Karl Max and Max Weber make some of the most respectable social theorists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Max weber has been widely known as the principal builders of the modern social science. Weber’s ideas gave rise to the emergence of new academic disciplines in social science. Weber’s methodological writings were fundamental in establishing self-identity in the 20th century. Weber is well known for his rationalization thesis in which he offered an analysis of the dominance of the western ideologies in today’s world. Weber also proposed the protestant ethic thesis which evaluated the capitalism that was dominant during his time. With these two propositions, Weber is well known as the father of modernity and his ideologies helped to shape the peoples view of political realism. His views were highly derived from the understanding explained by Machiavelli and Hobbes.
It is worth mentioning that both Weber and Carl Max supported capitalism wherein, they fostered self-interests first at the expense of group influence. Both are of the view that mass action may suppress personal awareness and hence limit the individual’s ability to make judicious decisions. Karl Marx as an historian and a revolutionist of the 19th century, was well known for his skepticism on capitalism. His philosophical works still apply in the present day, in spite of the fact that fellow scholars of his time ignored most of his work while he was still alive. It was not until his death that the enlightened started to consider the truths in Marx’s theories. In the recent times, political dynasties have exited based on the Marxist theories, making Karl Marx of great significance in both political and social living. However, the modification of the ideologies of Karl Marx to fit into contemporary politics goes without say. This paper seeks to discuss Marx’s and Weber’s lives and contribution to the field of philosophy, history and sociology through their postulations.
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Max Weber proposed his theory of rationalism, which mainly expounded on some of the views of Karl Max. Weber explained that the society is composed of two main categories of men. For instance, one of such groups is that which represented exclusively the economic endeavors of those in possession of the factors of production. Weber supported Marxists view I stating that the position of a given societal class even though it does not necessarily substantiate the economic or political action of such a group. Weber explained that the action of the communal class only becomes exhibit when the relationships between the effects of the class situation become evident. This idea is similar to Marx’s ideology that the action of any class would be guided by the conscious interests of such class.
One of the greatest differences is that Weber felt that Marx’s view overlooked the categorization of the people according to their interests because Karl mainly put unnecessary emphasis on the productive sphere. In effect, Weber posited that status group count a greater deal than does classism. Thus, status groups earn social esteem that an individual gains from the perception of others towards them. The disadvantage of banking one’s self esteem on a group status is that the group status may deteriorate significantly in case another group comes in existence. This so follows that classism has an upper hand in terms of maintaining the self-esteem in near future than the group status.
In line with Weber’s school of thought, every society has the values and virtues that are distinct to that particular community. Thus, any group that lives up to the threshold earns the status of being in a high social class. Such social status earn not easy to come by. It is thus imperative that the majority strives to incorporate themselves into this strata but to no avail.
The greatest work by Karl was probably the publication he named Capital. In this writing which composed of over 800 pages that descried the capitalistic nature of the economy. He described factors of production such as land, capital and labor, how they interact in an economy to bring in either profit or loss according to their utilization by the investors ( Howard & King, 2014) . There was great delay in the publication of this work. However, in 1857, a large part of the work was out to the public. Production of this work occurred in a continuum, seeing a major release in 1860 when Karl described his theory of the Surplus Value in conjunction with an in-depth analysis of the political economy. Karl explained the forces that control production and the importance of balancing these in order to realize profits for the industries and achieve economic growth. He also noted the uneven distribution of wealth, with those who toil in the fields and factories facing oppression due to the low wages. In its own way, this was a great enlightenment to the stakeholders in the industrial production, who evidently had begun to project their panic in the face of an educated workforce.
In conclusion, Karl Marx and Max Weber were one of the greatest revolutionist in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The significance of their works remains up to date. Having been raised from a middle-class family, Karl strived to earn formal education and a doctorate for that matter, which highly contributed to his later studies on economic theories. He was a revolutionist, historian, and a conscious philosopher whose insight guided him in the writing of Capital, one of his greatest works. In this work, Karl described the inevitable replacement of capitalism with communism. Max Weber described the uneven distribution of the factors of production as the very seed in capitalism that would lead the system into self-destruction. Death of Karl Max’s wife, his daughter, and an illness that afflicted him in his last days destabilized Karl from his focus on writing subsequent volumes of Capital.
