Compare and Contrast the Theories of Marx and Durkheim

* Compare and contrast Marx and Durkheim

Despite their ultimate dissimilarity, the theories of Marx and Durkheim share real commonalities. Each expressed the perspective of a 19th century, western European intellectual observing corporations rebirth into the industrial age. As macro- structural theorists, Marx and Durkheim regarded the social structure itself as their unit of analysis, with social order and social change the focussing of their observations. Both considered the division of labor to be central to those issues. Additionally, both(prenominal) used law as a lens by means of which to evaluate social dynamics. Finally, as engaged theorists, both Marx and Durkheim were non content simply to observe the trajectory of social change. They mean to affect it, as well.
Durkheim held society to be a congenital condition, distinct from, and greater than, the sum of its parts. Indeed, society does not bring out from the interaction of individuals, he argued. Rather, it pre-exists the individual. It is the individual, in fact, that is constructed by society. It is only because society exists that the individual can emerge to distinguish himself from it.




Durkheim further believed that adult male are, by nature, creatures of boundless and insatiable desire, who not only benefit from, but require the regulative influence of society in the form of the collective conscience to hold their rampant appetites in check. As Durkheim demonstrated in Suicide, a breakdown in social regulation can have catastrophic consequences. hit the regulatory hand of the collective, man is adrift in a state of relatively normless anomielacking moral counselenslaved by all-consuming, insatiable and ultimately destructive desires. But, only to that degree as he is both a part and a subject of the collective does man realize his higher self. In a Durkheimian nutshell thenman needs society.
Like Durkheim, Marx veritable the notion that human beings are born into and shaped by an on-going...If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay



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