Karl Marx & Max Weber: Society�s Emphasis on Individuality

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a keen observer of the Industrial Revolution taking place in London, England for the most part of his adult life. He couldn�t help but observe the clear and vast distinction between those who had so much, lived in mansions and used maids opposite those who worked extremely hard for their personal survival and for the survival of their families. Marx was genuinely concerned with this matter and developed an idea called social conflict, which basically defines as �the struggle between segments of society over valued resources (Macionis and Gerber, 2008).� Words such as proletariat and bourgeois were adopted to identify the different classes of people, and Marx knew that the capitalist system would eventually create very high tension between the working class and those of the upper class (Macionis and Gerber, 2008). In other words, Marx�s belief was that the capitalists were simply making profits from the working class people, and did not necessarily have better education or ...

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they are simply a source of labour (Macionis and Gerber, 2008). In Marx�s book, the Communist Manifesto, there is an excerpt that clearly defines the powerlessness of the working class by the capitalists: �Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him (The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, 1848).� Marx came up with an ideology he describes as �a system of production that could provide ...

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