Emile Durkheim vs. Karl Marx free essay sample

Emile Durkheim vs. Karl Marx Durkheim vs. Marx Introduction: For so many years, authorities from each field have deliberated normative theories to explain what holds the society together. Almost each specialist, from structural functionalism, positivism and conflict theory perspective, had contributed their works trying to illustrate main problematic to our society.In one way, one of the Emile Durkheim’s famous work is â€Å"division of labor† which was primarily focusing on how the society could maintain their â€Å"integrity and coherence† in this modern society, when the power of boundary from religious and moral standards have no longer be effected. In addition, in order to illustrate how the deviant behaviours occurred, Durkheim also introduced the concept of Anomie into the sociological theory. Karl Marx, on the other hand, also sees the problematic of division of labor. However he claimed such problems are caused by alienation, which is a systematic result of Capitalism. Both of Durkheim and Marx are fundamental scholars to the sociology field, though it is our privilege to view their works afterwards, Durkheim’s theory is self-contradictory and lack of proves in somehow. Therefore, I found Marx’s conflict theory between different classes is much more consistent, comparing to Durkheim’s Anomy theory. Analysis 1: Emile Durkheim. Emile Durkheim is considered by most of people to be the father of Anomie theory. In this paper, I am going to briefly analysis his idea of â€Å"division of labor†, â€Å"religion† and â€Å"morality†. According to Ritzer, Durkheim reviewed that all troubles roots to division of labor.He stated the right or wrong of public with â€Å"mechanical solidarity† had been substitute by â€Å"organic solidarity†. It basically means that for nowadays society, each person was divided into a very specific place, and they play a stable and precise job in the society. Just like an organ play a role in human body (Ritzer, p. 110-111). According to Ritzer, Durkheim sees the society, which we live is categorized by division of labor. For example, in order to have a cup of coffee at your table every morning needs amounts of efforts of workers from gathering, making, packing, delivering etc.And this is what called â€Å"organic solidarity†, comparing to the early stages of society in which each person presented similar roles- mechanical solidarity (Ritzer, p. 107). According to Durkheim, he believed that societies had â€Å"collective conscience† that kept society in orders and individual disciplined. However, in contemporary society, the collective conscience had gradually been weakened. Therefore Durkheim developed his functionalist approach trying to build a new rule. Every collective group needs rules and boundaries to regulate individual inside.It is crucial in the modern society because they were part of the glue holding society together. I recall one Durkheim’s discussion of deviance in my Crim 101 class, while some criminologists treated crime as a pathological or psychological cause in the abnormal behaviours; Durkheim viewed crime as normal in terms of its existence. For incident, law enforcement would be useless if criminal behaviours were disappeared. Therefore, crimes exist for its purpose. In addition, according to Durkheim, anomie refers to norms and rules, which passed by generation to generation through institutions.Norms are the standards in society. Sometimes they are not right or wrong, but we as dominant x part of society created rules and major part of society followed (Ritzer, p. 109-110). For example, it once upon of the time was the norm for males to hold the door open for females. It was considered a behaviour, which a well-educated man should have done in same way. It gives the public an ideal model that what kind of person we should be, and what should not. Analysis 2: Karl Marx. To me, Karl Marx is the father of communism and also his most contribution to conflict theory is mainly because his work of â€Å"Alienation†.Though terms such as â€Å"Bourgeoisie† and â€Å"Proletariat† are difficult to remember, they are just words to identify two classes- capitalist and worker. According to Ritzer, as a conflict theorist, Marx categorized alienation into four particular types. First of all, labors in capitalist society are alienated from their â€Å"productive activity†. It simply means workers do not produce items based on their needs or ideas. They are just simply following instructions, instead of creating or directly satisfying their own needs.For example, worker A needs some wheat and corn to feed himself and his family, instead of going to grow corn by himself, he choose to go working for the capitalist, get pay-check, and buy the wheat and corn in a super-store. In other words, the Capitalist gains control of the worker. Secondly, in capitalist society, labors are alienated from the product. It means workers produced products that completely belong to the capitalists, no matter how desperate the worker needs. For example, there was a comic picture on newspaper about a story that a worker worked for a bakery factory starving for death.Thirdly, workers in capitalist society are alienated from their associates. According to Marx, capitalists assume that cooperation in capitalism is disrupted, therefore they requires â€Å"less talk, more work† as principal in capitalism work place. Finally, labors in capitalist society are alienated from their own human potential, which means at work place in capitalist society, workers are less and lass like a human. Every smiles and greetings are instructed. Consciousness a numbed and, workers are doing their job only for the paycheck, not concerning the customer any more (Ritzer, p. 54-55).Comparing both anomie theory and alienation theory, I find myself although so much admiring Durkheim’s Anomie theory because it is clear and organized, it still has so many problems not resolve yet. For example, according to Ritzer, Durkheim’s study on suicide rate can be seen as a accumulation of interpretation because they are considered as social facts, and social facts are interpreted. Since the number of suicide rate is not objective, it cannot speculate the result based on that data. In addition, Durkheim’s anomie theory focused on the norms and laws, so that deviant behaviours will decrease because of that deterrence.However, nowadays world is globalized and culture is gradually diverse. It is almost impossible to set rules for one standard of norms and consciousness. For example, twenty five years ago, the government encourage the female to give birth to the baby, the more the better. Moreover mothers who gave so many children will have privilege to be visited by the Chairman Mao. Then Twenty years ago in China, to persuade big house, nice furniture, and beautiful clothes is a crime. However, for today, consumerism is full of in China, on the other hand having more than one child is otherwise a crime.This is the perfect example for explaining norms changed occasionally while culture or value changed. Another example, I have a friend who is a Christian. He told me that he is a Christian since he was a little kid. However, he has a gay partner right now. I asked him about how can he deal with the conflict between his religion belief and his love. He simply said â€Å"I know that I am going to hell afterward, but so what†? I started to understand religion did have some strength to regulate people who have believes as Durkheim said. However, the power is gradually weaken.And till now, there is not such powerful strength yet to prevent people from conducting deviant yet, at least to most of people. Therefore, Durkheim’s Anomie theory seems a little insufficient nowadays. Karl Marx’s alienation theory also has many critics against his theory. Moreover, in old American movies â€Å"you communist† is equal to â€Å"you fool†. It gives us an idea that most North American people demeaned communism in general, because the first international was failed at last, because Utopian is so absurd that no rational people want to admit that they recognize communism as good theory.However, some critics argued that the failure of communist societies and their turn to a capitalistically oriented economy raise doubts about the position of Marxian theory (Ritzer p. 73). I believe that the so-called â€Å"failure of communist societies† is not a real failure. Like Marx speculated, this is only the phrase to the final communism. We have to go through capitalism to the end. Nowadays, we are around by wars, hates, diseases, injustice, negative competition, differences between poor and rich, we are facing amounts of problems and commercial companies are only concerned with how to sell those unnecessary products to normal family.I have to have believed in society that it is always darkest before the dawn. Marx has theory on alienation, which sight through the main problem at earlier stage of capitalist. Also Marx felt that he was capable of viewing capitalism’s potential future because of his materialist conception of history. Therefore, he can diagnosed the problem of society is human nature and tried to identify where political action could be more effective to the society (Ritzer, p. 75). According to Ritzer, Marx argued that human nature has the trend to gain more to satisfy the gratification.There is basically no way to eliminate that desire, at least to most of people. For current stage, it is the stage that people need to be full-filled by those materials. When the majority arrives that equalitarian of gratification, then we can move to the next stage, to build up the next level, intellectual level of desire. Unless, I still have hope on that. Although in China, we learned Karl Marx’s communism since we were in elementary school, I still cannot fully understand the communism. Maybe one of the reasons is that Marx had never completed his theory yet.