Therefore, religion is a conservative force. For example, religion prevents a false class conscience which prevents the working class from realising their true potential and keeps them oppressed. As a result, religion prevents a true class conscience where the working class realise they are being exploited. Moreover, religion acts a form of “compensation” for the working class as the belief in God and heaven offers the working class compensation for the misery the experience through capitalism. Marxists argue that religion promises us happiness, but this is an illusion hiding the truth; true happiness can only be found in a revolution.
In recent times, there is a growing concern of wealth inequality in America. This has really drawn criticism and challenge to capitalism as the model of socio-economic structure. Debates surrounding this issue are often traditionally addressed through two models: communism and capitalism. Karl Marx, in his work, “The Communist Manifesto,” criticizes capitalism for it’s preaching of individualism and competition, which leads to the exploitation of the working class thus resulting in further antagonization between socio-economic classes. Marx ends his criticism by offering up the complete abandonment of capitalist system in favor of a communistic system in which socio-economic autonomy is in the hands of the state.
Using material from item B and elsewhere assess the usefulness of Marxist approaches in explaining crime Marxism is a conflict theory established by Karl Marx. Marxists believe that the capitalist system is just a way in which the ruling classes (the bourgeoisie) control and exploit the workers (the proletariat), and it focuses on the unequal conflict between these two sectors of society. Marxists believe that the capitalist system is criminogenic – which means that by its nature it inevitably causes crime. As item B states, Marxists see crime in the capitalist system as ‘a tool of the ruling class’ where they can control the working class and crime is an unavoidable result because of the oppression the working class are subject to. They also believe that laws are enforced mostly to benefit the interests of the ruling class.
"The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins portrays a futuristic society set in a post-apocalyptic world; the novel exemplifies the perversion of Karl Marx's theory known as Marxism and the struggles between social classses. Collins shows the various ways in which a communistic society can be corrupted. It is human nature, to be greedy, selfish, lazy, and decietful; this is what ultimately forces Marxism to be an impossibility. A communistic based society would have no need for government simply because each individual would be more than willing to live their life according to the laws and ideas of Marxism. There would be a much greater chance of success for communism, if the location/environment was smaller and consisted solely of those in complete non-forceful compliance.
Self-determination was a criticism of European imperialism but also an attack on the seizure of power by small armed groups like the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks called the idea of collective security and a world peace keeping organization “a mechanism of world capitalism”. Wilson’s ideas were based on traditional U.S. values of personal and economic freedom (democracy and capitalism). Communism was hostile to capitalist economic development; Marx called it “exploitation”. This posed a threat to the greater freedom of world capitalism as an open market would require the dismantling of trade barriers and spheres of influence.
This is done by establishing rules and norms, which work to keep people in line. This creates the wide scale social order for people. However the Marxists, who view religion as a conservative force which is bad for society would say that this “social order” is nothing more than a ploy to keep the bourgeoisie government and religious institutions in control and helps them become more and more powerful next to the worshipping citizen of the proletariat. On yet another plain of thought, the Neo Marxists see this point on religion as a force for social revolution, an example being the South American Liberation Theory. This is when the Catholic church in South America preached about how the people should stand up to the wealthy governments and bourgeoisie businessmen, owning almost all of the land and wealth between only a handful of people.
The movement towards socialism in the 1920’s for example becomes the totalitarian state, the growth in materialism transforms into a form of religion- where humans are mass produced and henry ford is god- and depicts the end of the traditional and familiar life which becomes a strange and sterile modern state. This in turn shows how the stability people were craving would result in the depravation of humanity, beauty and love and that this craved perfect world is an achievement that requires too great a sacrifice. The 1930’s also brought a new questioning of morality, especially regarding sex. The traditional Victorian values were being challenged and whilst society was split; some condemning it as the end of civilisation and others the beginning of individual freedom Huxley uses the issue to shock, mocking the trend in his novel with the depiction of ‘erotic play’ between children, and the image of Lenina being scolded for not being promiscuous enough, implying that whilst the sexual rules may well change the conventions will remain the same just in reverse. Furthermore Huxley purposely used the names of historical and political figures, who serve as inspiration for the main characters.
Politics, religion, social organizations and pretty much every formal group in existence has some set of values that leans towards one of these social ideologies. Both Marx and Weber developed their ideologies whilst living through the industrial revolution, and therefore both witnessed key moments in the dawn of the modern western capitalism. For Marx, he saw the private ownership of manufacturing as ‘an evil that needed correcting’, In his arguments he emphasized that distribution of wealth and aristocracy were severely flawed between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat and built cases for greatly improving the standards for the ‘common’ worker. Whereas Weber had the idea that religion and capitalism are a necessary beginning to any social order. In comparing Marx and Weber there are some fundamental differences that have to be explored.
Some examples of such would be, illegally lobbying or bribing government leaders to gain passage of certain laws, or tax codes. Another form of class conflict may include, a lock out aimed at destroying a labor union, and this is called “open conflict”, or “hidden conflict”, which could be a slowdown in production protesting the wages being paid. According to Karl Marx however, class conflict and struggle are inevitable dissentions that occur because of the economic organization of most societies (Johnson, 2000). Marx also believed that class is defined by the ownership of property and such ownership vests a person with the power to exclude others from the property and to use it for personal purposes. In relation to property, there are three classes of society, they include, the bourgeoisie or the people who own the means of production such as factory and machinery buildings, and whose income is profit, landowners whose income is rent, and the proletariat who own their labor and sell it for a wage.
Within these societies people would fight for ownership of land. Eventually the feudalistic society will give way to what Karl Marx called capitalism, where a society is driven by money. Karl Marx was a famous sociologist and well known for his studies on social class. His name is where we get the term Marxism from. He looked to overthrow the capitalist system in favour of the structuralist approach (Perry, 2009).