Discuss Marxism and Functuionalism and Compare

Comp be Marxist and Functionalist Perspectives Comp be and Contrast Functionalist and Marxist Perspectives Sociology is a systematic way of studying the social world. It foolks to discover the causes and affects of intercommunication and interaction that pilfer in social transaction. The science of baseball club was developed as a discipline in the 19th Century by Auguste Compte, a French philosopher. For him, common sense and the obvious would not suffice he wanted to build scientific theories based on critical awareness of high purchase order.The two main stems of sociological concepts are Positivism and Phenomenology. Both Functionalism and Marxism are overconfident theories. This means that philosophies are built by using scientific explore methods to create structural scenes. Positivism is called macro sociology because it looks at society holistically it wish wellwise emphasises the power of Society and how this effects mans behaviour. Positivism was a philosophy f rom the Modern Era when society was industrial, Englands culture untolerating, the set media buttoned-down and pro-establishment.Role in society was extremely important it was traditionalistic and genders specific. Functionalism provided a static view of society. It was rooted in the work of Emile Durkheim, a French Sociologist and during the later stages, Talcott Parsons. Although operativeism was not a dominant theoretical sentiment in sociology until the 1940s and 1950s, it first emerged during the 19th Century. Marxism was founded by a German philosopher, economist and sociologist, Karl Marx. Fredrich Engels also contributed to development the works.Marxism offered a radical alternative to the functionalism perspective and was developed in the 1970s. Both perspectives of Marx and Durkheim, aspired for a Utopian society. Functionalism views society like a biological organism. The parts or institutions of the organism or society function appropriately to ensure the whole struc ture works efficiently and effectively. The whole has greater power than the individual parts. The trio main aims and objectives of functionalism are to maintain order, stability and equilibrium in society.Marxism became increasingly influential due(p) to the decline in functionalism, its promise to provide answers (which functionalism did not) and its mood reflected that of the times. It originally consisted of three related ideas a philosophical view of man, a theory of taradiddle and an economic and political program. The basic principal was that end product equals social enterprise. human being needs to produce food, materials, etc for survival, and in doing so man enters into relations with another(prenominal) members of society.From a functionalist perspective, the main parts of society (its institutions such as education, organized religion and the family) are the foundations for social structure. These institutions have interconnected roles and interrelated norms to f orm a complete system. All of the institutions have a role to meet the functional prerequisites (societys basic needs). Integration between the parts is necessary so therefor integration is a functional prerequisites in itself. Social relations are organised, in result of values providing general guidelines for behaviour.Functionalist, Talcott Parsons set taboo four functional prerequisites essential for society Goal Attainment- setting goals, e. g. giving medication/Education, Adaptation- development of material world, e. g. Mass Media/Industry, Integration- promoting harmony and social solidarity, e. g. Religion/Family, Latency- coming together individual needs to satisfy demand, e. g. Family/Mass Media. From a Marxist view, the rive of production is the collective term for all things needed for production. The means of production are those parts of production which can be legally possess (land, machinery, and slaves . Societys infrastructure was made up of the propels of pro duction plus the social relations. The Superstructure includes the institutions of society and is shaped by the infrastructure. This therefor means that the institutions are primarily determined by economic factors. Marxism relates consort not to income or family like functionalism does, instead it is measured on how much land, machinery is owned and controlled- so it depends on the means of production. The person(s) who had the most means of production are the popular opinion class. The regnant class produces the dominant ideas in society.Their domination relies heavily on the exploitation and oppression of others. The employer to employee relationship of exploitation is concealed by ideology. both(prenominal) accept the ruling class conflict as natural and so are lulled into false consciousness. Functionalism relies on social stratification. Kingsley Davis, an American Sociologist and Demographer verbalise As a functioning mechanism society must propagate its members in so cial positions and induce them to perform the duties of these positions. Without this casting of societys members, the institutions would be unbalanced and equilibrium could not be reached.Functionalism sees this as a positive and inevitable aspect of society. In Marxism, the lower classes are exploit because they can be. Social change in Functionalism occurs when unmatched of the institutions alters in some way. These changes only come about when society requests it. These changes in institutions cause society to behave, inevitably different. Marx cogitated all historical societies contain basic contradictions the exploitation of one social group by another. Perhaps in a way, Marxism is maybe a little more realistic than functionalism.Therefor, they cannot survive in the alive form. The major frictions are between the forces and the relations of production. A great worry of the wealth, produced by the workforce is appropriated in the forms of profit by the Capitalists- the ru ling class. The advantage of the workers are not equivalent to the wealth they produce and so the ruling class was exploiting and oppressing the working class. Marx predicted a new and final epoch. A society that would have complete equality. There would be no new force of production but the relations of production will be transformed.The self-control of production would be collective, as the members of society would share the wealth. The ruling class would no longer exploit or oppress the workers. It is interesting how Functionalists see people as unequal a positive thing and Marxists believe it a negative one. Functionalism fails to recognise social change, contrasting to Marxism which recognises and aspires to it. It is a conservative ideology which ignores the dysfunctions and occupys every institution is positive for society. Marxism, on the other hand, accepts conflict and the arising social problems.The perspective tries to understand how to overcome societies problems by looking back over history and learning from past mistakes. Functionalists assume that everyone in society is in agreement and shares norms. It believes in the power of the institutions to socialize its members so well that deviance is rare. However, every society has deviants and so this story is a little too confident. Functionalism shows us clearly the primacy of culture and socialisation via the social institution. Marxism underestimated the resilience of Capitalism, for example, Americas tragedy on the 11th September 2001.