In capitalist societies, the proletariats were alienated from their own labor since their work was appropriated by the bourgeoisie and the work itself was obligatory. He called this process of estrangement of the individual from other people, his work, and the society as alienation. Marx argues that capitalism establishes, as Ritzer and Goodman put it, “barriers between an individual and the production process, the products of that process, and other people ultimately, it even divides the individual himself or herself” (2004, p.27). Capitalist societies are composed of the bourgeoisie, those who own the means of production, and the working class which Marx termed as the proletariat (Schaefer, 2005). Capitalism, according to Ritzer (2011, p.56), is an economic system by which “great numbers of workers who own little produce commodities for the profit of small numbers of capitalists who own all of the following: the commodities, the means of producing the commodities, and the labor time of the workers, which they purchase through wages”. In Marx’s view, the modern industrial society, which emerged from the feudalism, is essentially a capitalist society. Social change, however, is not generally smooth and easy, for it always entail disruptive revolutions. This opposition is generally driven by the changes in the forces of production (technological advancement), thus, prompting also the change in social relations. In his concept of dialectical materialism, Marx contends that a “given society or economic system generates its own opposition and is forced, ultimately, to change” (Cuzzort and King, 1980, p.367). The process of material production, according to Marx, entails two important components: the forces of production – which include tools, technology, and human skills, and the relations of production – refer to the social relations of individuals in the production process (Ritzer, 2011). For Marx, society exists primarily to fulfill the needs of the people, noting that the process of material production is the base of all human societies. By examining the effects of industrialization as well as drawing from the ideas of German theorists Hegel and Feuerbach, Marx developed his concept of dialectical historical materialism which a way of illustrating the change from one society to another (Cuzzort and King, 1980). Having been born during the period wherein immense industrialization characterized the different parts of Europe, Karl Marx (1818-1883) was particularly attuned of the changes in social, political, and economic systems taking place in the region. In this paper, the divergent understandings of each of the three classical sociological theorists regarding the innate features and predicaments of modern industrial societies would be discussed, the solutions they proposed would be critically analyzed, and eventually determine who among them had best understood today’s modern society. Further, as social scientists, they tried to identify the various problems confronted by modern societies and at the same time proposed solutions to these social problems. Given their different, but sometimes overlapping, appreciation of the orientation and task of sociology, it is understandable that they presented contrasting views of the nature of modern industrial societies. But what made Durkheim, Weber, and Marx similar with one another was their deep preoccupation in understanding the newly emerging modern industrial society. Although never did he identify himself as a sociologist, Marx’s explanations about the historical development of society and his ideas regarding the nature of capitalism became the cornerstones of modern sociological thought. In the point of view of Weber, sociology is “concerned to understand how people make sense of their own experience and how social interaction between individuals builds into larger social structures” (Carter, 2007, p.56). For Durkheim, sociology is a distinct and separate discipline from philosophy and psychology, for it is the study of social facts, its central principle is to seek social causality, and its ultimate goal is to maintain social order (Ritzer, 2011). Each of them has their own conception of what sociology is, and what it should ultimately do and achieve. Their contributions in the twentieth century social thought are so strong and so enduring that they are regarded as the “classical sociologists” (Carter, 2007). Undoubtedly, the discipline of sociology would not be what it is today if not because of these three men: Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber.
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