1. AQA AS/A SOCIOLOGY
ESSAY: CRITICALLY EXAMINE MARXIST PERSPECTIVES ON TODAY’S SOCIETY
Classical Marxism is a conflict structural theory which argues that, rather than society
being based on value consensus as functionalists would contend, there is a conflict of interest
between different groups (social classes) because of the unequal distribution of power and
wealth. Marxists are also interested in the way in which social change can occur, particularly
in sudden and revolutionary ways. However, there are differences between Marxists
especially over the way which social change can come about. For example, humanistic
Marxists like Gramsci give a greater role to the conscious decisions and actions of human
beings than do structural Marxists like Althusser, for whom social change comes as the
product of changes within the structures of society.
One of the key ideas of Marx was historical materialism. Materialism is the view that
human beings have material needs such as food, clothing and shelter, and must therefore
work to meet them. In so doing, they use the forces or means of production. In the earliest
stages of human history, these forces were just unaided human labour, but over time people
develop tools, machines and so on to assist in production i.e. there are innovations in
technology. In working to meet their needs, humans also cooperate with one another: they
enter into social relations of production – ways of organising production. Over time, as the
forces of production grow and develop, so do the social relations of production change. In
particular, a division of labour develops, and this eventually gives rise to a division between
two social classes: a ruling class that owns the means of production and a subject class of
labourers. From then on, production is directed by the ruling class to meet their own needs.
Marx argued that in any class-based society – be it ancient, feudal or capitalist – one
group gained at the expense of the other. According to Marx, capitalist society – such as the
one we live in – is based on the division between two main classes – the Bourgeoisie (ruling
class) and the Proletariat (subject class). The ruling class (or capitalist class) own and control
the means of production, whereas the subject class (or wage-labourers) own nothing but their
capacity to produce goods and services. These wage-labourers (sometimes crudely referred to
as working class) are employed by the ruling class in return for a wage in order to produce
goods and services that the ruling class can make a profit from. It works like this: the
working class produce more than they themselves need for subsistence. The excess or surplus
is appropriated (taken away) by the ruling class through the process of exploitation. Basically,
the workers are paid less than the true value of the good that they produce. The surplus value
created – which is the source of profit – is put to the capitalists’ own use.
Following on from this, capitalism continually expands the forces of production in its
pursuit of increasing profit. Production becomes concentrated in ever-larger units (e.g.
factories with specialised machinery). Such technological advances de-skill the workforce.
Together with increasing concentration of ownership, class polarisation is the result i.e.
society divides into a minority capitalist class and a majority working class. Marx argues that
under capitalism, workers experience alienation because they have no control and the
increasing division of labour means that work becomes a futile, meaningless activity.
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2. The principal reason workers are unaware of the true nature of their situation is due to
false-class consciousness which is explained through ideology – a set of values and beliefs
that justify (legitimise) the existing social order as inevitable, entirely acceptable and indeed,
even desirable. This is because the capitalist mode of production which forms the economic
base of society shapes or determines all other features of society – the superstructure of
institutions, ideas, beliefs and behaviour that arise from this base. For example, it shapes the
nature of religion, law, education, the state and so on.
According to Marx, capitalism sows the seeds of its own destruction. For example, by
polarising the classes, bringing the proletariat together in ever-increasing numbers, and
driving down their wages, capitalism creates the conditions under which the working class
can develop a consciousness (or awareness) of its own economic and political interests in
opposition to those of its exploiters. As a result, the proletariat moves from merely being a
class-in-itself (whose members share the same economic position) to becoming a class-for-
itself, whose members are class conscious – aware of the need to overthrow capitalism. The
means of production would then be put in the hands of the state and run in the interests of
everyone, not just of the bourgeoisie. A new type of society – socialism developing into
communism – would be created, which would be without exploitation, without classes and
without class conflict.
Marx’s work has been subjected to a number of criticisms. First, Marx’s predictions
have not come true. Far from society becoming polarised and the working class becoming
poorer, almost everyone in western societies enjoys a far higher standard of living than ever
before. The collapse of so-called ‘communist’ regimes like the former Soviet Union, and
growing private ownership and capitalist growth in China, cast some doubt on the viability of
the practical implementation of Marx’s ideas. Furthermore, conflict seems over-emphasised
and there has not been any revolution in western societies.
Second, Marx’s two-class model of inequality is inadequate. A new middle class has
emerged, consisting of managerial, professional and clerical workers, which falls between the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat; Marx’s theory cannot account for all the differences in power,
rewards, consciousness and status within the mass of the population who are not capitalists,
such as between manual and non-manual workers. In defence, Giddens argues that the two-
class model should be viewed more as a theoretical construct around which to build an
analysis of society. Nevertheless, the focus on social class obscures other sources of
inequality such as those based on gender and ethnicity.
Classical Marxism has been further criticised as being too deterministic. First, too
much importance is given to the economy in the economic base-superstructure distinction.
Second, it sees individuals as simply passive products of the social system, which socialises
them into conformity and controls their behaviour. It does not allow for individual choice as
social action theorists do.
From a postmodern perspective, Marxism - as a grand theory or metanarrative – is no
longer relevant for explaining contemporary societies, where social life is essentially chaotic,
values are diverse, social structures have become increasingly fragmented; indeed, rather than
class being the main social division, more differences arise around individual choices in
consumption patterns and lifestyle. Furthermore, postmodernists contend that the economy is
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3. not the key factor influencing people’s ideas; instead, in what is regarded as a media-
saturated society, it is the mass media that forms and dominates people’s consciousness and
view of the world.
Despite these criticisms, Marx’s theory has been hugely influential, not least in its
impact on sociological theory in general, such as the work of Weber and of Marxist feminists.
Class still remains one of the most important influences on people’s lives – whether they are
aware of it or not – in terms of educational success, being a victim of crime, life expectancy
and so on. Its focus on private ownership of the means of production provides an explanation
for the extreme social inequalities in wealth, income and power that persist in contemporary
societies, and for the conflicts and upheavals that periodically surface, many of which are
rooted in social class inequalities.
In order to counteract some of these criticisms, more recent (neo-) Marxists have
further developed and modified the ideas of classical Marxism. They tend to reject the
economic determinism of the base-superstructure model and have tried to explain why
capitalism has persisted and how it might be overthrown. More recent Marxists can be
divided into two broad camps: humanistic or critical Marxism and scientific or structural
Marxism.
The most important example of humanistic Marxism is Gramsci who introduced the
concept of hegemony – the ideological or moral leadership of society – to explain how the
ruling class maintains its position. By hegemony, he was referring to the dominance in
society of the ruling class’s set of ideas over others, and acceptance of and consent to them by
the rest of society. He saw this control of people’s minds (exercising control by changing the
way people think) as one of the main reasons why the working class had never rebelled
against the working class (as well as being coerced into acceptance of capitalist class rule by
the police, armed forces and law courts). He argued that the proletariat must develop its own
‘counter-hegemony’ to win the leadership of society from the bourgeoisie. This counter-
hegemony would win ideological leadership from the ruling class by offering a new vision of
how society should be organised, based on socialist rather than capitalist ideas.
In a significant departure from classical Marxism, Gramsci argues that ideology has a
relative autonomy from the economic base. This is the idea that the superstructure of society
has a degree of independence from the economy rather than being directly determined by it.
The concept of relative autonomy recognises that people’s ideas and institutions in the
superstructure can impact on the economy, and not simply the other way around.
In this way, Gramsci was leaning more towards a social action approach to society
sometimes called voluntarism where humans have free will; they are active agents who make
their own history. Their consciousness and ideas are central in changing the world. In
contrast, structural Marxists emphasise determinism: structural factors determine the course
of history. Individuals are passive puppets – victims of ideology manipulated by forces
beyond their control. Gramsci argues that socialism will come about when people become
conscious of the need to overthrow capitalism, whereas structural Marxists like Althusser
argue that socialism will come about only when the contradictions of capitalism ultimately
bring about its inevitable collapse.
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4. Gramsci has been criticised for over-emphasising the role of ideas and under-
emphasising the role of both state coercion and economic factors. Some workers may want
change but fear unemployment, while others may tolerate capitalism because they feel they
have no choice rather than blind acceptance. However, some sociologists like Willis, who
work within a Marxist framework, have adopted similar ideas to Gramsci in stressing the role
of ideas and consciousness as the basis for resisting domination. The ‘lads’ in Learning to
Labour could see through the school’s ideology to recognise that meritocracy was a myth for
them. From Althusser’s point of view, though, we are merely products of social structures
that determine everything about us, preparing us to fit into pre-existing positions in the
structure of capitalism. The task of the sociologist, therefore, is to reveal the difference
between appearance and reality.
Althusser, while rejecting economic determinism and humanism, did acknowledge
that the wider structures of society (political and ideological levels) are more complex than a
simple dichotomy between the base and superstructure, and may have partial independence or
relative autonomy from the economic level. However, the political and ideological levels are
not a mere reflection of the economic level, and they can even affect what happens to the
economy. Although the economic level dominates in capitalist society, the political and
ideological levels perform essential functions. For example, if capitalism is to continue,
future workers must be socialised, workers who rebel must be punished and so on.
To explain this, Althusser makes a distinction between repressive state apparatuses
(RSAs) and ideological state apparatuses (ISAs): RSAs like the police and armed forces
coerce the working class into compliance, whereas ISAs like education, the media and
religion, ideologically manipulate the working class into accepting capitalism as legitimate.
This is similar to Gramsci’s distinction between coercion (the RSAs) and hegemony (the
ISAs) as different ways of securing the consent of the bourgeoisie.
The most notable criticisms of Althusser came from humanist Marxists, for whom
notions of conscious activity were central. However, probably the most direct attack has
come from Thompson who argued that what was central to Marxism was the notion that
people are active. In The Making of the English Working Class, he argued that people have
organised to fight domination and repression and are not just sops to the system. However,
Thompson has been criticised himself for underplaying the structural realities within which
such lives are lived.
In conclusion, Marx’s classic theory is seen as too economically deterministic and too
simplistic in its emphasis on two opposing classes, with gender and ethnic inequalities
ignored. Althusser offers a perhaps more sophisticated conception of social structure, but is
accused of underestimating the intelligence of the working class. In spite of an over-emphasis
on culture, Gramsci’s ideas continue to be utilised within Marxist circles because they are
seen as an effective attempt to come to terms with the ideological and cultural aspects of
capitalist domination. However, some classical Marxists would argue that Marx himself did
recognise the importance of ideas and meanings, with his discussions of class-consciousness.
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