectual relationship to their own
time was. Jones’ own effort in carrying out this programme really takes us
little further than a decent intellectual history might do. What Jones reveals
about Suicide, for example, is that there are extant lecture notes from an
early course of Durkheim’s in which he speaks of altruism as a natural
feature of humanity in contrast to the dismissive treatment of such an idea
in Suicide itself. Further, that Durkheim’s reforms to prevent the growth of
egoistic and anomic suicide might be ‘set within the larger history of
administrative decentralisation in French politics’ (Pickering, 2000b, 190) is
hardly a transforming interpretation of Durkheim’s thought.
We have already intimated that a major problem with the historical
legacy of sociology is a teaching problem. Susan Stedman Jones offers a
Durkheim Reconsidered (Jones, 2001), a Durkheim who, she thinks, differs
from Durkheim as interpreted within sociology. Her Durkheim is ‘neither
the kind of holist nor the kind of positivist that he is painted as: he is a
rationalist interested in the complex historical becoming of society. He is
not concerned with the subordination of the individual in the interests of
order, even though he acknowledges the profound interrelatedness of the
sphere which surrounds and envelops the individual; the pluralism of this
relational interdependence accommodates the autonomy of individual
action’ (ibid.: 218). But what sympathetic interpreter of Durkheim would
have supposed otherwise?
The teaching problem here is that what ought to count as introductory
portrayals of social thought are too often allowed to circulate as if they were
adequate to the purposes of serious intellectual work. The result is that
primitive, not to say crude, stereotypes are allowed to circulate to be
consulted in preference to more complex and difficult works. Matters are
made worse in sociology by the fact that anyone who is to qualify in the
subject is expected to have a familiarity with an immensely wide range of
names, a large number of whom were voluminous writers and by no means
easy to understand. It has been a serious criticism of, for example, Parsons
and Garfinkel that they are hard to understand. But no less is true of Marx,
Weber and Durkheim. Pressed to exhibit a ‘mastery’ of this wide, varied
and difficult intellectual resource, a superficial familiarity is all that can
realistically be acquired of large tracts of it. It is perhaps no wonder that
simplistic versions tend to circulate the most widely. A kind of
undergraduate demonisation of disapproved theorists, with a corresponding
infatuation with other approved theorists is allowed to pass within the
profession more widely. Richard Hamilton (1996), an historian who has
investigated topics closely related to sociological themes, complains that
contemporary sociology is a discipline of double standards with respect to
empirical evidence, applying the most stringent standards of appraisal to
theses that are disliked, while being indulgent to those that are favoured.
His point surely applies to theoretical preferences. Susan Stedman Jones,
for example, while concerned with the dismissive treatment of Durkheim,
herself exhibits the faults she complains of in her dismissive attack on
Ethnomethodology which she blames for opening the way for Foucauldian
and postmodernist ways of thinking – which are also treated disdainfully.
She sees Durkheim as having a well-rounded conception of sociology
which can accommodate structural, historical and individual phenomena
whereas, she insists, these other positions reduce sociology to only partial
views which cannot cope with the full range of these essential elements.
Her assertion of such views is, however, expressed in a highly generalised,
superficial and unsympathetic condemnation of them which pays little
attention to the possibility that these alternatives may have no less a
reasoned basis for what they say than did Durkheim himself. There is also,
surely, a lack of perspective involved in moving from a view that Durkheim
has been uncharitably interpreted to a claim that he is a cure-all for the
condition of contemporary sociology.
There are one or two points to be made here of a more general character.
The first is one that we have belaboured many times, that is, that
interpretative charity toward the diverse theories sociology offers will show
that the discipline is not a unified one. There are profoundly different
conceptions of what it can be. Accordingly, the inclination to take up any
one as the standard by which to judge others is likely to result in both
misrepresentation of those alternatives (as though they were or should be
responsive to standards they do not recognise), and in an underestimation of
the reasoned and plausible character of many of their arguments. However,
the fact that different approaches may constitute thoughtful and profoundly
imaginative contributions does not ensure that their projects can be realised.
It is also perhaps an illusion to suppose that the problems of sociology can
be solved by combining the ‘best’ of different approaches for they may be,
in the language of contemporary philosophy of science, incommensurable.
Often different approaches are not really different ways of trying to do the
same thing, but ways of doing different things. This is an important part of
what we mean by saying that sociology is not a unified subject. Nor is this a
statement of preference to be read as though we are advocating a ‘pluralist’
conception. Rather, it is an attempt to register the fact that the idea of
‘constructing a sociology’ conceived as a common purpose is only vague
and empty. It is not the case that different approaches are directed toward
realising the same end of what sociology is to be, but that each contains its
own conception of what sociology might be, and is contrived to try and
realise that conception. The means they develop to realise the conception
cannot easily, if at all, be transplanted to another scheme of thought, to
serve another purpose – this is what ‘incommensurability’ means. The
carburetor that works perfectly well in the Saab for which it was designed
may not work at all in a BMW.
Justifying an approach by contrasting it with diminished versions of
positions it has supposedly surpassed only creates the illusion of progress. It
might be that Durkheim – and Marx and Weber – may prove, in particular
cases and if considered seriously and charitably (which does not mean
uncritically), more philosophically/theoretically advanced than the
fashionable leaders of contemporary theory who have often misconstrued
their predecessors and, for that reason, often underestimated what is needed
to advance the theoretical situation. Thus, R. Keith Sawyer (2001) argues
against such contemporary theoretical luminaries as Anthony Giddens,
Jeffrey Alexander and Steven Lukes, for wrongly identifying an ambiguity
in Durkheim’s treatment of the relationship between the individual and
society. Durkheim is allegedly caught between a conception of individuals
who come together, fully formed, into social association, and thus give rise
to social phenomena, and one which sees individuals as created by society
itself.
Sawyer’s argument is that there is no dilemma for Durkheim here. His
way of thinking anticipated the more sophisticated philosophical concept of
emergence that has emerged in recent years. For example, even though the
‘mind’ is nothing more than a product of the brain, it is, nonetheless, the
case that the analysis of the mind must operate at a ‘higher’ level than the
brain. Structures of the mind, on this argument, are the causal results of the
working of the brain but they cannot be reduced to or identified with these.
They comprise a distinct ‘level’ of reality. Moreover, the causal relation is
not one-way. The mind also has causal effects on the brain. That is,
‘downward causation’. Similarly, Durkheim argued for social reality as
emergent from human associations, but this idea that society emerges from
the interaction of individuals is not inconsistent with the notion that
individuals are themselves shaped by society by ‘downward causation’.
In many respects Durkheim has not really been well-served by recent
commentators attempting to re-evaluate his thought, often on the basis of
travesties and caricatures of theoretical positions. Moreover, the extensive
literature on both Marx and Durkheim tends to be unfocussed and this is no
less true of Weber.
Which Weber?

‘There are almost as many Webers as there are Weberians: as the

spokesman of modernity, as the cultural theorist, the liberal individualist,
the disillusioned relativist, the precursor of postmodernity, the founder of
sociology, the universal historian, to name but a few’. So wrote Martin
Albrow (2001: 167) who then proposes to discuss two further Webers, ‘the
historian of the present’ and ‘analytical theorist’. So, on this rendering there
would seem to no shortage of contemporary commentary on Weber’s social
thought.
Colin Campbell in his Myth of Social Action (1996) argues that the social
action approach descending from Weber has become the dominant
theoretical approach in contemporary sociology, continued through the
work of Giddens, Habermas, Ethnomethodology and others. In Campbell’s
view this has been a deleterious trend and, what is more, unfaithful to
Weber himself. His argument is that Weber’s ‘basic concepts of sociology’
drew a distinction between action and social action, a distinction which has
virtually been evaporated by those who consider themselves Weber’s
successors. Emphasis has increasingly been placed on the public,
interactionally defined identity of people’s activities to the complete neglect
of the inner, psychological determinants of conduct. The repair of this
neglect would require a retreat from the ‘linguistic’ emphasis that is so
prominent and a closer alliance with cognitive psychology in an attempt to
construct theoretical models of the working mind.
Whether or not one finds Campbell’s treatment of Weber’s distinction
between action and social action satisfactory, one might still wonder
whether an agreement to focus on social action really does unite the diverse
approaches and theorists that comprise Campbell’s dominant paradigm? But
then there are those, such as Mary Fulbrook and Ralf Schroeder who argue
that Weber was not himself particularly loyal to his own ‘social action’
approach in his empirical work. Weber’s individualism and emphasis on
social action are seemingly good reasons to place Weber on the ‘agency’
side of the structure versus agency division that has been set up as one of
the principle problematics of recent sociological theory. However, critics
like Fulbrook argue that in practice Weber actually falls on the structuralist
side of the division in that he explains historical change in terms of large
scale structures and groupings rather than through the actions of
individuals. Here is Schoeder: ‘Weber’s programmatic pronouncements
about society being concerned with “individual social action” are
statements made in the context of writing a contribution to a general
handbook in the social sciences [but] in his substantive analyses of social
phenomena he is just as “holistic”, determinist, and even “structural-
functionalist” as any sociologists (or at least those sociologists who are
interested in macro- and comparative-historical sociology’ (Schroeder,
2001: 120). This, however, makes Weber remarkably naïve about what he is
doing in his own studies. Did he not notice that he was denying in such a
substantial part of his research the very doctrines that he set out as
guidelines for sociology?
Perhaps interpretations such as these reflect upon the crudity of the
structure versus agency contrast that drives these comparisons, with a
corresponding over-simplification which requires theorists to fall on one
side or the other. Given Weber’s nominalism and his insistence upon the
individual as the constituent of reality, there is every reason to think that
these organisations and groupings (the Chinese Empire, its traditional
administrative bureaucracy, etc.) are not ‘structures’ in the sense that a
structuralist would want them to be. We have already mentioned Sawyer’s
discussion of ‘emergence’ in connection with Durkheim as an attempt to
bolster the argument that social reality is a level of reality that cannot be
reduced to the actions of individuals, and it is against this view that Weber
(and many others who belong to this tradition) argues that social reality is
nothing over and above the actions of individuals. Admittedly, on many
occasions, the talk is of the actions of very many individuals and while in
principle one might insist that a description of the doings of a state, a class,
an empire is nothing more that a description of the doings of average or
typical individuals, in practice it is difficult to dispense with talk using
terms referring to large groups or organisations. It is a mistake to suppose
that adoption of the notion of ‘social action’ necessarily commits the user to
regard sociology as consisting in the description of the local interactions of
specific individuals in a so-called ‘micro-sociology’, though this a direction
some think that Symbolic Interactionism and Ethnomethodology have
taken.
It is quite possible to understand the social action tradition as applying to
the study of large scale historical situations in which the actions of actual
individuals cannot be specifically identified, as Weber himself did. As Fritz
Ringer (1997) remarks:

In practice Weber made little use of average or approximate meanings. But the construction of
ideal types certainly helped him deal with the beliefs of social groups and even of whole
cultures. One of the functions of the ideal type was hypothetically to characterize collective
actions as more or less rational responses to given situations, and thus causally to ascribe
aspects of actual group behaviours in the circumstances ‘covered’ by the type. (Ringer, 1997:
158. Italics in original)

He goes on to point out that from ‘social action’ Weber moved naturally and
easily to ‘social relationships’, ‘social structures’ and ‘social orders’. ‘In
any case, Weber’s line of analysis does allow him to move from
methodological individualism to the study of complex social interactions
and organizations’, although it must be borne in mind that Weber’s
conceptions ‘cannot be equated with “methodological individualism” in any
narrow or dogmatic sense of that term’ (Ringer, 1997: 158). As Turner and
Holton (1989: 42) also pointed out some years ago, Weber was not obliged
to ‘deny the reality of institutions or the ideas that actors may act under
institutional constraints, or that this constraint may be experienced as an
external compulsive force or imperative’. All that he needed to maintain is
that social life cannot be explained without reference to the causal
consequences of the meaning individuals give to their actions, and that
institutions do not ‘act as organic, causally effective entities through the
structured imposition of rules or constraints on unwilling actors, and
irrespective of the actions of such actors’ (ibid.: 42).
If it is difficult to decide whether Weber, in his historical studies, is on
the side of the ‘individualists’ or the ‘structuralists’ because it can as
reasonably be argued that they are wholly in line with his programmatic
pronouncements as that they deviate from them, then one might well
conclude that there is not as much substance to the structure agency
division as has often been made out. Perhaps the difference might after all
be one of terminology such that those who want to talk about
‘structuralism’ only mean something that is much, if not entirely, the same
as a methodological individualism that is ‘not narrow or dogmatic’.
One of the most prominent of Weber’s ‘historical’ studies was, of course,
his ‘protestant ethic thesis’ which has continued to figure in contemporary
reappraisals of Weber’s thought. We have already mentioned Richard
Hamilton’s complaint about sociology’s capacity to ignore historical data
that tells against favoured theses, and the protestant ethic thesis is one of his
favorite examples. There is, he insists, a mountain of data telling against the
thesis, a point supported Iannscone’s remark that the ‘most noteworthy
feature of the Protestant Thesis is its lack of empirical support’ (Blum and
Dudley, 2001: 217). Delacroix and Nielsen (2001) side with Hamilton, at
least in respect of the thesis ‘widely credited to Max Weber’ that
Protestantism contributed to the rise of industrial capitalism’. They are
careful to insist that the thesis they test is not necessarily quite the one that
may be found in Weber’s writings, only the version widely circulated in
sociology. They conclude that their five empirical tests ‘failed to supply it
with empirical support’ and that it remains only a ‘beloved academic myth’.
Using such measures as wealth and savings, the date on which stock
exchanges were founded, the shift of male labour from agriculture to
industry, the extension of the railways and infant mortality, to compare
Catholic and Protestant countries they find that there is no consistent
evidence that Protestant countries were more advanced. For example, even
though Protestant countries did save more than Catholic ones ‘it is
noteworthy that Protestant countries were not … systematically wealthier
than Catholic countries’ (Delacroix and Nielsen, 2001: 544).
Blum and Dudley attempt to identify a neglected reading of the fourth
chapter of the Protestant Ethic and the Rise of Capitalism that enables
Weber’s ideas to be connected to more recent technical concepts in
economics, such as ‘network externalities’ and ‘evolutionary game theory’.
Their reading of the Protestant Ethic suggests that, for long-term economic
growth, it was not the inclination of individual Protestants to work and save
that mattered, but the manner in which ‘a group of Protestants interacted
compared with a group of Catholics’ (Blum and Dudley, 2001: 217. Italics
in original). Weber had pointed out that among Catholics only monks and
priests were obliged to live a truly religious life. As a result, an increase in
religious intensity drove Catholic believers away from worldly
involvement. It was the involvement of Protestants with each other that
created mutually helpful networks of economic relations. A mathematical
model is tested against a data set of the population of European cities
between 1500 and 1700 leading to the conclusion that the ‘great leap
forward’ in North West Europe in this period is not explained by the
economic behaviour of individuals, but by the growth of networks among
Protestants that gave economic advantages. Thus, the authors argue, Weber
is supported.
The protestant ethic thesis continues to excite sociologists. Indeed, the
translation of Weber’s replies to critics of the first version of the Protestant
Ethic essay, have allowed a close comparison of that with the later version
of the essay. Such a comparison, it is claimed, provides decisive evidence to
resolve some key interpretative disputes (Chalcraft and Harrington, 2001).
One such is support of Hennis’ (1988) rejection of Tenbruck’s (1980) claim
that the central question of Weber’s work was that of rationalisation
processes and disenchantment. Hennis’ argument is that this cannot hold
because it has no relevance for the Protestant Ethic. The study shows that it
is not some process of rationalisation in general that interested Weber when
he wrote the essay but, rather, the ‘impact of rationalisation on the specific
conduct of life of those humans caught in the iron cage of modernity’
(Chalcraft and Harrington, 2001: 12).
Since the apparent demotion of Marx and Marxism, Weber’s analysis of
stratification has returned to some favour. John Scott (1996), for example,
argues for a revision of our understanding of Weber’s ideas of stratification
that will make his work even more relevant to contemporary sociology.
Scott does not endorse the usual trilogy of ‘class, status and party’ which
are recited as the dimensions of social stratification. Instead he argues that it
is not ‘party’ which should be the third dimension of stratification but
‘authority’. He claims that Weber’s notion of stratification is concerned
with the ways in which position on these dimensions determines life
chances. So, just as a person’s relation to the market – class – and ranking
in prestige – status – determine his or her life chances so, too, does a
persons position in the ‘hierarchy of command situations’ – authority. The
‘authority dimension’ involves ranking by ‘social blocs’, such as the state,
for example, and Scott accordingly tries to draw out the connection between
stratification and collective organisations made by Weber, such as economic
inequality with class, and prestige inequality with status groups. Scott then
proposes the addition of the ‘command society’, such as the former Soviet
Union, to the types identified by Weber himself, namely, class societies and
status societies. Scott emphasises that the extent to which these dimensions
contribute to the overall life chances of an individual varies from society to
society, but ‘they always operate together in concrete situations, and
sociologists must uncover and explore both their separate and their joint
effects’ (Scott, 1996).
Scott’s approach highlights the connection, in Weber’s analysis, between
stratification and the collective organisation of the structure of society; a
connection that we have been at pains to point out in our discussion of
class, status and party in Chapter 3. Although from Scott’s point of view our
discussion is unregenerate in setting out the discussion as about class, status
and party, we pointed out that Weber’s development of these ‘dimensions’
involved an attempt to identify the potential for collective action in each of
them; that is, the potential for common consciousness and the focused,
purposeful formation of a ‘party’ organisation. It is important to remember
that ‘party’ in this context need not be a political party but any kind of
collective, however large or small, formed for the purpose of gaining power.
Class had the least ready potential for generating shared consciousness and
concerted behaviour, while status groups tend to be marked by a diffuse
consciousness of common interest, rather than a specific and focused one,
and maintained their position by social exclusion and the monopolisation of
the resources for a particular life style. Parties are not a social grouping in
the same sense as classes. Parties are very specific forms of social
organisation entirely devoted to one specific purpose, namely, winning
power, and have no natural base in any other kind of group. They can, and
often are, formed by participants from different classes and status groups
even though they can be designed to win power on behalf of one or other of
these groupings. Whether classes or status groups can develop into parties
depends entirely upon their specific cultural character and their situation in
the society, as well as other circumstances which can affect them. Although
classes have the lower potential for common consciousness and party
organisaton, it does not mean that they cannot form a collective seeking
power, only that it will take more for them to do so. Status groups, almost
by definition, already have mutual awareness and a recognition of
commonality which makes developing collective action that much easier.
Although Scott is broadly sympathetic to Weber’s efforts, Catherine
Brennan is far less so. Hers is an attempt at ‘deheroising’ Weber by showing
that his approach to stratification is an irrelevance to the understanding of
‘new forms of inequality emerging in contemporary “late” capitalist
society’ (Brennan, 1997: 278). Brennan argues that since normative
questions cannot be adjudicated rationally, Weberian social science, in
effect denies them. Weber’s ‘espousal of value-freedom frustrates a
sociologically effective critique of power inequalities in the modern
capitalist economy, the feudal estate order and the German nation-state’
(Brennan, 1997: 273). However, this seems less like a telling critique of
Weber’s doctrine of ethical neutrality than a misrepresentation of it. Weber
does deny that normative questions can be adjudicated rationally, and does
insist that these questions stand outside the sphere of competence of the
sociologist as empirical researcher. This does not, however, remove ethical
issues from the life of the sociologist who, as citizen or activist, is entirely
capable of choosing to place his or her scientific expertise in the service of
the critique and abolition of inequalities. If, on the other hand, the
sociologist has a genuine and powerful understanding of the empirical
properties of stratification, there is equally nothing to stop him or her, other
than ethical commitments, from placing this expertise in service of those
who seek to sustain inequalities. Ethical issues by no means disappear from
the life of an ethically neutral sociologist – at least as Weber conceives this.
Brennan complains that Weber’s ethically neutral sociologist cannot
recognise ‘capital’s use of wage-labour as a mere tool of rational profit-
making activity in the modern market-economy as unjust or exploitative’
(Brennan, 1997: 28), However, it is unclear what would entitle the
sociologists qua sociologist to recognise this. We cannot deal with the full
range of difficulties which afflict Brennan’s claim here but can only ask: is
it being supposed that it takes a sociologist to recognise that, say,
exploitation is unjust, that sociologists distinctively know something about
the ‘use of wage labour as a mere tool of rational profit-making’ that other
people do not, or even that sociologists have somehow established a secure
empirical proof that capital’s use of wage labour is unjust? Weber’s notion
of value-freedom and ethical neutrality should give us reasons to doubt such
implications, if this is what they are, and a critique such as Brennan’s
simply controverts those implications without explaining exactly where
Weber himself lies on the issues. We are not necessarily uncritically on
Weber’s side on this matter, but it is worth noting that it is certainly possible
to provide arguments against views on the value-freedom of sociology, but
this will involve also attacking Weber’s idea that sociology is scientific, an
argument advanced by Louch some years ago (Louch, 1966).
More substantively, Brennan argues, among other things, that Weber’s
concept of stratification, with its differentiation of class, status and party,
denies the possibility of collective organisation and of resistance from
below. Weber ‘denies the possibility of resistance (collective action) “from
below” in a relationship of legal-rational domination in modern society. In
short, Weber promotes a sociology of domination “from above” rather than
“from below”’ (Brennan, 1997: 273). Again, what is unclear is what would
be instances of the kind of ‘resistance (collective action) “from below”’ that
is supposedly excluded from Weber’s conceptual scheme. Would the French
Revolution count as such an instance, and would Weber therefore be
compelled to deny that it had actually occurred? Or would trade union
organisations or urban riots, or both, be instances? But why is it necessary
for Weber’s approach to exclude these? Weber certainly does argue, as we
have said in discussing Scott, that the specific conditions of capitalist
society, as he understood it, made the development of collective
organisation among workers difficult and unlikely. Class is the least
promising basis for achieving ‘party’ organisation, but much depends upon
circumstance. It is quite conceivable, though unlikely, that given the
conditions such a development would occur. Brennan, however, seems to
short circuit the connection between the use that Weber puts his own
concepts to in relation to the problems that interested him, and the potential
of those concepts to be used in ways other than the ones for which Weber
deployed them.
It is perfectly possible to disagree with Weber’s analysis of the conditions
of capitalist society which inhibited the potential for the development of
class solidarity and organisation. In which case the argument would be over
his understanding of the relevant conditions. Was he wrong in his analysis?
Has the level of working class organisation been more substantial, and more
politically effective, than Weber envisaged? Or has it taken forms other than
those allowed under Weber’s scheme? We do not rule out positive answers
to these questions, but are unaware of any serious attempts to adjudicate
such questions empirically. At best Brennan’s critique can only be seen as
delivering glancing rather than lethal blows to Weber’s conceptual
machinery.
Brennan occasionally invokes Jurgen Habermas as presenting a
contrasting view to Weber’s, but George E. McCarthy develops a much
more sustained comparison of the two in his Objectivity and the Silence of
Reason (McCarthy, 2001). He argues that there are unresolved tensions in
Weber’s thought of at least three kinds. The first is between the
methodological writings recommending sociology as an interpretative
science oriented to subjectivity and cultural meaning, and the more
‘positivistic’ emphasis on explanatory science and causality. The second is
between his early treatment of religion from a sociological point of view
and his later analysis of rationalisation. Finally, there is the tension between
his emphasis on value-freedom and objectivity, and his criticism of the
disenchanted modern world dominated by instrumental reason. Habermas’
thought is then examined as an attempt to resolve these tensions through a
scheme which inherits the critical thrust of the Frankfurt School and a
refusal to accept that methodological issues are not political and ethical.
As we have indicated more than once, we are not sure that these gross
contrasts between elements of Weber’s thought are the most sensitive way
to construe his conceptions and not sure, therefore, that the tensions are as
great as they are made out to be. Habermas is not only one of the most
widely acknowledged social and political thinkers of the present day, he is
also immensely prolific and an investigation into his attempted
reconstruction of elements of Weber’s thought would require placing them
in the broader context of the complex scheme that he has assembled and for
which we have regrettably neither the space nor the time.
Sociologists have recently become interested in developing an economic
sociology expressing, once again, a dissatisfaction sociologists inevitably
feel with the ‘individualism’ of so much economic theory. Perhaps not
unsurprisingly Weber is considered as having the potential to define the
general nature of such an economic sociology. Boettke and Storr (2002)
suggest that Weber’s ‘social economics’ and his association with the
Austrian School of Economics of the 1920s and 1930s, (led by Ludwig von
Mises and F.A. Hayek and influenced by Alfred Schutz) is more promising
for rethinking the problems of economics than the ‘new institutionalists’,
such as Marc Granovetter. Weber promises more because he distinguishes
between events and institutions which are ‘economic in the strict sense’ and
those which are affected by economic phenomena. The former have little
relevance to sociologists who may be legitimately more interested in
‘economically relevant’ and ‘economically conditioned’ phenomena, such
as practices and values which may affect economic activity – the work ethic
of a religion for example. The latter are those phenomena which are not
economic in nature but are affected by economic phenomena, such as
contract law as these are affected by the needs of economic organisations.
The ‘new institutionalists’ treat economic behaviour as influenced by social
phenomena, whereas Weber’s distinctions offer the prospect of treating the
economic, social and the political as mutually embedded and not as distinct
sectors. There may even be a ‘triple embeddness’ where polity, economy
and society all overlap each other. Richard Swedberg (1998) argued that
since Weber’s death little attention has been paid to his ‘economic
sociology’ but that this could ‘fit very well with basic approaches in today’s
microeconomic theory’ (162). Swedberg identifies the basic principles of
that economic sociology as set out by Weber as the following:

1. The unit of analysis is economic social action, defined as interest-driven action that is oriented
to utility and to the behaviour of others.
2. Economic action is presumed to be rational until otherwise proven.
3. Struggle and domination are endemic to economic life.
4. Economic behaviour should analyse economic behaviour as well as behaviour that is
economically relevant and economically conditioned.
5. Economic sociology should cooperate with economic theory, economic history, and other
approaches within the framework of a broad type of economics (social economics).
(Swedberg, 1998: 163)

At this stage it is difficult to see how this proposed project will work itself
out let alone judge how it may be received by economists. This apart, one of
the salient features of Weber’s writings on the economy and bound up with
his discussion of rationality and forms of authority was the notion of
bureaucracy and it should be no surprise perhaps that this, too, has received
attention in contemporary sociological debates.
Ian Hunter (1994) offers a powerful critique of dominant ‘critical’
tendencies in sociological thought on the basis of their misunderstanding of
the moral character of bureaucracy in Weber’s account. He also claims to
have identified an incompatibility between Weber’s distinction between
instrumental and value rationality arguing that there is not much point in
judging the morality of bureaucracy tout court, either by denouncing its
instrumentalism or praising its impartiality, condemning its amorality or
extolling its efficiency (Hunter, 1994: 157). The reason for this view has to
do with the practical and analytic senselessness of trying to separate the so-
called structure of bureaucracy from the person. The procedures,
hierarchical and technical organisation of bureaucracy not only provide the
conditions for speedy and efficient administration, they also provide ‘the
ethical conditions for the special deportment of the person’. The ethical
attributes of the ‘good bureaucrat – strict adherence to procedure,
acceptance of sub- and super-ordination, esprit de corps, abnegation of
personal moral enthusiasms, commitment to the purposes of the office – are
not an incompetent subtraction from the “complete” (self-concerned and
self-realising) comportment of the person’ (ibid.: 56–7). They are a positive
moral achievement that requires the mastery of an ethical milieu and its
practices.
Hunter is insistent that the distinction between instrumental and value
rationality is presented by Weber as a general distinction as though it
demarcated two strands in what ought to be a unified and morally whole
personality. This invites ‘humanist’ and ‘critical’ intellectuals to read
Weber’s account of bureaucracy as though it were an expression of that
distinction and the separation of these two elements as two kinds of
persons. On the one side are the humanist intellectuals who claim to know
the values that ought to be the ultimate ends of action but who lack the
technical competence to realise them and, on the other, the bureaucrats who
possess technical competence but are bereft of moral understanding.
However, Hunter continues, Weber’s historical studies are directed toward
showing that there are no general ‘ultimate’ values except those that the
individual pursues with the greatest zeal. Such values differ considerably in
being the creation of the complex socio-historical circumstances in which
they appear: ‘ethical interests and capacities are not the expression of a
universal moral personality; they are the plural creations of historically
specific ethics … The ends of value-rational action are therefore multiple
and specific to particular spheres of life: religious, aesthetic, military,
political, caste-based’ (ibid.: 149). Bureaucracy of the rational-legal kind
not only involves the development of a distinctive moral ethos peculiar to a
particular cultural location, but it may also have positive moral effects such
as, for example, the promotion of a democratic equal-isation of people, or
officials conducting their affairs with a concern for those under their
authority.
Paul Du Gay (2000) has applied this line of argument against two
prominent contemporary critics of bureaucracy as the source of the moral
collapse in contemporary society, and on the basis of just the kind of
misreading of Weber that Hunter points to. Alasdair MacIntyre (1985)
argues that modern societies are morally incoherent. Earlier societies
possessed a moral unity that enabled the individual to lead morally unified
lives, but in modern societies individuals have been deprived of the
capacity for that kind of life. The extreme example of this is to be found in
the one-sided life of the managerial or administrative individual. Zygmunt
Bauman (1992) regards the separation of instrumental and value-rational
action as manifested in the organisation of bureaucracy and which, again in
the extreme case, made the holocaust possible by producing individuals
who, as conscientious administrators, could carry out the murderous
mission of the Final Solution. Du Gay counters claims such as these by
pointing out that the condition of moral unification never really existed and
was certainly not something that Weber conceived as a relevant reality.
There are, indeed, individuals who seek to organise their lives in an
ethically unified way, but they are the exception rather than the rule.
Further, the attempt to do this in anything like a complex society will be
impractical. Certainly, the tension between any attempt to pursue a
rigorously systematised ethical ideal and the attenuating effects of the
demands of practical reality is a continuing theme in Weber’s work. A
modern complex society is ethically diversified both between social groups
and, significantly for the point being made, between what have become
distinct, specialised spheres of life. In such a context, it is simply unrealistic
to suppose that one could participate across them in a morally
undifferentiated way. It is just not the case that administrators are, in
general and by their nature, morally deficient, or no more so than any other
group of people.

Concluding Remarks

This concludes our review of the continuing influence of Marx, Weber and
Durkheim in contemporary social thought. Limited though it has been, it
has brought to light what is, on the whole, a vigorous, articulate and often
thoughtful discussion of their conceptions. However, though there is much
activity, it is our impression that it is unfocused, covering a wide range of
issues but in a heterogeneous manner.
In a way it is analogous to an intensely competitive market in which the
attempt is made to differentiate brands of the same product by exaggerating
putative differences between them in the hope that the purchaser will not go
to the trouble of making any deeper comparisons between what are
essentially the same products. Thus, the advertising claim ‘No toothpaste
cleans teeth better than X’ is probably a claim that could truthfully be made.
But it could equally be truthfully made by each brand of toothpaste in the
market, for the obverse of the claim is that ‘X cleans teeth no better than
any other toothpaste’.
We are not for one moment suggesting that there is any kind of
dishonesty involved in any of this. Academic sociologists no less than
others are not immune from seeking to present their ideas in the best
possible light and using the foremost figures of their discipline for
inspiration, challenge and even disparagement. However, we tend to
sympathise with Richard Hamilton’s complaint noted earlier in this chapter
that there is a persistent inconsistency in sociologists’ treatment of empirical
theses which are close to their hearts and, accordingly, treated with some
indulgence when compared to those theses toward which they are
antagonistic and which are often evidentially no weaker than the thesis
which is embraced. Some years ago we argued something similar with
respect of the way in which theory and sociological approaches were treated
(Anderson et al, 1985) arguing that the charity with which a position is
evaluated often varies with the preferences of those doing the evaluation.
The result is that the distinctiveness of the favoured theory from its rivals is
often overstated with the rivals construed more simplistically than is either
necessary or fair. Accordingly, the comparative assessment of positions will
have a rather insular air about it. On the one hand a deep and thoughtful
familiarity with the favoured position and a generous interpretation of its
writings, with the opposite accorded to less favoured positions. The
characterisation of rival theorists tends to be brief, often based on little
more than introductory textbook stereotypes of what they supposedly say.
That a sophisticated updating and re-reading of these classic theories might
make the same kind of improvement all round is a thought rarely
entertained.
Thus, while much of the work we have been describing is undoubtedly
scholarly and thoughtful, much of it, taken together, leaves unclear the
character of the contribution it might make to an even handed contemporary
comparison of the ‘classics’ or of a more precise determination of their
respective relevances today. An important part of the problem here might
well be the thoroughness with which their ideas have penetrated social
thought so that they have become virtually sociological commonplaces and
their origins if not exactly unknown rarely looked into with over-much
thoroughness. So, in a way, trying to understand the thought of these
classical sociological thinkers is a discovery and one undertaken in light of
present-day preoccupations.
An example of this is the way in which research into class is having to
come to terms with the diminishing significance of the ‘working class’ in
Western societies. As indicated earlier, with the coming of ‘post-Fordism’,
traditional industrial work is increasingly eliminated or transported to the
‘Third World’. While this may mean that the problem of how the working
class are dominated and incorporated into the capitalist system ceases to be
of importance – and this is arguable – it does not mean that the problem of
domination itself evaporates. On the contrary, sociologists – and all kinds of
other social and cultural analysts – are just as preoccupied, perhaps more
than ever, with the identification and analysis of oppression. If class is
decreasingly significant to sociology – and there are disputes about this –
the purposes for which the notion was intended to serve in Marx and Weber
as part of the analysis of social change, of conflict, of domination, have not
been displaced and remain among the more predominant concerns of
contemporary sociology. The determination to demonstrate that various
aspects of society are oppressive is as resolute as it ever was, and it is from
this that, for example, Foucault derives his present far-reaching influence.
Although there are other elements in the mix, Foucault’s own thought is, in
important ways, the working out of variations on Durkheimian and
Weberian themes.
Foucault follows through Durkheim’s and Weber’s insistence on the way
in which systems of thought and modes of classification are shaped by
social organisation. This also connects with a Weberian emphasis on the
importance of rationalisation in the modern world. Foucault’s picture is one
in which direct political domination of one group by another has been
displaced by more indirect oppressive arrangements. Rationalised systems
of thought and administrative procedures provide a diffuse and pervasive
web of regulation and social control. The extent of Foucault’s influence
serves to ensure that the notion of domination is as prominent in social
thought as it has ever been and, in some respects, can be seen as an
elaboration of Weber’s idea of the modern world as an ‘iron cage’ for the
soul of the modern individual.
 Sociologically one of the most profound implications drawn from the
economic and social changes already alluded to is that they mark a break
with the modern epoch and the beginning of another era, ‘the postmodern’.
It is a break not only in the continuity of society itself but a transformation
in expectations of what knowledge, including sociology, can be and can
achieve. Lyotard, one of the more formative of the exponents of this idea,
subtitles his book The Postmodern Condition (1984), ‘a report on
knowledge’. The ‘modern’ and the ‘postmodern’ are distinctively different
outlooks. The modern outlook, to use the metaphor of the conveyor-belt,
embodies a centralised and integrated system, an arrangement which is set
up and directed from the managerial centre which arranges things through a
master plan. Thus, understanding society is about gaining knowledge of
society as a whole, that is, providing a single unified framework, a ‘master
plan’. The acquisition of sociological knowledge, on the modernist view,
requires the creation of an over-arching scheme of thought – a ‘grand
narrative’ – within which the whole of history and the contemporary world
could be comprehended. It is the rejection of the ‘grand narrative’ which is
the hallmark of the postmodernist view of the condition of knowledge; a
rejection, too, of the kind of ambitions represented by Marx and Durkheim,
though less so by Weber. The attempt to provide general sociological
theories and over-arching conceptions of the world, it is said, are doomed to
failure.
For our part, the idea that this movement of social thought has rendered
these nineteenth century ‘founders’ redundant is a misleading one, as this
book in its small way has hoped to have shown. Indeed, its original
motivation was to try to correct the growing lack of awareness of the
history and tradition of the social sciences. Ideas which are often considered
distinctly contemporary are, in fact, ideas which have been elaborated
previously. Indeed, the irony is that some of the most decisive contributors
to the underlying structure of postmodern thought, as they were to
modernist thought before this, are the three figures we have been
discussing. The merits of the arguments about the nature and the differences
between modern and post-modern thought do not concern us here, but a
major purpose is to insist that the postmodernists are not so far from their
nineteenth- and early twentieth-century predecessors as they might
encourage us to imagine. Let us just mention some of the important respects
in which the postmodern critique is directly derivative from these
nineteenth-century sources.
Although the intellectual aspirations of such as Marx, Weber and
Durkheim might be seen to have failed – though such judgements have
been fickle enough in the past – the irony is that the methods of analysis
which they developed are now being turned against them since the
‘postmodernist’ critique itself makes use of them. The postmodern analysis
of society shares the objective of analysing the condition of contemporary,
principally Western, society and seeks to show that the dissolution of the
‘grand narratives’ is the result of the decomposition of the central
institutions and structures of modern industrial society to which Marx,
Weber and Durkheim attended, and the transformation of the role of conflict
within these societies. Marxist-influenced notions of ‘disorganised
capitalism’ might, however, be employed to draw attention to many of the
selfsame social, economic and political developments which have dispersed
industrial production on a global scale away from the older industrial
societies, eradicated class conflict as a central feature of these societies and
encouraged the rise to prominence of conflicts among what are, in Weberian
terms, status groups and parties. Thus, much of the emphasis in
contemporary sociology is upon gender and ethnicity as the bases of
oppression and conflict, and upon the role of ‘new social movements’, such
as those now forming around ecological issues, as vehicles of opposition.
Indeed, drawing the distinction between ‘modern’ and ‘postmodern’
societies in terms of their economic structure, and suggesting that such
changes in the organisation of production and work give rise to changes in
the wider society and in its cultural outlook, has a distinctly Marxian cast to
it. The postmodernists might reject Marx’s aim of providing a unified story
about the rise and the course of the modern world, but they are as much
dependent on his mode of analysis in the formation of their own theses as
he was. Furthermore, the critique of the ‘grand narratives’ is itself one
which is influenced, in varying degrees, by each of the three theorists we
have been discussing. Each of them, for example, made important
contributions to the idea that thought is a function of social position and
needs to be understood in terms of the role it plays within social
organisation. Marx and Weber particularly emphasised the way in which
theories are to be examined for the often close connection they have with
domination. Marx and Weber were, as we have pointed out, two of the
decisive figures in shaping notions of stratification into tools of social
analysis as well as emphasising the extent to which social relations involve
domination.
They also railed against parochial conceptions which sought to base
social analyses on the assumptions obtaining in the society of their times.
Though not exempt from charges of Eurocentrism, Marx, Weber and
Durkheim were among its pioneering critics. It is a clichéd but unavoidable
comment on the history of sociology that it originated in the industrialising
societies of Western Europe, notably France and Germany. It developed
very much as a response to the emergence of the capitalist industrial system
and the tensions and social changes associated with it. The Eurocentrism of
Marx, Weber and Durkheim was partially dependent upon the assumption
that the newly industrial civilisation was a ‘world historical’ one and would
have an impact not only on those who were living within it, but also on
those others who came within its sway. And, given the inherent
expansionist, even ‘globalising’, tendencies of such a society, this could
mean the whole planet. For these theorists, the ‘Western world’ was a
special phenomenon, though this is not to say that it is an admirable one.
The emergence of the industrial system and its forms of social and
economic organisation were unprecedently dynamic with a capacity to
disrupt and restructured social relations on an immense and continuing
scale. All three of the thinkers had as their primary objective the
understanding of developments in their own societies even though they did
have, to varying degrees, comparative and historical interests to pursue.
In the postmodernist conception it is the Enlightenment which is the
source of current problems in the Western intellectual tradition, in particular
its advocacy of the systematic application of reason to all areas of human
experience. Reason was envisaged as instrumental in the reconstruction of
the social order, the ‘master plan’, for it was reason which created the
possibility of control. If it could be understood how something operated,
then these operations could be controlled. The rational understanding of
society created the prospect of a rational reorganisation. All three of these
classic thinkers, like many of their predecessors as well as their
contemporaries, were confident that without the application of reason to
society and social change human life would continue in its miseries. Both
Marx and Durkheim were confident children of the Enlightenment and had
an immense faith in the prospects for the development of science and its
application to human social affairs, though the scale of Marx’s ambitions
for a comprehensive emancipation of humankind was much greater than
Durkheim’s design for institutional reform. Weber had a much more
ambiguous relationship to the Enlightenment legacy, and one which places
him closer to the spirit at least of the postmodernists. He regarded the
pursuit of scientific knowledge as a valuable objective and one which
promised the prospect of enhanced control. He also recognised that there
were limits to the powers of reason and that the capacity of science to bring
about improvement was dependent upon the purposes with which it was
applied. It could serve as an instrument of oppression just as much as it
could serve as one of human freedom. All three thinkers, then, were united
in seeking to develop a sociological understanding in order to contribute to
the solution of the emerging problems of the modern world, including those
not only of conflict and deprivation but also of spiritual desolation.
We are not, of course, claiming that these classic thinkers fully
anticipated the ideas of the postmodernists. We do suggest, however, and as
said earlier, that current social analysis is extensively influenced by them
and that many of the current controversies are often more recent
manifestations of their central concerns. The deeper understandings of what
postmodern theorists are about, and the terms in which the controversies
over their work are framed, require an awareness of the strong and still vital
connections they have with the work of Marx, Weber and Durkheim.
In stressing the persistent influence of Marx, Weber and Durkheim, we
are not suggesting that their work is intellectually stifling and that nothing
has happened since they wrote. On the contrary, what we are emphasising is
the vitality of their thought as well as the extent to which it initiated
engagement with issues arising from the development of industrial society
which are still at the centre of public and intellectual attention. We have
also suggested that one of their strengths is the nature of their broad method
of approach rather than that their specific ideas necessarily stand in light of
changed ways of thinking and changed circumstances. What these thinkers
bequeathed were broad conceptions of what it means to take a sociological
approach. There is, of course, a great deal of room to manoeuvre within
these and they have proved fertile sources for the working out of radical
variants upon, and sometimes outright rejections of, the schemes. A great
deal has happened in rethinking the ideas of ‘classical theory’, and although
we have emphasised the continuities of many of the ideas of the present
from the past, this has been in order to draw attention to just such
continuities. It does not mean that we underestimate the extent to which
many of the recent developments in theoretical sociology are remote from
these ancestors. Structuralist theories, to pick one example, have their
source in Durkheim, but the shape their work has assumed in recent years
has been formed by a great deal of linguistic theorising which has a
character and a sophistication that Durkheim could not have imagined.
Our account of the ideas of the three theorists has also been a positive
one, but this does not mean that we regard them as infallible. Indeed, we
have been at pains to draw out the differences, often profound ones,
between them. The bibliography of criticisms of them would be an
extensive one, indeed. However, it is a misfortune of sociology that critique
is often confused with the kind of criticism that can be described as ‘shoot
first and ask questions later’. In our discussion of Durkheim, for example,
we mentioned that he persistently tried to dissociate himself from the
equally persistent complaint that he postulated some kind of ‘group mind’.
Many of the current debates over the Weber thesis still reveal critics who
attribute to Weber positions from which he dissociated himself in his ‘Anti-
clerical last word’ on the topic published in 1920. Indeed, and as
MacKinnon (1994) suggests, the longevity of the debate owes much to the
persistent misrepresentation of Weber’s thesis. Similarly, the resurgence of
Marxist scholarship in the 1960s and afterwards, and prior to its recent
decline, frequently involved giving reinterpretations of Marx’s theories in
reaction to the ‘vulgar’ versions which had received wide circulation.
It is in light of this tendency to over-hasty and undiscriminating criticism
that we have sought to be charitable in our account of the theorists’ ideas,
trying to provide reasonable, even plausible, interpretations of some of their
stranger assertions and, certainly, in such a way as to evade some of the
more popular caricatures and crude criticisms. We do not want to deny that
Marx, Weber and Durkheim might often, and importantly, be found in error.
We do want to defend them against the implication that they are makers of
naïve mistakes.
The influence of these theorists has run in many directions and been
incorporated into many different combinations of outlooks and frameworks.
Their ideas are endlessly enmeshed in the topics contemporary sociologists
address and an awareness of their ideas will help understand better what it
is the contemporaries are saying. Marx, Weber and Durkheim were not the
founders of sociology in any strict sense. In important respects their work
was derivative from and dependent upon the work of others. They had
numerous predecessors and contemporaries and there are many important
innovations which fall outside the range of their considerations as well as
conceptions of the sociological enterprise which are very different from
theirs. These three are, we might say, the founders of dominant traditions
within modern sociology with their schemes of thought exercising a
decisive and marked influence on current thinking. It is for this reason that
we have singled them out for it is through understanding their basic ideas
that we can begin to get a genuine grasp on the underlying logic of the
discourse of much of current sociology.

CHAPTER FIVE SUMMARY

Marx, Weber and Durkheim, though products of their eras, anticipated many of the issues
which preoccupy contemporary social thought. All three were united in seeking to develop
a sociological understanding so that it might contribute to the emerging problems of their
world: conflict, deprivation and spiritual desolation.
Current social analysis has been extensively influenced by them and retains vital
connections to their work. They bequeathed broad conceptions of what it might mean to
take a sociological approach to understanding the world in which we live; conceptions
which remain fertile though often remote and re-imagined.
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 Index
absentee ownership
advertising 141, 142
holding-companies 153
investment bankers and credit 163–70, 173–4, 179–80, 184
postmodernism 13
accountancy, universities 14, 73–7, 79–82
Adams, Henry 2
adornment 120–1, 125
Adorno, Theodor 1
advertising 2, 4, 14, 137–46
agency
advertising 14
instincts 20–1
splitting 11
agriculture
credit 169–70, 182–5
sabotage 133–4
Ahmed, Akbar 11
altruism 10
American Legion 131
anarchists 47–8
animism 21, 24, 115
anomie 10
anthropomorphism 21, 24, 25
apparel 120–6
art 18–19
authority, patriotism 105–9

banking, credit 153, 156–81

banknotes 170
barbarian cultures
patriotism 99–100, 103–5
predatory life 111–19
universities 68–70, 71
women 111–19
barbarism
advertising 2
law 16
narcissism 3, 5, 9–10
nationalism 15–16
postmodernism 12–13
war 5–6
 West 15
Baudrillard, Jean 1, 13
belief 28–36
Bolsheviks 131
bureaucracy, universities 73–82
business
credit 152–91
manufacturing 133–51
narcissism 6–7
patriotism 96
professional schools 72–3
sabotage 85–93, 133–4
universities 53, 54–5, 66–7, 73–7, 82
war and peace 6

capital, sabotage 88–9

causation 24–5
censorship 14, 93, 130–1
ceremony, marriage 114–15
chaos, modernity 12
children, dress 126
citizenship 61, 96
civilisation, science 18–26
clothing 120
collective consciousness, narcissism 5–6, 9
colleges 61–4, 78–82
common good 103–5
commonwealth 47
communication, sabotage 92–3
communism 10, 131
community solidarity 103–5
competition
credit 154–6, 176–9
holding-companies 159
mergers 161–2
patriotism 6, 95
salesmanship 2, 135–44, 178–9
conscientious objectors 129, 131
conspicuous consumption 1
Germany 44–5
narcissism 3, 8
women’s dress 121–6
conspicuous leisure 1, 3, 8
conspicuous waste 1
Germany 44–5
narcissism 3, 8
consumerism 16–17
consumption
advertising 14, 137–44
Germany 44–5
 narcissism 3
postmodernism 1
sabotage 88–90
women’s dress 121–6
control, sabotage 87–91
cooperation, narcissism 9–10
cosmology 22–3
cosmopolitianism, patriotism 98–9
credit 13, 14, 152–91
credulity, publicity 141, 144
custom 28–36
patriotism 102
traditional societies 39–40

Darwin, Charles 10
Darwinism 37–8
dementia praecox 127–32
disembeddedness 13
dislocation 13
dissociation 3
dog ownership, narcissism 5
dress, women’s 120–6
dualisms 9, 10
dynastic state, Germany 41–50

economics
credit 13, 14, 152–91
Germany 42–7
women’s dress 120–6
education
barbarism 16
Germany 49
higher learning 52–84
modern civilisation and science 20
efficiency
credit 182–3
division of labour 111
over-production 172–3
patriotism 98–9
sabotage 14, 85–93, 133–4
universities 75–6, 78–9
women’s dress 123
egoism 10
engineers 16, 33
envy 2
fashion 8
narcissism 3–5, 13
traditional cultures 11
university 14–15
equity, patriotism 96–8
esoteric knowledge 52–84
Europe
patriotism and heredity 99–105
World War I 127–9
excise, sabotage 91–2

farming
credit 169–70, 182–5
sabotage 133–4
fashion 7–8, 123–4
fear, publicity 141, 144
Federal Reserve Board 171–2, 181, 183
feminism 16
France 128
Freud, S. 11

gender, narcissism 9
Germany 41–50
babarism 15
narcissism 5–6
patriotism 96, 107
sabotage 93
World War I 127–8
Giddens, Anthony 1, 3, 10–11, 13, 15
Gilligan, Carol 16
globalism
nationalism 16
sabotage 14
gold 171, 172
government, sabotage 91–3
group heredity 37–8

habits 3, 28–36, 39–40, 52–5

heredity 37–8
patriotism 99–104
UK 47–8
higher education 52–84
holding-companies 153–60
hybrids, patriotism 100–2

ideal types 6–7

idle curiosity 8, 9–10, 16
intelligence 21
modernity 24
postmodernism 14–15
traditional societies 21–4
universities 54–5, 56, 65, 69–71
Imperialism, Germany 41–4, 48
imponderables 31–2, 33
industry
advertising 14
credit 152–91
Germany 41, 42–8
higher learning 54–5
manufacturing 133–51
marriage as ownership 116, 118–19
patriotism 98–9, 103–5
primative societies 111
sabotage 85–93, 133–4
technology 37–40
infirmity, barbarian culture 112
inflation 171–3
information, sabotage 14, 92–3
initiation, marriage 115
inner-directed type 1
inquiry, universities 59–61, 65–6, 70
instinct for workmanship 8–9, 10, 24–5
higher learning 54–5
machine system 9
sabotage 14
salesmanship 137
women 16
instincts 20–1
insubordination 47–8
intelligence 20–1
Interests, One Big Union of 158, 167, 173–84
Internet 14
intolerance, US 129–31
investment bankers 13, 156–81
I.W.W. 131

Japan 5–6, 15
justice, patriotism 96–7

Key Industries 179–80

knowledge
higher learning 52–84
instability of 28–36
science 18–26
technology 37
Ku-Klux-Klan 131

labour, sabotage 85–6

Lasch, Christopher 4, 5
law, universities 71
law of efficient causes 24
laws, instability of 28–36
lawyers 6–7, 16
learning 52–84
legends 21, 22
leisure 1–2, 4
lockouts, sabotage 86–7
Loeb, Jacques 20
Lusk Committee 130–1

McDonaldization 12, 13
machine system 2, 10, 33
advertising 14
Germany 41
higher learning 55–6
modernity 2
narcissism 9
over-production 87–8, 133
postmodernism 11, 12–13, 16–17
publicity 139–40, 141–2
science 25–6
traditional cultures 11
universities 73–7, 78–82
university 14–15
western civilisation and science 18
manufacturing 133–51
marginal differentiation 1
marriage, as ownership 114–19, 121–2
Marx, Karl 10
mastery 22–3
over women 113–19
patriotism 105–9
matriarchal culture 8, 9, 116–18
matter-of-fact knowledge 18–20, 55–8
medicine, universities 71
men
dementia praecox 132
marriage as ownership 114–19
warlike prowess 112–14, 115–16
women’s dress 121–2
Mendelian units of character 99–102
mergers 153–60
military service 45, 48–9, 131
modern civilisation, science 18–26
modern culture
heredity 103
marriage as ownership 116, 118–19
patriotism 98
women’s dress 121–5
modernity
belief 28–36
higher learning 55–6
idle curiosity 24
 knowledge 28–36
machine system 2, 11
narcissism 3–10
order and chaos 12
self-reflexivity 10–11
money 170
morality
instability of 28–36
marriage as ownership 114
patriotism 96–8, 102–3
Morgan, J. Pierpoint 153, 154–5, 158–9
myths 21

narcissism 3–10, 12–16, 17

national prestige, patriotism 94–7
nationalism
Germany 43–4, 48
narcissism 15–16
patriotism 99–110
natural laws 23, 25
news, sabotage 92–3
news-print publicity 2, 142–3

One Big Union of Interests 158, 173–84

ornament 120–1
Orwell, George 2
other-directed type 1
other-directedness 1, 3
over-production 87–91, 133–4, 155–6, 172–3, 182–3
ownership 39–40
marriage as 114–19
patriotism 105–6
traditional societies 39–40
women’s dress 121–2
see also absentee ownership

pacifists 129, 131

packaging 2, 137–9
passive resistance, sabotage 85
passivity, splitting 11
patriarchy
marriage as ownership 115–19
narcissism 9
women’s dress 121–2
patriotism 6, 94–110
Germany 42, 48, 49
higher learning 58
narcissism 9
US 131
pay 182–3
peace
narcissism 5–6, 8, 9–10
patriotism 97, 107
pecuniary system
narcissism 9
sabotage 14
universities 14–15, 54–5, 75, 78
pedigree 37–8
philosophy, universities 70–1
polygamy 116
postmodernism 1, 11–17, 33
poverty, patriotism 105–8
power 1
Germany 42–5
World War I 127–8
pragmatism
barbarian cultures 23, 68–70
knowledge 20–2
predatory culture
advertising 14
barbarian societies 111–14, 115–19
knowledge 22–3
technology 37–40
prestige
barbarian cultures 104, 105
national 94–5
patriotism 106–7, 108–10
prices
competition 161–2, 178
credit 152, 166, 171–3, 178, 179–85
over-production 172–3
sabotage 86–91, 133–4
salesmanship 136–7, 138–9, 142
women’s dress 122, 125
primative societies, industry 111
principles, instability of 28–36
production
over-production 133–4, 155–6, 172–3, 180
prices 172–3
sabotage 87–91, 133–4
professional schools 60, 61, 64–8, 71–3
profit, sabotage 86–90
Propaganda of the Faith 143–6
property rights see ownership rights
psychiatry, narcissism 4, 5
psychology
advertising 138, 141
learning and knowledge 20
publicity 137–46
race 38, 99–104
rationality 10, 12
re-embeddedness 13
religion
patriotism 96
publicity 143–6
universities 70–1
US 129–30, 131, 132
research, universities 59–61, 65–6
restraint of trade
patriotism 106
sabotage 91–3
trade unions 135
Riesman, David 1, 3, 6, 8
Ritzer, George 2, 12, 13
Rojek, Chris 1, 12
Romanticism, Germany 41, 48

sabotage 13–14, 85–93, 133–4, 163

sales-price 181–2
salesmanship 133–51
competition 178–9, 181–3
postmodernism 13
sabotage 14
scholasticism 19, 23–4, 55
science 18–26, 33
Germany and warfare 49–50
higher learning 53, 55
patriotism 98
religion 129–30
universities 59–61, 64–6
warlike ambitions 58
Secret Service 131
self-made man/woman 7
self-reflexivity 10–11, 15
selling-cost 138–40, 141–3
servitude 22–3, 105–8
shame, publicity 141
social action theory 10–11
social Darwinism 10
socialism, machine system 10
sovereign, patriotism 107, 109
specialisation, publicity 142
Spencer, Herbert 10
splitting 3, 8–11, 12, 13
sports 45, 95
standardization
modernity 2
publicity 142
 universities 14, 73–7, 78–82
status
barbarian cultures 111–14, 115–19
narcissism 3, 4, 5
postmodernism and credit 13
university 15
women in barbarian societies 115–19
women’s dress 121–6
strikes, sabotage 86–7
subsidies, sabotage 91
Sunday, Rev. Billy 130
superstition 129–30

tariffs
Germany 43–4
patriotism 106
sabotage 91–2
US 134
taxation 44, 91–2
technical schools 60, 61, 64–8, 71–3
technology 33
Germany 46–7, 49–50
higher learning 54–6
over-production 172–3
patriotism 103–5
predatory culture 37–40
science 26
theology, universities 70–1
Tilman, Rick 2
trade, patriotism 96–7
trade unions 135–6, 182–3
traditional cultures 10
knowledge 21–4
machine system 11
narcissism 9
ownership 39–40
technology 38–40
university and idle curiosity 15
see also barbarian cultures
training, universities 59, 61–6, 71–3
tutelage, Germany 45–6

unemployment 87–8, 133, 180, 183

United Kingdom
conspicuous consumption 44
institutions 47–8
sports 45
United States of America
babarism 15
censorship 14, 130–1
 dementia praecox 129–32
narcissism 4
patriotism 58, 131
religion 129–30, 131, 132
sabotage and censorship 93
self-made man 7
tariffs 134
universities 61–4, 73–82
World War I 6, 127–32
universities 16, 52–84
business principles 7
Germany 49
higher learning 58–84
narcissism and postmodernism 14–15
upward mobility, narcissism 4, 5
U.S. Steel Corporation 156, 160
utilitarianism 66–7, 68–71, 75

vocational training, universities 59, 61–8

wages 134
war
barbarian societies and women 111–14, 115–17
Germany 42–5, 48–50, 127–8
higher learning 58
narcissism 4, 5–6, 9
patriotism 95, 106–7
sabotage 88–90, 92
waste
fashion 8
Germany 44–5
narcissism 3
nationalism 15
postmodernism 17
women’s dress 122–6
wealth
patriotism 105–9
traditional societies 39–40
women’s dress 121–6
Weber, Max 10
western civilisation, science 18–26
Widiger, Thomas A. 4
women
barbarian status 111–19
dress 120–6
feminism 16
narcissism 9
professions 16
working classes, Germany 45–6
workmanship 24–5
 see also instinct for workmanship
workmen
sabotage 85–6
salesmanship 134–6
technology 37
unemployment 87, 88
World War I 5, 6, 34–5, 127–32
worldly wisdom 65
Wright Mills, C. 1