Contributions of Classical Theorists

When you start reading a lot of theoretical contributions from major contributors to classical theory, a common focus on the basic factor of materialism driving human history continually clearly emerges. The theorists discuss the disassociation between production and the objects we purchase, as well as the division of modern society into classes, parties, and status. Materialism is at the forefront of many of the writings of the classical theorists. 

Karl Marx along with Freidrich Engles built theories about capitalistic competition, socialism, and historical changes; how these elements combine and work for and against one another. Marx’s important writings and theories shared the basic premise that all historical change was caused by class struggles between the bourgeoisie owners of production and the proletariat worker. (Cline, 2012) “The Communist Manifesto” and “Das Kapital” both categorized bourgeoisie as the middle and upper-class owners of land and businesses as capitalists. Proletariat workers provide labor on land and work in a business owned by the capitalists. Bourgeoisie exploits proletariats because they produce the goods and services that proletariats consume, with money they earn from producing these materials. The leftover is amassed into the increasing fortunes of the bourgeoisie. (Marx History Guide) 

Marx wrote about the expanded and relative values of commodities, the altered character of the form of value of a commodity in modern society. Twenty yards of linen equals one coat, or twenty yards of linen equals ten pounds of tea. (Marx & Engels, 1998) This theme of disassociation between object and producer will come up again with another theorist. Eventually, the proletariat tires of this and the result are a revolution into a Communist society. This classless state has done away with the bourgeois ownership structure and everyone owns all the means of production. 

Emile Durkheim is considered a father of sociology, as he worked to establish it as a discipline. Durkheim’s main concern was studying the social structures and cultural norms and values that are external to and coercive over individuals. He believed these factors could be studied empirically. Social factors can be divided into two types: Material and Immaterial. Durkheim was most interested in the later, particularly collective conscience of societies and collective representation. (Gamble, 2003) The material element is displayed again in this argument. Durkheim believed the division of labor holds society together. When individuals depend on each other, a strong societal bond is formed. This division of labor makes people feel they are part of a whole. Society’s with little division of labor, where everyone has a similar responsibility and task, have mechanical solidarity. These societies build a strong collective conscience. Societies with a large division of labor do not have this social “glue”. 

Modern society is held by organic solidarity, which means the difference in peoples division of labor is what holds society together. This modern structure leads to a weakened collective conscience. Durkheim is interesting because he studied these different of types of solidarity by looking at the laws passed in different societies. A society with mechanical solidarity has restrictive laws and a society with organic solidarity passes restitutive laws. Durkheim believed that the inheritance of property was ‘contrary to the spirit of individualism’. (as quoted Dawson, 2012, p. 693) Durkheim studied suicide rates in various societies, arguing that rates increase and decrease according to the strength of attachment people feel toward their society and the degree of external constraint place on the people within society. 

Max Weber was pessimistic about the future of rationalization and capitalism. He examined relationships between history and sociology, believing them to be totally interdependent. He introduced the theory of Verstehen: you must first understand the meaning that people attribute to their experiences and actions. His “Ideal Type” theory did not mean “Utopia”. Ideal type, or pure type was a tool for comparative sociology used to study particular phenomena like capitalism. (“Max Weber,” n.d.) He looked for causal explanations of social action and interaction. Weber developed a multi-dimensional theory incorporating class, status and party. Again we see the theme of a theorist examining class structure and the effects of this on society. Class meant the economic element and market situation of the person. Status is the honor and prestige a person enjoys. Party was the organized structure assembled to gain domination. 

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a prominent American feminist, sociologist, novelist, master of suspense, and poet. She worked for the suffrage movement in the United States and followed Nationalism working to end capitalisms greed and class distinction. Her most famous literary writing was her poem “Yellow Wallpaper”, but her book “Women and Economics” covered her most passionate interest, that women are oppressed in society, hidden laborers in a Capitalist economy. (Simone, 1995) She writes about the sets of conditions we live under as in society, yet “throughout all these environing conditions, those which affect us through our economic necessities are the most marked in their influence.” (Gilman, 1998, p. 2) She talks about the unfairness of society in its economic treatment of women. “We are the only species in which the sex-relation is also an economic relation. With us an entire sex lives in a relation of economic dependence upon the other sex, and the economic relation is combined with the sex-relation. The economic status of the human female is relative to the sex-relation.” (Gilman, 1998, p. 5) Once again materialism and economics is a central topic in a sociological theory. Gilman argued that the maternal roles for women are artificial in our society and no longer necessary for survival. She argues that women are subjugated to men in society.

George Simmel wrote “The Philosophy of Money” and argued that money helps us understand life. He focused on material objects in some of his theories. People create things; they separate from the object and then try to overcome that distance. Values are determined by scarcity and difficulties involved in obtaining valuable objects. City life meant a division of labor and increased financial transactions, a shift from who the individual is to what that individual can do. He argues that this distancing of the things we used to create through commercial exchange has an affect on how we view the world and our relationship to objects. 

“All concrete things pass by in restless flight, burdened by the contradiction that in fact they alone can secure all definite satisfactions, but nonetheless acquire their degree of value and interest only after their devaluation into this characterless, qualityless standard. In this way… money places us at an even more basic distance fro objects; the immediacy of impressions, the sense of value, interest in things is weakened, our contact with them is broken” (Simmel, 2004, II xix)

Simmel argues that objects and people are separated from each other in modern society, that the exchange of money corrupts our bond with the objects we used to create with our hands. Our modern financial crisis has given a fierce new drive into the construction and consideration of new forms of money. There are time dollars, peer-to-peer dollars and digital BitCoin. (BitCoin, n.d.) People are looking for alternatives to big banks and traditional money systems. (Dodd, 2012) Looking at the French Revolution we see a history lesson about what happens when an economy is bankrupt and the finger pointing gets out of hand. The noble class doesn’t want to have their taxes increased. Is it the clergy’s fault? In the meantime the peasants are getting hungry, restless and scared. It was only after the Bastille was stormed that the people in charge took notice of the swarming masses, and eliminated their tithes to the church (not the state). Durkheim offers a powerful exploration of neoliberal ideas. Perhaps a look back might bring some reflection on the current mess, and what happens “after the crash”. We have Occupy protests and a government that can’t fund itself. (Occupy Wall St., n.d.) There has been an increase in the finger-pointing going on for a couple of decades now, and that trend continues to grow. One of the things the state should not do is “allow the amoral character of economic life, the imperatives of capital, to become dominant and ends in and of themselves. To do so it allows the negative liberty of lessening market regulation to expand, due to the governing conscious being determined by the interests of the economically powerful”. (Dawson, 2012, p. 695) The loss of anti-monopoly laws, deregulation of banking and insurance practices, elimination of campaign donation protections and continual protection of tax shelters for enormous corporations contributes to the world image of the Corporation of the United States of America. 

A review of these classical theorists brings to light the major similarities and concerns in the various theories they write about and uncover. Too much capitalist greed contributes to a widening gulf in society between the people who have the most control of the resources and the people that are needed to consume those resources to keep the ball rolling. This is all food for thought as we head into the holiday shopping/campaign/politician season. Let's all hope those three words are not too interchangeable. 

References

Bitcoin - Open source P2P money. (n.d.). Bitcoin - Open source P2P money. Retrieved from http://bitcoin.org/en/

Cline, A. (n.d.). Karl Marx, religion, and economics: Karl Marx's economic theories. Agnosticism / Atheism - Skepticism & Atheism for Atheists & Agnostics. Retrieved from http://atheism.about.com/od/philosophyofreligion/a/marx_3.htm

Occupy wall street. (n.d.).  The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/world/occupy-wall-street

Dawson, M. (2013). Autonomous Functions of All Countries Unite! You have nothing to lose but your economic anomie! Emile Durkheims libertarian socialist critique. Critical Sociology, 39(5), 689-704. 

Dodd, N. (2012). Simmel's Perfect Money: fiction, Socialism, Utopia in the Philosophy of Money. Theory Culture and Society, 29(7/8), 146-147. Retrieved from ehis.ebscohost.com.access.library

Gamble, L. (n.d.). Emile Durkheim and the Principles of his Sociology. Waves of Words. Retrieved from http://www.wavesofwords.4t.com/theorywebpage.htm

Gilman, C. P. (1998). Women and economics a study of the economic relation between men and women as a factor in social evolution. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press.

Karl Marx, 1818-1883. (n.d.). The History Guide -- Main. Retrieved October 8, 2013, from http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/marx.html

Marx, K., Engels, F., & Hobsbawm, E. J. (1998). The Communist manifesto: a modern edition. London: Verso.

Max Weber. (n.d.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/weber/

Simmel, G., & Frisby, D. (2004). The philosophy of money (3rd enl. ed.). London: Routledge.

Simone, D. M. (n.d.). WILLA v4 - Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the feminization of education. Digital Library and Archives, University Libraries, Virginia Tech. Retrieved October 8, 2013, from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/old-WILLA/fall95/DeSimone.html