Kevin Curtin Sociology 212 Professor Alex Dupuy Essay one, topic four, due 10/11/11 Fundamental to developing

a thorough understanding of the sociological theories of Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim is comprehension of their primary foci for the root cause of class conflict and the stratification between haves and have-nots. Each theorists explanation for social unrest - prevalent in society then and today - is the bedrock upon which he builds his thesis of social solutions. For Marx, private property ownership and thereby the exploitation of workingclass labor for a profit leads not only to the alienation of a laborer, but to a complete loss of the essence of that which makes him human: his motivations, his species-being. Durkheim by contrast explains a similar phenomenon through his theory of the forced division of labor, a result of monopolization of wealth preventing the natural division of laborers into roles by ability and propensity in true meritocratic fashion. Marxs theory of the political economy underlies all that he understands and postulates about the world. Marx believes human beings become who they are in completing activities defined by the social context in which they are performed; they are individual economic agents acting out of self-interest governed both directly by the state in which they are a part, and indirectly by the social institutions prevalent in the society in which he participates. The image of independence and self-reliance which Marx assigns to his theoretical man is one founded as a result of the materialist motivations with which he completes his daily tasks. The social

institutions in which man finds himself attribute to him a role of capitalist or laborer. The former, by owning the private means of production upon which the laborer adds value, is able to extract from the latter profits surplus to the wages which the laborer would need to survive.

Maximization of this surplus value and minimization of the laborers wages allows the capitalist to enhance his profits at the laborers expense. The fact that it is at the laborers expense is indeed critical; the zero-sum game played is never won by the party already suffering and lacking in means to compete. This profit-maximization process begins to contribute to the sense of alienation that Marx describes, furthered by increasing division of labor which contributes to an efficient business and increased revenues. The capitalist therefore continues to divide the function of each of his laborers until they are fully independent of the final product to which they are contributing. Man continues his plight out of mere sustenance; because the capitalist has given him a way to make a living, he keeps working. This is in spite of the meaninglessness his actions seem to have, and the disconnectedness not only between him and the final good but between him and his coworkers. Complete alienation from this context means the laborer is hopeless in his pursuit of a whole life. Materialist human history is the history of production by man to satisfy his needs, and that satisfaction has created within man a necessity to produce goods from which he can extract use-value. That the capitalist purchases from man his labor to produce goods merely for their exchange-value is a tendency by which man loses his species-being, and the goods he creates lose the use-value which he adds with his labor. Goods and the labor employed to produce them therefore lose the intrinsic satisfaction and use-values which man desires, leaving only exchange-values from which capitalists can extract profits. Durkheim too sees that many of the frustrations of man with his predicament in society come from the division of labor and its effects. He posits that society has a conscience collective, an amorphous guiding body containing all of the sociological norms and institutions created by its members. While an undeveloped horde society too has a conscience collective, our modern one is both advanced and defined by a separation of labor wherein each member has
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a special role both coordinated and subordinated to one others. Our social roles in the aggregate contribute to dominance of the conscience collective by the individual as the empowerment man experiences contributes to a greater sense of individualism (Durkheims organic society). In such a society, each individual is sui generis and is responsible for his own actions. This is in sharp contrast to the mechanical society, wherein man is subordinated to the conscience collective which overpowers his individual consciousness. The definite cause of such peril is the forced division of labor, which directly contradicts the meritocratic society one might find with a spontaneous division of labor wherein man sorts himself. According to Durkheim, men will forever be unequal given variations in ability, intelligence, proclivity, and experience; such qualities should be the guiding characteristics for the natural selection by laborers of the roles they wish to fill in society. Durkheim posits that this natural selection is impossible given inherited wealth. Wealth itself poses no problem, but because wealth and class status can be transferred between generations, those with higher social positions will tend to maintain them and prevent class mobility to those whom under a meritocratic system could advance in both class and wealth. In being prevented from the roles he would otherwise choose to fill, man is subject to a life incongruous to one which would satisfy him fundamentally. Lacking the possibility of that satisfaction kills mans sense of purpose, after which he is forced to face the overwhelming challenge of infinite life possibilities without guidance by his passions. Man then falls into a state Durkheim calls anomie: a normless existence achieved by sufficient distance and limited interactions with other men that occurs when the product of his labor is enjoyed by those he does not know. Both theorists share the belief that class divisions are the root cause for conflict between haves and have-nots in capitalist society. Marxs theory is one fundamentally predicated on
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private property ownership. He believes that those in the capitalist class attain increasing wealth at the expense of others by direct exploitation of their productive capabilities without paying a wage that would equilibrate those capabilities with their income. Using Mills framework of the intersection between history and biography to explain the process by which capitalists attained their wealth removes one back to the initial transition stage from feudalism to capitalism. At the separation of town and country - that is, the separation of business from the household and state artisans and skilled labor began to take advantage of the free marketplace by producing manufactured goods bought and sold with money. Upon accumulation of sufficient monetary wealth, the emergent capitalist class was able to hire labor to be compensated with this money. This labor was willing to work simply because in the transition from feudal to capitalist society, laborers lost their access to the resources necessary to produce that which they needed to sustain the lives of themselves and their families. The laborer would continue to work for the capitalist, and the latter continued to extract from him surplus value and profits based on the value he added by turning the commodities into goods. The capitalist kept these profits for himself and his family, preventing class mobility for the laborers and ensuring his familys perpetual class status. This was possible because the capitalist owned the means by which the laborer earned a living and, without intervention by the state on behalf of the laborer, would continue to own and monopolize until the laborers revolt. That goods are produced solely for sale for a profit reduces the laborers plight to one of mere wage sustenance, thus alienating him from his species-being and the use-value he extracts from consuming the goods he himself creates from raw materials to sustain himself. While Durkheim would agree with this romanticized notion that man is only satisfied in the completion of those tasks which align with his goals and give his life meaning, he does not
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agree that private property and the accumulation of wealth fundamentally detract from societys progression towards a more transparent meritocracy. In fact, such a notion would establish Durkheim as a radical theorist, the political implications of which he seems to outright avoid with his analysis of the division of labor. Durkheims analysis is fundamentally more conservative. In his ideal society, those who accumulate wealth would do so only in a truly meritocratic society. He evades entirely the issues of exploitation and of private property ownership because he sees the natural division of labor as a more realistic goal than a revolt by the proletariat. Without inherited wealth, each new generation of humanity begins tabula rasa, and each man may only succeed on the basis of his own merit. Without perpetuated class structure, haves would cease to be so simply because of the efforts of the generations before them. Thus a new haves class would be comprised solely of those with superior enough talent to occupy it. This result combined with an authoritative figure to convince man that he need be happy in the result of his natural selection of labor would create a society that maintains the incentive and profit structure of capitalism with greater social stability. Durkheim believes in the ability of the conscience collective to both shape and be shaped by the members of society, and it would guide men in their natural selection of their roles. That is not to say that all men would be truly happy with their lot, but effective manipulation of the conscience collective to validate the sociological importance of each mans occupation would vastly improve society. Marx does not believe in the existence of such a theoretical body. He believes human life is dominated by two primary institutions: the state, and civil society. Civil society, comprised of all institutions to which the state is never subordinated, is defined by its human members and the formal and informal institutions they form. The institution of materialism is that which Marx believes fundamentally guides man into his natural selection of labor. Though it serves as a guide, man as

laborer is never fully capable of achieving that which he wants unless he is a member of the capitalist class. He simply seeks to maximize his own well-being by gaining the highest exchange-value from his labor, since he can no longer access the means of production to create good from which he may extract use-value. Millss cheerful robots, in losing sight of this social cause of discontent, cannot create the change necessary to remedy it. Durkheims aforementioned conservative approach remains in his posited solutions: first, to remove inherited wealth from society; second, to engage workers in occupational groups so as to encourage each to see the context within which he works. Combined with an authoritative figure to convince each man he is happy with his lot, society would be stable. These solutions are, in theory, possible. The abolition of inherited wealth poses primarily political issues given the liberalism of most capitalist societies, wherein participants in the free market feel entitled to the profits resulting from their actions. Should the capitalist choose to have a family, it is with almost invariable occurrence that he should pass his wealth on to his children. Otherwise, the funds would either be taken to the grave or returned to the state. The former has monetary policy implications, and the latter has immense political implications. That the state should be entitled to profits earned from private enterprise infringes on much that differs capitalism from feudalism, wherein the state (lord) was entitled to surpluses from the production by the worker (serf). In addition, while occupational groups may be good in theory, they simply address the issues of alienation and anomie rather than the incongruity between the characteristics of the worker and the characteristics of the job. A man who is best suited to become a banker but due to the forced division of labor must become a plumber is not alienated because he does not see himself in context. He is alienated rather because his skills and proclivities are not complemented by the role he fills. Convincing man that he should be happy
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with his lot is a goal not unlike world peace; good in theory, but impossible in execution given mans free will. Crucially, that Durkheim searches for what adhesive keeps society together while Marx searches for what breaks it apart is responsible for the theoretical divide between them. Durkheims analysis appears to avoid investigating relations between employers and employees the source, Marx cites, of class conflict in society but rather, relations between the worker and his work, the worker and his associates, and the worker and himself. Modern societies, in progressing towards true organic solidarity, rely on an increasing level of labor division that matches closely the interests and abilities of its participant members. A fully organic society would encourage strong social bonds with the presence of cooperative law supporting that individuals feel in control of their thoughts and actions. The conscience collective in such a society would be secular, human-oriented and, as Durkheim explained in his theory on punishment, increasingly just. Organic society, though, presupposes the ability of man to perform the role he wants to in society. By contrast, todays free societies do not grant the common man this privilege, as upper classes tend to monopolize both status and opportunity for themselves. The discontent which man suffers in being at the mercy of those above him weakens the social bonds in society and the conscience collective begins to resemble that of mechanical solidarity. Human interests in such a society are subordinated to religion and opaque social institutions, and the individual proceeds to lose meaning. This explanation, which Marx would find shallow, pales in comparison to the approach he took. Marx attempted to discover what caused the exacerbated class tensions in society, and to do so he took a historical and economical perspective in returning to the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Through a materialist lens, Marx identified that the moral force equivalent he notices was a result of the
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organization of society. Mans material interests brought to light conflicts with haves and havenots that would eventually play out in the proletarian revolution. Marx believed inequality would exist even in the initial post-capitalist society due to natural differences between humans, but as the state worked to take from each according to his ability and give to each according to his need, inequality too would be phased out as each man had access to the same opportunities. Durkheim by contrast believed inequality would never end, due to his belief that the division of labor operates by an invisible hand sensitive to differences in humans. Marx therefore envisioned a new world, while Durkheim wanted to change this worlds social structure. If Marx is correct that man defines himself by his actions and satisfaction of his needs, then a society in which man cannot ever obtain such definition via alienation from his purpose is one that man will eventually rebel against. Private property has come to rule modern society, though man foolishly thinks he is free in his control over his own life. He lacks the sociological context to understand the prison within which he toils. Durkheim agrees with the notion that man lacks purpose in his tasks, not because he lacks the means of production of goods from which he may extract value but because the class structure creates blockages from the invisible hand that would guide labor to its best fit roles. Marxs solution to the problem is revolution; Durkheims is an optimistic bandage at best. Both attempt to fix the sense of alienation prevalent both then and today.