Classical Social Theories - Term Paper Example

The Author's Name] [The Professor's Name] [The Course Title] [Date] Social Analysis Introduction Although no definition is true or false, two distinct definitions may be "empirically congruent," meaning knowledge of the class identity of a social unit member according to one definition permits a correct prediction of the member's class identity according to the other definition. There is every reason to assume that whatever the definition or social unit, congruence is a matter of degree; but given three or more definitions, one of them could be much more congruent (i.e., on average) than is any other. Greater congruence is claimed for this definition: a class comprises all social unit members, including their dependents, who exercise distinctive kinds and amounts of external control over human behavior. The paper discusses “Class” a social theme and analyse in the following four classical social theories: 1. Functionalism 2. Marxism 3.Conflict Sociology 4.Social Interactionism The definition is not empirically applicable without a method for identifying kinds and amounts of external control over human behavior, and it is presumed that there are social units in which the distribution of members as to amount of some kinds of external human control is multi-modal. Otherwise, one can speak of a control continuum but not of classes. But both the Marxist and the Weberian conception of class also presumes a multi-modal distribution of something; and Marx often used the term "control," (Howard 279- 290) as do contemporary Marxists, especially Wright. (Howard 279- 290) The control definition of class is free of pretense. If there is not at least a bimodal distribution of social unit members with regard to the amount of the kind of control in question, then one must speak of stratification (a control continuum), not classes. So, whereas Marxist sociology stands or falls on the notion of class, the notion of control is compatible with a stratification terminology. Appreciable income or educational contrasts without control differences are inconceivable; and an occupation's prestige may be largely a function of power, the perceived capacity of incumbents for control. (Robert 214-222) Although there is no logical connection between the control definitions of class and either the subjective approach or the reputational approach, a claim can be made about the empirical relation. The classes delimited by application of the control definition will be significantly congruent with those delimited by the subjective or reputational approach (open-ended or fixed response categories). Why? Subjective or reputational class identification reflects recognition, albeit perhaps only dimly, of the control exercised by social unit members. More specifically, classes delimited by either the subjective or the reputational approach will differ substantially as to power, the perceived capacity to control. The same argument extends to classes delimited by reference to occupation, education, income, economic relation, and/or "life chances." (Robert 214-222) Functionalism In sociology, functionalism. Or rather structural-functionalism, was associated above all with Talcott Parsons and his students—e g K Davis, Wilbert Moore, R Williams. Jr and many others (Howard 279- 290). some of the basic tenets of structural-functional analysis can be found in the work of Karl Marx In his analyses of modes of production and class societies, Marx showed how many patters of social behavior and organization, be they political parties and groups, legal arrangements, or structures of family, ser\'e to maintain the existing social system of class domination and exploitation Moreover, in his analyses of religions and ideologies as the "opium of the people," Robert Merton (Robert 214-222), Functionalists would admit that even if social solidarity is necessary for tribal survival (a possible tautology); the rain dance is only one of many entities that could promote solidarity. However, far from classifying functional explanations, the notion of "functional equivalents" invalidates them. The explanatory mechanism pertains to conditions that are necessary for survival (e.g., an urban location for shoe stores) rather than only sufficient. Thus, to admit that the rain dance is only sufficient for solidarity does not answer this question: Why the rain dances for the Hopi rather than some other entity that produces comparable solidarity? Yet the argument is not that all functional explanations are incredulous. Consider this question: Why are there organizations of armed individuals in Mexico? The answer: Without organizations prepared to resist invaders and enforce laws coercively, a country will disintegrate politically or be absorbed through conquest. The explanation is functional; and lest it appear absurd, observes that in all countries there is at least one organization of armed individuals who are prepared to resist invaders and/or enforce laws coercively. Should sociologists commence formulating functional explanations with selective survival as the explicit explanatory mechanism, they will come to recognize that the notion of class is compatible with the idea of certain conditions being necessary for the survival of social entities. While one can imagine humanity surviving without all manner of contemporary institutions, it is surely difficult to imagine humanity's survival without various types and amounts of human, inanimate, and biotic control. Finally, functionalism provides any social science with a meaningful orientation, one suggested by a question about any class, be it an institution, organization, type of activity, or behavior pattern: What function does it serve? Granted, such a question is preferred to blind empiricism; but it is conducive to implicit explanations, which are difficult to assess precisely because they are implicit. Conflict Sociology During the 1950s and 1960s, “conflict sociology” became a label for sociological perspectives proposed by Lewis Coser, Ralf Dahrendorf, and John Rex among others, which challenged the dominant Parsonsian view according to which normative consensus was the key to understanding social integration. (Coser, 192) Indeed, like conflict sociology and neo-liberal economics, this most recent revival of conflict-oriented thinking draws selectively on longstanding intellectual traditions. There are two quite distinct such historical sources, the recourse to which in large part also explains the bipolar structure of current debates. Marxism Traditionally, Marxism has looked to the capitalist enterprise as the primary site of class conflict. An overdetermine class analysis instead theorises class as a process of surplus-labour production, appropriation and distribution that can occur at a number of social sites including but not limited to the enterprise. By seeing class processes at the sites of household and state as well as in the enterprise, postmodern Marxism makes visible aspects of class conflict that may otherwise be overlooked or marginalised and it brings to light the contradictory effects of different types of class processes (both capitalist and non-capitalist) within and among these different sites. This multidimensional class analysis provides new insights into long standing debates and sees new possibilities for class politics. By applying the insights of an overdetermined class analysis to the site of the enterprise, postmodern Marxism undermines the view that competition is characterised by an imperative towards accumulation and that, as a result, capitalism is bound by determinist logic. Instead it argues: i) that the effect of accumulation on the rate of profit is conceptually ambiguous and therefore historically contingent; ii) that accumulation itself is only one strategy available to the enterprise to secure its survival, and; iii) enterprises have access to sources of revenue other than surplus-value that can be used to maintain profitability without expanding their appropriation of surplus-value. This approach has several benefits. It refrains from assigning ontological privilege to class processes and thus avoids the marginalisation of gender that typifies much Marxian value analysis. In order to specify how class processes are overdetermined it is necessary to examine the ways in which cultural, political and natural processes act to overdetermine class – how class affects and is affected by both gender norms and the exercise of power. However, it does not obscure class processes by conflating class processes with processes of political power or cultural identity. It does, however, privilege class as an entry point in keeping with the (partisan) Marxian commitment to class justice and class transformation. Presenting his writings as a “critique of political economy,” Karl Marx directly addressed the theory of economic liberalism that later became the core of the economic sciences. He is also often seen as the author to whom we owe the introduction of “antagonism” as a key concept into social and political thought; 9 certainly he emphasized the idea of conflict in social and political life. Reinterpreting in a more political vein the normative idea of liberty, which is also at the core of economic liberalism, he spoke of the “free association of free human beings” (Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto) and suggested that economic freedom alone would result in alienation and oppression because human relations would turn into relations between things as a consequence of the generalization of commodity exchange (Coser, 192). The conflict between agents in competitive markets was for him, therefore, only one form of conflict in capitalist society; and compared to the conflict between capitalists and workers it was not the decisive one. For Marx, rather, history was driven by class struggle and bourgeois society bred an antagonism between individuals that did not have its roots in competing persons but in the societal conditions of life. Such philosophy of history also enabled him to see the relations of production in bourgeois society as the “last antagonistic form” of the social process of production, because the antagonism itself would create the material conditions for its “solution” (Marx, Preface to the Critique of Political Economy). Social Interactionism An important element of the social interactions perspective is its view of organizations as unique social systems or cultures that socialize individuals in a particular set of norms, beliefs and values. (Schein 1980, 1985; Deal and Kennedy 1982). The process does not create a unity of purpose, however, since individuals possess diverse goals and motivations that inevitably cause disputes over objectives and priorities. This perspective regards such events as the very essence of organizational life, with the manner in which conflicts are handled reflecting the rituals, values, and power relationships of the context. Thus, the behaviour of the constituent members is perceived as unpredictable, yet at the same time influenced by the organization's underlying culture. In most cases the values and norms are not specified, but simply embodied in the procedures, rituals, and exercise of power. Their presence has significant implications for decision-making; moral, ethical, and perhaps even tactical dimensions must be acknowledged as important elements along with the traditional elements of rationality and logic. Hirschheim (1985) asserts that organizations "... are not rational and manifestly rule following, they are social arenas where power, ritual and myth predominate" (Hirschheim 279). The key assumption of the social interactions perspective is that technologies do not function independently of their environments; rather, they gain meaning only as individual staff members in a particular cultural and organizational context interact with them. That is why it is quite possible for a technically operational system to remain unused, or be employed in a way that differs greatly from the original intentions. Critique A "control" definition of class has two advantages over the typical Marxist definition. First, the control definition permits recognition of various types of classes--economic, political, cultural, etc.--thereby eliminating a major source of divergent class definitions. Second, in the case of economic classes, the control definition provides a basis for the presumptive identification of three classes in capitalist social units: employers, self-employed, and employees. Marxists cannot or will not make such identification. They may refrain because they recognize that those categories are heterogeneous, but the very idea of a homogeneous class will not bear examination. (Robert 214-222) Perhaps that is why Marxist cling to arcane class labels (e.g., petty bourgeois). Such a label suggests a homogeneous entity, but only if defined vaguely or left undefined. Social Interactionism is not interested in class based society, infect it believes in human creation and rejects the other structures of the society. This theory is interested in how people interact with each on the daily bases and how these negotiations affect the human life. Conflict theory believes that everything only remunerates the upper class and working class cannot raise its voice for the rights against the ruling class. Conflict theory notions of class justice are integral to the political project of overcoming exploitative class processes. It provides a means to analyse those relations that retains the centrality of class analysis without insisting on the ontological priority of class. As the class analysis at the sites of the enterprise, household and state reveals, postmodern Marxism offers a way to integrate this class analysis of capitalism with non-capitalist class processes at various sites and to detail their interrelationships with political, cultural and natural processes that act to overdetermine their contradictions. Functionalism is much more conventional, and does not have a method to clarify main alterations in culture. The conflict theory has not enlightened a few of the new arranged and steady parts of the social order. The structural functionalist and the conflict theory are intimately associated with the positive idea of Comte. These notions show a quite inactive, mechanistic vision of social class. They propose that social system fallout from the expected response of social performers to the experiential circumstances of their surroundings. People are moreover, in the casing of the structural functionalists, inspired with the principles and rules of their society from which restrictions they act, or they are forced by the influence that is, conflict theorists says, behaving according to the societal rules is the demands of the society. In this light people of different classes are either taught to be acquiescent or are required to be such. Though these points are reliable with straight understanding, they are finally dissonant with the biblical vision of human actions. The allegation is that humans are at greatest manageable creatures, unable of creating actions outside of environmental restrictions. The picture thus expressed of different classes is that of creatures whose behaviors are determined, that is, caused by factors other than their free choice. Works Cited Comte, A. (1855). The Positive Philosophy. Translated and condensed by Harriet Martineau. New York: Calvin Blanchard. Coser Lewis, Continuities in the Study of Social Conflict (NewYork: Free Press, 1967) Deal, Terrence E., and Allen A. Kennedy. 1982. Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life. Reading: Addison-Wesley. Hirschheim, Rudy A. 1985. Office Automation: A Social and Organisation Perspective. Chichester: John Wiley. Howard Aldrich and Jane Weiss, "Differentiation within the United States Capitalist Class," American Sociological Review, 46(1981):279-290. Marx, Karl (1867) Capital, Vol. 1, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1976 Rex John, Social Conflict: A Conceptual and Theoretical Analysis (London: Longman, 1981). Robert M. Marsh, "The Explanation of Occupational Prestige Hierarchies," Social Forces, 50(1971):214-222. Schein, Edgar H. 1980. Organizational Psychology. London: Prentice-Hall. Schein, Edgar H. 1985. Organizational Culture and Leadership: A Dynamic View. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Read More