The correlation between society and science has been largely debated by the proponents of critical theory. The discussions have linked this relationship to societal inequality in many ways. Most of the proponents of the critical theory interpret societal inequality as a disproportionate distribution of economic resources. Social theorists like Karl Marx have tried to explain this unequal distribution of economic capital- critical theory. This article examines Karl Marx's opinion of the connection between society and science as proponents of social inequality through his critical theory ( Perraton, 2007) . The interpretation of most thinkers distorts the relationship between inequality and capitalism. Social inequality is the primary concern of any critical theory for ethical and epistemological reasons; therefore the societal structure impacts the shape of social science.
History of the Marxism Theory
Karl Marx claims that Western society developed over four major periods in time including; primitive communalism, ancient humanity, feudal humanity, as well as a capitalist society. In his book, “ The Communist manifesto: Bourgeois and Proletarians ," Marx claimed that, in the earlier periods, there were complex societal arrangements of into social ranks (Marx & Engels, 1959). Firstly, in the ancient Roman times (same as an ancient society), there were knights, patricians, slaves, and plebeians. Secondly, in the Middle age period (same as a feudal society), there were vassals, journeymen, serfs, feudal lords, guild masters, as well as apprentices. Thirdly, the capitalist society, which is the fourth period, spouted from the remains of the feudal societies still practices social class antagonism.
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Marx argues that modern society has developed new oppression conditions, classes, and new struggle forms (Marx, 1963). Also, Marx notes that the four stages are not hard-and-soft stages of human development which occurred abruptly ( “Chapter 2: Marxist analysis,” 2019). Additionally, Marx claims that the modern bourgeoisie has simplified the class antagonism. As a result, society is splitting up into two more hostile groups, which directly face each other- the proletariat and the bourgeoisie classes. The bourgeoisie represents the ruling class while the proletariat class represents the working class. According to Marx, the only epoch of time that was free from social stratification was the primitive communism because he believed that social stratification only developed when human beings began producing surplus goods (Rehbein, 2018). However, the hunters and gatherers societies, who dominated the primitive era, were only subsistence societies, only concerned with hunting and gathering enough foods for their everyday requirements.
Marxists Explanation of Inequality
Karl Marx was one of the thinkers who explained the issue of social inequality in terms of social stratification. Many other social scientists have come up to offer their views on the topic through criticism and support of Marx’s explanation such as Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Harry Braverman, Erik Wright, and many others (Rehbein, 2018). Karl Marx wrote about several issues including Capitalism, the late Victorian culture, as well as others. His views on social stratification and capitalism form the basis of most social science studies done by other physiologists and sociologists. In his work on the Victorian culture, Marx noted that the Victorian culture and the western culture were socially and technologically different.
However, other thinkers like Gransci argued, by using the term hegemony, that any culture the ruling class values is the basis of the entire societal culture. Gramsci further noted that the working class agrees to these ideas and instead of challenging the ruling class, they accept their rights to make important decisions in the society and to rule the entire society (Weber, 1965).Granscistated that religion is one of the ways through which the working class gets manipulated since it teaches them that they should seek rewards in heaven and not on earth. Additionally, Gransci argued that if the working class challenged these ideas, the ruling class would enforce physical social control over them. Therefore, social and economic inequalities exist since the working class is compelled to believe that it is predestined. Rehbein (2018) states that if the working class can see through this illusion, the ruling classes can impose their power on the people.
On the other hand, Louis Althusser also believed in Marxism, where he alleged that people were taught to be part of the consumerist states. Althusser argued that training is part of the learning process roles, where lawyers are trained as part of the state political structure (Weber, 1972). He asserted that a series of instructions exist in our societies that aim to train the people to accept the concept of capitalism. Some of these ideological state machinery and institutions include the; media, family, religion, and education. Weber (1972) reported that the function of these institutions and state machinery is to create obedient citizens. On the other hand, Althusser claimed that some of these state apparatus are repressive and impose order through the; police, army, the justice system, and the law. Althusser asserted that social inequalities exist since the state trains the working class to believe the principles that create them the systems’ slaves.
Marx acknowledged that there existed gender disparity and noted that the solution to end all forms of inequalities was to first end social inequality then gender inequality would follow from having a just and better society devoid of social inequality (Haraway, 2008). However, most feminists have adopted Marxist concepts and developed them to suit their analysis that place gender inequality as being important as class inequality. Most feminists argue that inequality exists since women are oppressed by men just the way the rich oppress the poor.
Capitalism and Inequality
Social inequality restricts the scientific learning process on the levels of practice and social settings. Additionally, inequality is the most crucial epistemological and ethical problem of all the social sciences. According to Mignolo (2011), the post-colonial analysis generated significant views that recap the opinions that were progressed by the neocolonial assessment created in Latin America. Therefore, the application of the critique of power to epistemology and the organization of science as well as to the society itself is important. It is worth noting that the main challenge in society is dominion and is structurally embedded in social inequality.
Disproportional contact to science is a key concern of social inequality. Bettinger, Garvey, and Tushingham (2015) assert that if the sociologies are embedded in the restricted viewpoint of only a portion of the populance, they are ethically unacceptable and wrong in the sense of configuration. Consequently, societies and social sciences contribute to the persistence of social inequalities. Additionally, Thompson (1963) asserts that the persistence of social inequality can also be contributed to the misinterpretation of the situation. On the other hand, it is not possible to neutrally describe inequality in society because this description can influence society, which could either reduce or contribute to the persistence of social inequality.
The issues of social inequalities sit at the foundation of critical theory, proposed by Marx. Marx (1953) describedthe theory as one which contributes to eliminating all circumstances, under which humans are enslaved, despised, humiliated, and lonely beings. According to Guru (2012), this concept was backed by Frankfurt School, and still inspires the modern critical theories to a significant degree like those of Honneth and Habermas.Hence, the domination discrepancy within social science with regards to accessing science and atrocious society is associated with inequality. However, most of the time people tend to imagine that disparity is only concerned with uneven allocation of resources, but in reality, any inequality is structurally embedded in the society that provide some social groupings with the ability to access socially-valued systems, positions and goods than others. This aspect is what is referred to as dominion and is a configuration that generates a distinction in possibilities or power in the broad implication (Spivak, 1988).
Marxists have been in a position to adopt the idea of social class more than any other perception. According to Marx (1953), in “ The Capital ,” all societies are categorized into class lines. Instead of describing class by occupation, Marx embraced an economic description that is based on the relationship of human beings to production means. Marx states that there are two lines of classes which include; the dominant class that owns the production means, and the subordinate class that provides the labor power (1953). Marx referred to this aspect as a dichotomous society. These two lines of classes are mutually dependent but never coincide in terms of their interests, which are controversial to each other. As a result, the dominant class rules the subordinate class which benefits from the change to avoid being oppressed.
The association between the economic and social class illustrates the difference between the inequalities and capitalism since even the upper social class individuals have to replicate their position in the capitalistic society through the economy and the economic capital. This is because they may go broke as others accumulate sufficient wealth to join others in the economic capitalist class (Spivak, 1988). Therefore, a transformation in social class can be as a result of a transformation in the economic class. According to Bourdieu (1984), an individual in the upper class may have sufficient economic, symbolic, cultural, and social capital power to be better placed in the capitalist economy than others in the lower classes.
The ability to become or to remain a capitalist or rich depends on the individual’s position either in the upper social class or their position in the upper economic class respectively. Thus, societal class is more important than economics class (Scambler, 2019). Consequently, many individuals dwell in similar comparative societal positions as their fore-parents. According to Jodhka and other thinkers (2017), the social position can be traced back to subsequent societal positions in the pre-capitalist ladder. Specifically today, the descendants of peasants tend to belong to a lower class, whereas the off-springs of the noble families belong to the upper classes (Scambler, andScambler, 2019). On the other hand, the existence of capitalism was a result of revolutions, which entailed socioeconomic mobility, separation of social structures, and the creation of entirely new ranges of professionals for all the social groups. However, these revolutions do not eliminate the older inequalities but only change them while making them undetectable.
The Marxist analysis of social and economic classes has been disparaged for its concentration on the relational class consciousness to the production means. Nonetheless, even Marx himself acknowledged this aspect with the idea of ‘false consciousness’ (Bettinger, Garvey, &Tushingham, 2015). Von Wright (1971) noted that other thinkers have depicted Marx's dichotomous insights of society as simplistic and ignore the fact that reality is much more multifaceted. However, the progression of capitalism has not established this view of dichotomization and polarization, but relatively within the modern century the sub-classification and dividing of classes that Marx Weber forecasted (Rehbein, 2018). The modern thinkers proceed by talking about the collapse of class as a significant perception. Lastly, feminists have condemned Marxist consideration as male-dominated by seeing class manipulation as the main concern that disregards other forms of exploitation like race and gender, as obscure (Alatas, 2001).
Neo-Marxist Models of Class
Karl Marx envisaged that capitalism would be conquered through workers' revolutions against their rulers to create a class-free society in the US (Rahnema, 2017). Marx believed that these revolutions would occur while he was still alive or shortly after his death, which has not happened. Additionally, his prediction that the revolution against capitalism would begin in Germany has never happened. Consequently, many proponents of Marxism's analysis of the society are viewed as disillusioned- basically correct but with problems. Das (2019) states that these Marxists are needed to justify reasons as to why the forecasted revolutions have never taken place. For this reason, these Marxists adapted and developed ideas that justify why the predictions were wrong. Therefore, the adapted types of Marxism are referred to as neo-Marxists.
Even as many people agree that Marxism's description of a two-class society was correct at least for 19 th -century capitalism, it is simplistic for modern capitalism that exists today. Similarly, Schutz (2019) posits that some neo-Marxists like Erik Wright and Harry Braverman, have acknowledged that today's white-collar workers represent an intermediate class that has features that are in common with both proletariat and bourgeoisie. The views of Braverman and Wright are both important in the determination of today's Marxism in the capitalist society especially the western world.
In the 1970s, Braverman developed his version of neo-Marxism, which grouped the social classes that indicated the modern American society. Braverman first distinguished between the small-scale bourgeoisie and the large-scale bourgeoisie, but more importantly identified the occupations in the upper-middle-class as a transitional class between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie (Schutz, 2019). Braverman's model is triangular where the bourgeoisie occupy the apex, the technicians and managers occupying the middle fraction, while the real working-class occupying the base of the triangle. On the other hand, Erik Wright also had his version of neo-Marxism.
Rehbein (2015) reports that Wright stated that supervisors and managers have common factors with the bourgeoisie because they control the working class to maximize capital returns, while similarly, they are workers just like wage slaves and are therefore exploited by the capitalists. However, the individuals who are self-employed are not waging slaves but are susceptible to the bourgeoisie exploitations (Hempel, 1962). Alternatively, small-scale employers can be viewed as small capitalists, who misuse the workforce they employ. However, Wright asserts that the small capitalists inhabit a conflicting location in class since they seem to be susceptible to exploitation by the larger capitalists. Furthermore, Wright notes that semi-autonomous employees like university lecturers, have significant control over the activities of their work, are included since the position of their work is also simultaneously within both production modes.
According to Gimenez and others (2019), the works of Wright and Braverman have tried to tackle the denigrations the traditional Marxism faced by distinguishing the contradictory and intermediate positions of the middle class. Additionally, Braverman and Wright's analyses of exploitation and class have managed to mention many characteristics of modern-day capitalism. Even though modern thinkers argue that class is dead, divisions in politics still frequently suggest that class still exists (Connell, 2009). Finally, just as Marx predicted, the effect of globalization on domestic employment may result in pauperization and de-skilling.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Marxism is also known as a conflict theory because the proponents of the theory believe that the society is categorized into groups that are divided by conflict to make up the society, which in turn creates social inequality. According to Marx, social change is the usual order of any society. And in each society, there exist the ruling class and the real working class individuals. Marx named the ruling class as the bourgeoisie and the actual working class as the proletariat. There are two main ways through which the bourgeoisie can control the proletariat: First is through direct control which involves exercising power upon the working class. Second is through indirect means by manipulation of minds by the use of ideologies like religion. The distinction between being poor and rich is part of society. However, selfishness and greed are unacceptable and should not be copied by other people.
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