As one of the founding figures of sociology, Karl Marx’s social and political thought provided intuitive dimensions to view structures in society. As posited in the Conflict Theory, the class conflict is arguably one of Marx’s most significant contributions to sociology. The theory forms the foundation on which sociologists understand the society as being structured into the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, with the government often protecting the former’s interests (Simon, 2016). Having advanced this important structure in society, Marx reasoned that most of the perpetual societal conflicts stem from the two groups’ conflicting interests. That way, Marx inspired later thinkers like Vladimir Lenin and Noam Chomsky to rethink and adapt the Marxist interpretation of class struggle.
Besides, Marx’s idea of false consciousness in his publications The German Ideology and The Communist Manifesto has dramatically streamlined the sociological understanding of individuals’ placement in society. Technically, Marx’s political theory has helped sociologists define and explain the nature of social exploitation, the rise of labor movements, the evolution of criminal laws, and the propagation of capitalism. In effect, Karl Max’s ideas theorize a workable relationship between individuals and social institutions like the government.
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Far from politics, Marxian economics is essential in sociology, especially in explaining the free market’s chaotic nature. Sociologists interested in economics find Karl Marx’s ideas crucial in developing economic policies and theories to address labor and wage issues such as surplus labor. Ideally, Marx argues that the labor force’s specialization pushes wages down in an expanding population (Makhamatova, 2019). He further reasons that the value placed on goods and services in a free labor market do not always precisely account for the labor costs. As such, recent economic theories such as the “invisible hand,” which are sociologically oriented, borrow immensely from Marxist ideals.
Likewise, Karl Marx heavily influenced the 20th Century perception of economic change in social transformation, extending to date. While it remains a mostly unexplored issue, Marx saw a working relationship between the emotions of political activity and social class. The French economist Thomas Piketty and James Bradford, a UC-Berkeley professor, extended the idea of economic growth shifting social classes to involve a technological change in a broader historical materialism perspective. Marxist ideas are fundamental in drawing twenty-first sociological ideas relating to the economy, technology, and social change.
Lastly, Marxism has greatly influenced the social interpretation of socialism, with a particular interest in the “Arab Spring.” Notably, the European understanding of Islamic fundamentalism is heavily influenced by Marxist ideas. That bears a direct bearing on Marx’s The Communist Manifesto, which highlights sexism and authoritarianism as critical agents of propagating the class conflict. For instance, the counter-revolutions that dethroned sectarian leaders in Tunisia and Egypt have been mostly interpreted through Marxist terms as the orthodoxy of class struggle catalyzed by external factors such as global economic interests.
The Positivist Approach
Counterintuitive as it might appear, positivism’s preference for aposteriori over apriori knowledge gives it an upper hand in sociological research. Ideally, the positivist theory claims that genuine knowledge must be derived from objective natural phenomena, aided by reasoning and logic. That excludes metaphysical and intuitive, and subjective experience, which paves the way for the scientific method’s fundamental elements to be borrowed for sociological inquiry and justification. The utility of positivism in sociology in the study of sociology is best discussed in line with the theory’s five tenets: The logic of inquiry is consistent across all branches of science, the objective of the investigation is to explain, predict and discover, all research must be empirical, and science is not common sense, but must be weighed against reason (Panhwar, 2017).
While its value has indeed degraded over time, positivism is still useful in providing a rubric for fieldwork in anthropology, especially ethnography. By disenfranchising the metaphysical dimension of sociological inquiry, positivism roots for objectivity and universality. By extension, positivism enables a comparative analysis. Technically, Auguste Comte, the chief proponent of positivism, envisioned the society as transitioning from theological-military to metaphysical-judicial and then finally to the scientific-industrial (Panhwar, 2019). The positivist approach also allows the researcher to remain detached from the research process, by not inserting their beliefs or deductions into the matter of investigation. This way, positivism idealizes advances in logical thinking and scientific inquiry, placing facts above opinions.
The application of positivism finds favor in law practice, as evidenced by the popularity of Legal Positivism. As advanced by 18th and 19th-century philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Austin, the modern philosophy of legal positivism advocates for concreteness in sources of law. Legal positivism shares in Marx, Weber, and Durkheim’s positivist ideals of aposterioricity by requiring that the legitimate sources of law be objectively and expressly enacted by a recognized institution such as government. The ties between sociology and legal positivism lie in the shared empiricist proclivity for certainty and proof. Thus, the positivist approach has quite a liberal and workable operating environment in the legal domain, courtesy of legal positivism. While some consider legal positivism and natural law as having rival approaches to justice, Rocher (2001) considers both a blueprint to social change. That way, he credits positivism for the long-lasting sobriety of Anglo-Saxon sociology of law.
Despite the immense importance of positivism in sociological inquiry, the theory falls short in diverse ways. Positivism is greatly limited in many applications, such as psychoanalysis, owing to its dismissal of the ‘unseen.’ In the post-positivism era, scientific thought has grown to embrace some elements that would be considered irrelevant in positivism. As Karl Proper, a 20th Century influential theorist reasons, “Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite” (Maxwell, 2017). Proper’s skepticism with positivism is justifiably rooted in the observation that human knowledge is limited in scope. Furthermore, the ongoing process of evolution only justifies the need to treat all current knowledge as provisional and ‘temporary.’ That means the unobservable could soon find space in scientific thought, as argued by the psychologist Sigmund Freud.
References
Makhamatova, S. T., Makhamatov, T. M., & Makhamatov, T. T. (2019). Dialectics of Equality and Justice in the Economic Theory of Karl Marx. In Marx and Modernity. A Political and Economic Analysis of Social Systems Management (pp. 215-224).
Maxwell, N. (2017). Karl Popper, Science and Enightenment (p. 390). UCL Press.
Panhwar, A. H., Ansari, S., & Shah, A. A. (2017). Post-Positivism: An Effective Paradigm for Social and Educational Research. International Research Journal of Arts & Humanities (IRJAH), 45(45).
Simon, R. M. (2016). The Conflict Paradigm in Sociology and the Study of Social Inequality: Paradox and Possibility. Theory in Action , 9(1).
