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Topic-1 : UNDERSTANDING THINKERS

Sociology is a scientific study of social life. In order to carry out such a study one needs to begin with a general
world view or a perspective about the nature of social life. Based on this perspective, one arrives at a more definite
view of the subject matter to be explored and the methodology to be used for exploring and analyzing the subject
matter. Important aspects of methodology are procedures for observation and collection of data, rules for analysis
of the data and for arriving at explanatory generalization and a body of concepts in terms of which to approach
the subject matter.
Various sociological thinkers, included in the syllabus, are those, who have contributed to the development of
sociology by presenting perspectives, defining subject matter and enriching methods of data collection and
explanation. Also, they have shown the efficacy of these methods by applying them in the form of numerous
studies.
The candidates, while reading about thinkers, should therefore, keep in view the above mentioned aspects and try
to appreciate the contribution of each thinker in terms of-
1. Perspective
2. Definition of Subject Matter
3. Methodology and Concepts
4. Application of the Methodology.
Further the syllabus mentions the phrase ‘Seminal Ideas’ regarding the thinker’s contributions. ‘Seminal Ideas’
are those ideas which contribute to future development. Thus, in this case the contribution of each thinker has to
be appreciated in the light of how it has stimulated future development in sociology. The future development may
be influenced in terms of the emergence of an alternate perspective on the subject matter, refinement of methods
of enquiry of development of new concepts which may subsequently be adopted to suit latter-day societies.
The following chapters on the thinkers are also based on the same scheme. Here we may have a confession. The
above scheme presents some difficulty when it is applied to the works of the Karl Marx. The reason being that
Marx never presented his ideas systematically and neither did he see himself in the role of a sociologist. Only in
retrospect, ideas of sociological relevance have been discovered in his writing, yet the problem with Marx’s ideas,
by no means is insurmountable and a deliberate attempt has been made to fit to a large extent, the ideas of
sociological importance in Marx’s works, into the above scheme.
Coming to the importance of thinkers from the examination point of view, it should be realized that they constitute
the core of paper-I because most topics are either directly or indirectly related to the thinkers. However the
question on thinkers are, only rarely, straight and direct. Quite often, first part of the question is directly related
to the thinker’s original ideas while the second part of the question is related to either the subsequent development
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on that aspect as a result of the contribution of other sociologists or it seeks candidates view on the contemporary
relevance of a particular thinker’s idea.
Contemporary relevance refers to the usefulness of certain concepts and theories in explaining and understanding
present day societies. Candidates should therefore, while learning the thinkers, try to relate their concepts and
theories to present day societies. Here, it may be suggested, by way of-a useful. hint, that the candidates can
divide modem societies into two types, -viz., (i) developed and (ii) developing. America or - any western society
can be taken as an example of a developed or industrial society while India can be safely taken, an example of a
developing society. The Central issue around which all the concepts and ideas are woven; is related to the thinker's
assumptions about the nature of society and the relation of the individual to the society as a whole.
All sociologists treat society, explicitly or implicitly as a system of interconnected parts. However, one set of
sociologists give primacy to the collectivity or society. They do not recognize an autonomous individual. Instead
they view individual as essentially a social being who can have no independent existence and whose behavior is
shaped by the nature· of group he belongs to. This assumption has important methodological significance. Firstly,
if we presume that people's behavior is shaped by the types of collectivity' they belong to then, while providing
explanation we shall have to look for the cause in the nature of collectivity which being external to the individual,
would be amenable to positive science methods. Thus these sociologists tend to take a social determinist position
and use positive science methods. Among thinkers mentioned in the syllabus Durkheim, Radcliff-Brown,
Malinowski, Parsons and Merton belong to this tradition. Further they emphasize on the systematic nature of the
collectivity and seek to understand the significance of a part of society in term of its consequence for the society
as a whole. This approach has earned them the label of Functionalists.
On the other side of the line, are those who ascribe reality to the individual and regard society as a mere
abstraction. Thus, they attach importance to subjective meanings and motives of the individual while trying to
understand social behavior. They highlight the inadequacy of positive sciences methods and advocate the use of
alternate methods suitable to the special nature of the subject matter of sociology. These sociologists have come
to be known as interactionists. Max Weber is a modern interactionist midway between extreme positivist like
Durkheim on one hand and extreme interactionists on the other.
In Karl Marx, one finds elements of both. Early writings, of Marx -present a determinist stand point. No empiricist
thought, there are-elements of positivism also in this writings, however, matured Marx has considerably moved
away from the determinist position and has assumed a more ‘humanist' position where 'Individual' has also been
rehabilitated along with impersonal economic forces.
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Topic-2 : EMILE DURKHEIM (1858-1917)

INTRODUCTION
Emile Durkheim was born in Lorraine, a frontier province of France of Jewish parentage. The social conditions
in France, his birth in the most nationalistic region of France, his early exposure to the disaster of the France-
Prussian war and the consequent uprisings, his close identification with the strongly cohesive Jewish community,
etc. all contributed towards shaping his ideas. His primary concern was to, lay down a firm foundation of a
positive science of society, the Ultimate objective of which was to discover social laws which could form the
bases for social reform, so that a cohesive and stable society could be restored. His conservative outlook was
manifested in his pre-occupation with the study of order in society. It was largely the result of social conditions
in France towards the later part of 19th Century.
French society had long been marred by a series of upheavals beginning with the great revolution of 1789
followed by the Napoleonic wars and revolutions of mid-nineteenth century, coup de tat of Napoleon III, the
Franco-German war and the Paris uprising Even the third Republic, which came into existence after the war,
continued to be plagued with instability and corruption. All these problems of the French society along with his
own back-ground of belongings to a highly well-knit Jewish community, pre-disposed him towards a search for
the basis of moral order in society. It made him assert the primacy of group over the individual and pre-occupied
him with exploring the cause of social disorganization as can be seen from his studies of ‘Division of Labour,'
suicide' and 'Anomie'. On the other hand, his conception of the nature of sociology as a science was influenced
by the prevailing intellectual climate particularly the ideas of Auguste Comte, Saint Simon and Schmoller.
Durkheim's contribution lies in the clarity and precision with which he defined the nature of sociological
perspective delineated its subject matter and laid down a set ·of procedural steps which constitutes the
sociological method. Also he demonstrated the application of his method in his studies on the Division of Labour,
Suicide and Religion (Totemism: The Elementary Form of Religious Life)
BASIC PREMISES AND PERSPECTIVE
The core of Durkheim's approach is some time described as 'sociological realism', in the sense that he ascribed
the ultimate sociological reality to the group and not to the individual. According to him, when individuals
enter into definite relations to form collectivities, something more than a mere aggregation of individuals, results.
A new level of reality comes into existence. This new level of reality is the social reality. In other word, Durkheim
says that society is a reality 'Sui Generis', since each science is concerned with its own chosen aspect of reality,
therefore by a new level of reality, viz., social reality, must be studied by a new science, namely SOCIOLOGY.
In keeping with the tradition of nineteenth century thinkers, like Saint Simon, Auguste Comte; Spencer, etc.,
Durkheim believed that this new science of society must be built on the lines of a positive sciences. This he
thought, would be 'possible because social reality had its own objective existence, independent of the
consciousness of the individual members who compromise it.
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Further, Durkheim viewed society as an integrated whole made up of inter-dependent parts. These parts fulfill
the needs of society. This contribution of parts towards fulfillment of the needs of the whole is called, “Function”.
These contributions of the parts enable the society to persist. An attempt to explain the persistence of society.
Should therefore take into account the consequences of the parts for the society as a hole.
SUBJECT-MATTER (SOCIAL FACTS)
Deriving his ideas from his contemporaries and teachers Durkheim assumed that a science can only have a status
of being a distinct discipline if it has a separate subject matter, not shared by any other science. At the same time,
this subject matter must be empirically accessible (i.e., amenable to sensory observation) and variations in the
phenomenon must be explained by cause which also lie within the scope of that particular discipline. Thus, he
viewed society as a reality 'Sui-generis' with its own special nature, distinct from that of its members and it is this
aspect of the collectivity which constitutes the subject matter of sociology. These-aspects of social life which
have a distinct level of existence and which are not, reducible to individual characteristics were termed by him as
“Social Facts”.
He defined social facts as those ways of acting, thinking and feeling which are capable of exerting an external
constraint on the individual, which are generally defused throughout a given society and which can exist in their
own life independent or their individual manifestation. Examples of such social facts are, language, laws, both
customary and otherwise, commonly shared beliefs, etc.
Thus the defining characteristics of social facts are:
1. Exteriority 2. Generality 3. Constraint
Exteriority means that social facts are external to and independent of the individual members of the society. They
develop as a, result of collective living and their origins cannot be traced to organismic or psychic aspects of the
individuals consciousness, it is only due to the fact that individual is a member of the group and acquires the
group characteristic through socialization. Take, language as an example, English language existed even before
any particular Englishmen including Shakespeare, was born and it will continue to exist so long English society
exists even, though so many Englishmen have died. It is the individual members who have to learn the English
language in order to have in the English society. Neither the genes nor by themselves made people Englishmen.
Generality means that social facts are diffused throughout the collectivity and are commonly shared by most of
the members. They are not the exclusive property of any single individual rather they belong to the group as a
whole. They represent the socially patterned ways of thinking, feeling and acting and exclude the, individual
idiosyncrasies. Common 'beliefs of a religious community, the legal code of a society are examples of the
generality of social facts.
Constraint means that social facts exercise a coercive power over -the individual members of the collectivity by
which they shape and regulate their behavior. People living in groups are not free to behave according to their
volition. Instead, their behaviors follow the guidance laid-down by the group and the group exercises a moral
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pressure on the individual member, compelling them to confirm to group norms According to Durkheim true
human freedom lies in being properly regulated by the social norms as examples of social `facts, one can mention
religious institutions; political institutions, moral codes, legal systems. Kinship institutions, etc. According to
Durkheim these institutions exist in inter-relatedness and it is in this inter-relatedness. That they should be studied
and understood
For Durkheim, sociology is a science of such social facts. Society or 'conscience collective' is the ultimate social
fact. Further the constituent social facts of the conscience collective exist in a state of inter relationship or inter-
dependence. Therefore, these social facts have to be studied in inter connectedness. According to Durkheim, what
holds the society together as -an ongoing concern is the cohesiveness between these interdependent parts. This
'cohesiveness' has been-termed by him as ·solidarity.
CONSCIENCE COLLECTIVE
Durkheim defines the conscience collective as the set of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members
of a single society which forms a determinate system that has its own life. The belief and sentiment comprising
the conscience collective are both moral and cognitive in nature. They act as an agency to regulate behavior as
well as act as means of knowing the world. The conscience collective by definition is diffused throughout the
whole society, but it has specific features which make it, a distinct reality. It is Independent of the particular
conditions. They pass on but it remains. It is the same in different locations, classes and occupations and it links
successive generations with one another.
Further, Durkheim saw the conscience collective as the “psychic type of society” with its own distinctive
properties conditions of existence and mode of development. He also defined the terms, as meaning a total of
social resemblances' Crime was an offence against strong and definite states of conscience collectives, which
punishment restored and reinforced. Durkheim even went to the extent of arguing that state derives its authority
from conscience collective and becomes its directive organ and symbol. While the state can never completely
free itself from the sources of its authority, it-does become an -autonomous, spontaneous power in social life and
in a democratic polity there exists a high degree of communication between state and 'conscience collective'
which rendered the latter more deliberative, reflective and critical.
After making great use of the concept of conscience collective in The Division or Labour’, Durkheim nearly
abandons this concept. The concept of conscience collective was too all-embracing and too static it failed to
discrimination between cognative, moral and religious beliefs and sentiments. To make such discrimination
Possible, Durkheim used the concept of 'representations collectives
By viewing the nature of social life in this way Durkheim ends up Subordinating the individual to the collectivity.
From Durkheimian stand point, society is outside us and above us it constraints us and Shapes our lives. What is
good for social integration is also deemed good for the individual. Further, Durkheim argued that human beings
were creatures whose desires were unlimited. Unlike other animals, they are not satiated when their biological
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needs are fulfilled, it follows from, this natural Insatiability of human beings that their desires can only be held
in check by external control, By societal control According to Durkheim true human freedom lies in being
properly regulated by social norms.
REPRESENTATIONS COLLECTIVE OR COLLECTIVE REPRESENTATIONS
Durkheim started using this concept in about 1897, when he wrote (in Suicide) that essentially social life is made
up of the representations collective. Collective representations are 'states of the conscience collective 'which are
different in nature from the states of the individual conscience'. They express the way in which the group conceives
itself in its relations with the objects which affect it'. Much of Durkheim`s later work can be seen as the systematic
study of collective representations. Thus his sociology of knowledge examines the social origin and the social
reference, and the social functions, of the forms of cognitive thought, his sociology of religion does the-same for
religious beliefs and his projected sociology of morality would have done likewise for moral beliefs and ideals.
In this connection it is worth noting two related ambiguities built into the concept of representation. They refer
both to the mode of thinking, and conceiving what is perceived. And secondly, there presentation is collective,
its origin determining its mode and form and in its reference to objects. It.is also, of course, collective in th.at
representation collectives are socially generated and that they refer to and' in some sense about society.
Durkheim made much of what he called the independent reality of representation collective. He used the analogy
of the individual's mental states, or individual representations which, though intimately related to their sub strum'
brain cells, from whose combined activity they result, cannot be reduced to and wholly explained by them. They
have their own characteristics, are relatively autonomous, and can directly influence one another and combine
according to their own laws. Similarly, he argued representations collective result from the substratum of
associated individuals, but they cannot be reduced to and wholly, explained by features of individuals, they have
sui-generis' characteristics. Durkheim's assumption here was that if a phenomenon has distinctive, or sui-generis
in characteristics, then it cannot be wholly explained in terms of its constituent elements or substratum. In other
words he equates the claims (A) that social facts are sui-generis (B) that they cannot be wholly explained in terms
of facts about individuals.
Over a period of time, collective representations become partially autonomous of the substratum of elements
which constitute them and repeal one another and forms synthesis of all kinds and engender new re-presentations.
Hence for instance, one finds the luxuriant growth of myths, legends and cosmological systems. This character
of collective representations is also manifested in the way in which religious ideas combines and separate and are
transformed into one another giving rise to contradictory complexes Durkheim wanted a separate branch of
sociology to be devoted to the study of collective representation This new branch would investigate mythological
themes, popular legends, traditions and languages. The ways in which these collective representations attract and
exclude one another and how they fuse together or become distinct.
METHODOLOGY
Having concluded that Social facts are characterized by generality, exteriority, and constraint Durkheim, argues
that such social facts are amendable to be studied by methods of positive sciences interpreting the term positive
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science in a rather conventional way, Durkheim outlines the basic procedural steps of the positive science
approach as follows:-
(i) Observation (ii) Comparison and Classification & (iii) Generalization
He supplemented these steps with additional rules for sociological study viz.,
I. RULES FOR OBSERVING SOCIAL FACTS:- There are six rules which Durkheim proposed in the initial
and basic task of observing social facts reliably, for, in science, everything depends upon accurate observation of
facts which are being studied. These rules are-as follows:-
(a) Social facts should be treated as if they are things. Here, Durkheim tried to emphasize that knowledge
about social facts could not be obtained if the investigator simply practiced introspection or personal
conjecture of any sort Instead, social facts are to be observed objectively because they are: (i) Entities
possessing certain definite characteristics which are independent of human observation (ii) entities the
existence of which is independent of human volition and (iii) Entities which could be known only through
external observation and not by introspection. Remaining rules follow as corollaries, to this role.
(b) The voluntary nature of a social fact should never be assumed beforehand. Here, Durkheim is pointing
out that social facts could not be sufficiently known in terms of individual purposes alone. Durkheim did
not assert that social facts were not voluntary or that they did not contain voluntary element. His emphasis
was that for correct and exhaustive observation, we should not assume their voluntary nature beforehand.
(c) All preconceptions should be eradicated. Due to our commonsense familiarity with social facts, some
preconceptions may come to exist about them in our minds. Durkheim argued that such preconception
should be completely eradicated before coming to the task of scientific observation.
(d) Observation of social facts should be confined to their external attributes only which can be tested and
varified.
(e) Observation of social facts go beyond that or the individual manifestations. The individual manifestations
of social facts must be observed, but the observer should also go beyond them to the more general,
collective representations.
(f) The observation and study of social facts;-should be definite as far as possible. In this final rule, Durkheim
insisted upon the clear definition of the range or area of observation. This Would ensures that knowledge
about social facts can be progressively ever more exact.
II. Rules For Distinguishing Between Normal And Pathological Social Facts
After knowing how to observe and describe social facts clearly we should seek, Durkheim argued, to establish
their, normal or pathological conditions in particular societies. Durkheim's rules for classifying a social fact as
normal or pathological was based upon objective criteria as can be seen below:-
(a) The social fact is nominal, in relation to a given social type, at a given phase of its development, when it
is present in the average society of that type; it implies that the social facts in societies of particular types;
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however was in itself, a firm indication that there existed some pattern of functional interdependence
among them. This point was however emphasized by showing that the generality of the phenomenon is
bound up with the general conditions of collective life of the social type considered. This means that a
normal social fact shall also be functional in the society in which it exists, while an abnormal or a
pathological social fact shall have harmful consequences for the society. The verification of the normalcy
of the social fact though functional analysis is particularly necessary when the fact in question occurs in
a social type which has not yet reached the full course of its development.
III. Rules For Classifying Societies:- Here, in keeping with the tradition of 19th Century Sociologists like
Spencer and Hobhouse, Durkheim advocated the use of comparative method to classify societies into a typology.
He himself presented one based on the type of solidarity, viz., and mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity.
IV. Rules for Explanation of Social Facts:-
(a) When the explanation of social phenomena is undertaken, we must seek separately the efficient cause which
produces the phenomenon and the function it fulfills.
(b) The determining cause of a social fact should be sought among the social facts preceding it and not among
the states of individuals consciousness.
(c) The functions of a social fact are always to be sought in its relation to some social end
(d) The origin of all important social processes should be sought in the internal constitution of the social group
or the collectivity.
V. RULES FOR TESTING SOCIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS: According to Durkheim, experimentation
is the crucial method for testing theories in science. However, experimentation; is not possible in sociology.
Therefore, the comparative method is the closest alternative to experimentation, for testing sociological
explanation. The comparative method must be based upon the principle of concomitant variations.
THE DIVISION OF LABOUR IN SOCIETY:
The study on division of labour in society was Durkheim's doctoral thesis and his earliest work. In this, essentially
speculative exercise, Durkheim was responding to the rise of industrial society highlighting both, its positive and
negative sides. The rise of industrial society was seen as a consequence of technological advancement which
itself was regarded as a natural concomitant of increasing division of labour or specialization. However,
Durkheim was not the first to discuss the consequences of division of labour. Classical economists led by Adam
smith had already attempted to explain division of labour as an activity confined to the field of economy where
complex tasks are rationally divided into specialized, simpler tasks and allocated among the members. Such a
rational organization of tasks leads to increase in efficiency and productivity.
Durkheim rejects such a narrow and purely economic interpretation of division of labour. For him division of
labour is a more fundamental phenomena having ramifications for the whole society in fact, increasing
specialization in the economic sphere itself is a consequence of a general social differentiation. Workers would
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not be able to perform specialized tasks unless general social differentiation enables them to acquire specialized
Skills. Thus Durkheim addresses himself at a more basic level. He explores the consequences of division of labour
for the society as a whole. What holds the society together is the cohesiveness or the solidarity among the parts
of the society? Durkheim probes the relationship between the division of labour and the manner in which
solidarity comes about. What stimulated Durkheim to ask this question was his concern with the fate of the
industrial society of his time, which was the result of high division of labour and was at the same time marred by
frequent upheavals.
Durkheim divides the societies into two categories one simple, small scale type of societies characterized by low
division of labour based upon ascriptive criteria like age and sex, and the other, large scale industrial societies
characterized by high division of labour based upon specialized skills. In the former case, the tasks to be
performed are simple which almost all members can perform equally well. Due to similar activities being
performed by all members, likeness results among them. Cohesiveness in such a society is based upon this, shared
sense of likeness among the parts. Durkheim called this type of solidarity as mechanical solidarity, because the
society is constituted by mechanical juxtaposition of like parts. In the latter case, members perform highly
specialized tasks. Thus, each member's tasks differ from those of other members, so each part of the society tends
to be more and more different But, given the specialized and partial nature of the activities of each part, they
become highly interdependent. In this case, cohesiveness or solidarity is based upon interdependence of parts.
Durkheim called this type of solidarity as Organic Solidarity; because the society involves organic
interdependence among dissimilar parts.
1. Further, according to Durkheim, the society based on mechanical solidarity is segmental in nature with_ little
interdependence. It has relatively low volume of population and low material and moral density as is evident
from the fact that simple societies are scattered over immense areas relative to the number of individuals that
compose them.
In societies based upon mechanical solidarity conscience collective is very extensive and strong and almost fully
engulfs the individual conscience. So much so that the two can scarcely be distinguished. The collective authority.
is absolute whether it is diffused throughout the community' or incarnated in its chiefs. The content of the
conscience collective is pre-eminently religious: 'religion pervades the whole of social life; and this is because,
social life consists almost exclusively in common beliefs and practices which derive from unanimous adherence
of a-very special "intensity. Furthermore, the states of conscience collective are essentially concrete, being linked
to local circumstances, to ethnic and climatic particularities and to precise objects, such as this animal, this tree
or this natural force, etc.
The laws in mechanical solidarity are repressive and penal in character; they aim at inflicting suffering or loss on
the criminal and try to suppress recurrence of crime According to Durkheim, an act is treated as criminal "when
it offends strong and defined states of the conscience collective". Thus crime is viewed as an affront to the
conscience collective which feel hurt by the criminal act und therefore tries to resist it. Hence one of the important
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functions of punishments are actions and reactions taking place at the collective level in the words of Durkheim,
we must not say that an action shocks the common conscience because it is criminal, but rather that it is criminal
because it shocks the common conscience we do not reprove it because it isa crime, but it is a crime because were
prove it.
With the increase of the volume of population, material density and moral density also increase. According to
Durkheim, division of labour is a peaceful solution to the needs created by the increase of population in size and
density. This increase in division of labour, gives rise to organic solidarity. Organic solidarity is characterized by
decline of the conscience collective." The role of the conscience collective becomes progressively smaller as
division of labour becomes specialized. Individual become increasingly more-free while coming more aware of
their inter-dependence. It is this heightened sense of interdependence that contributes to solidarity. The freedom
of individual becomes a venerated principle of a society based on organic solidarity. Relations between
individuals and groups become contractual. The law that exists in organic solidarity is no loner a law of
punishment rather it is a law of restitution. Unlike the repressive law which seeks to inflict suffering on the
criminal, restitutive law simply tries to restore the status-quo Further, while repressive law remains diffuse
throughout the community, restitutive law has special organs and institutions tribunals, councils, functionaries,
and so on.
Nevertheless, the operation of restitutive law is not merely a matter of reconciliation of private interests. If it
were, it would have nothing to do with solidarity. Even when contracts are made between them it is conscience
collective that guarantees their enforcement. The operation of restitutive law is an fact the application of general
rules to particular cases, and it is, above all general rules, that arise out of the use and want of society. Even when
restitutive sanctions, as Durkheim says, are strangers to conscience collective, the latter is not completely absent.
If contracts have power to bind, it is conscience collective that is the source of this power and further-more, it is
a power that can be invoked only when the contracts confirm to the general rules of law and have something of a
moral value.
Further" comparing the organic solidarity with mechanical solidarity Durkheim, suggests that social cohesion is
greater in the case of organic solidarity. As labour is divided so also does each member of the society depends
more and more on this labour. The labour of one fits into the labour of the other, and produces cohesive
community. Thus, as the community becomes more cohesive and better integrated, individual becomes more-free
and more able to exercise his initiative, being less tightly bound by common sentiments. The division of labour
thus contributes both to the cohesion of the society and to the self-expression and freedom of the individual
However, the above mentioned discussion refers to what organic solidarity ought to be. It does not describe the
situation actually obtaining in modem industrial societies. Durkheim himself was aware of this hiatus between
what ought to be and what really happens. Therefore, he called the above description as a normal type of division
of labour at the same time, pointing out to major abnormal forms of division of labour.
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ABNORMAL FORMS OF DIVISION OF LABOUR

Durkheim regarded the chaos 18th and 19th century laissez-faire society, its wholly unregulated markets, its
arbitrary and extreme inequalities, which led to the restriction of social mobility and its class wars and trade union
conflict as far from normal division of labour. These aberrations of the industrial society were explained as
abnormal forms of divisions of labour, viz., the anomic division of labour and the forced division of labour.
ANOMIC FORM OF DIVISION OF LABOUR
The essence of the idea of anomie as applied to economic behavior is that relations between men or groups of
men engaged in commercial and ,industrial enterprises, are devoid of regulation by shared moral beliefs or by
accepts the existence of classes and the regularity of the class conflict Class conflict, for Durkheim, was
manifested in a series of disputes and clashes which resulting from the absence of agreed limits or insatiable
appetites of manufacturers or entrepreneurs as much as in the unlimited desires of workers. Here, he regards
trade-unions as replacing individual selfishness by collective selfishness since-competing representative groups
could not overcome the anarchy of the economy.
However Durkheim does not regard the conflict of interest between employer and employee as an insuperable
obstacle and makes certain suggestions to redeem the anomic situation in modern industrial societies. He points
out the need for improving the conditions of work and the contractual conditions of employment. For example,
he would have approved the measures, like provisions of employment, and legislation aimed at ensuring safety,
healthy conditions of work and the replacement of roles by power by rule of law. He would have liked each
industry to create a kind of self-governing institutions or corporation, empowered to administer codes of conduct
to bind all those engaged in the occupational sphere. These institutions would each be linked with the state.
Excessive decentralization of power led to anarchy but the corporations could equally protect their member
against arbitrary state interventions. Further, he cites the example of professional organizations, such as lawyers
organizations, which create professional ethics governing, their work. According to him, this would go a long
way controlling the anomic state of professional industrial and commercial life. According to Steve Fenton,
Durkheim solution for the state of anomie prevailing in industrial societies was similar to the concept of guild
socialism.
FORCED DIVISION FOR LABOUR
Under the heading of the forced division of labour Durkheim discusses these socially structured inequalities
which undermine solidarity. Durkheim explicitly recognizes that class inequalities restrict the opportunities of
the lower classes and prevent the realization of their abilities. Resentment accumulates and men are led to
revolutionary thoughts. The problem here is not a lack of rules but rather the excess of them in that rules
themselves are the cause of evil. The rules have in fact arisen in order to enforce the division of labour coercively.
Individual specialism and occupations are not freely chosen but forced upon each person by custom, law and even
sheer chance. Individuals find themselves estranged, resentful and aspiring to social positions. Which have been
arbitrarily closed off to them.
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This is clearly the case, Durkheim observes, where a person can enjoy a special advantage owing to possession
of inherited wealth or where thanks to the persistence of certain prejudices, a certain distinction is attached to
some individuals independent of their merits. The forced division of labour then brings about a situation which
one modern author has called the anomie of injustice'. It is this which has produced class conflict and not, as
Marx would have it, the inherently exploitative nature of capitalism. Nor, did Durkheim consider that all
inequality could be abolished. But whereas some inequalities are natural and occurs spontaneously, others are
external inequality and can be mitigated. What in effect he is urging is the creation of what today is called equality
of opportunity or a meritocracy. For this to be possible all forms of hereditary privilege should be abolished.
There cannot be rich and poor at birth he wrote, 'without there being unjust contracts'.
AFTER DURKHEIM
a) Elton Mayo, studying productivity and industrial relations in an American industrial plant discovered
empirically the importance of informal social groups in forming attitudes and practices at work. He
converted the particular finding that informal association influenced, man's working attitudes, into the
general principle that industrial behavior should be understood through its social contexts. Human
behaviour, he continued, was not wholly, not even predominantly rational and logical. The desire to stand
well with one's fellows, the so-called human instinct of association, easily outweighs the merely individual
interest and the logical reasoning upon which so many spurious principle of management are based.
In the Social problems of an Industrial civilization, he draws on Durkheim's evolutionary model to
elaborate his own distinction between 'established' and adaptive' 'Societies, and cites Suicide as an
example to characterize the decay of 'established grouping and the failure of a restless modern civilization
to create alternative bases of social life.
b) In a more recent work by Harold Wiliensky, the author speaks of the relationship between division of
labour and social integration', and examines the variable degree to which work situations and experiences
of the labour forces encourage, participation in and integration into, secondary social groups. If we give
a man some college, he writes, put him on a stable career ladder, and top it off with a nice family income,
he will get into the community act.
Wilensky clearly presents his hypothesis that stable experience in the labour market leads to social
integration, as a test of 'Durkheim's ideas'. He argues that men with orderly careers have contacts with kin
friends and neighbors that are at once more integrated. He however, adds that not all group participation
is conductive to solidarity. The participation pattern of miners, long shore men and others who in ledge
and union, at home and at the bar, reinforces, their common alienation and isolation.
c) After Durkheim a literature has developed, with an interest in the world of work that is often known as
the sociology of occupations and professions. Everett Hughes study is one such work in Hughes work and
in that of labour writers, we can identify two strands which bear clear marks of Durkheimian inspirations
(1) a consistent interest in way in which work experience becomes the central life experience of the
modern citizen and (2) in the way in which modern occupations do, or do not, take on the moral and
organizational characteristic of professions.
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3. SUICIDE
Durkheim's third book Suicide (1897), a major theory of social constraints relating to collective consciences, is
cited as a monumental landmark in which conceptual theory and empirical research are brought together. He used
considerable statistical ingenuity, considered remarkable for his times. He used statistical analysis for two primary
reasons.
(i) To refute theories based purely on Psychology, Biology, Genetics or on climatic and geographical factors,
and (ii) To support with empirical evidence his own sociological explanation of suicide. To refute the existing
theories explaining suicide in terms of non-sociological factors, Durkheim analyzed, statistical data in order to
see if any correlation existed between these factors and suicide. For example, he examined the relations between
insanity and suicide rate, climatic variations and suicide rate, and the role of imitation and suicide. In all cases,
he could find no positive correlation thus he rejected all non-sociological explanations of suicide. In this study,
Durkheim displayed an extreme form of sociological realism. He speaks suicidal currents as collective
tendencies that dominate some very susceptible individuals and catch them up in their sweep the act of suicide
at times, Durkheim believed is interpreted as a product of these currents. Although Durkheim does not rule out
the role of psychic factors, he distinguishes between psychic predisposition' and social determinism.
For example, regardless of race and nationality, Catholics show far less suicides than protestant. This is because,
while both faiths prohibit suicide, Catholicism is able to integrate its members more fully into its fold.
Protestantism fosters spirit of free inquiry, permits greater individual freedom, multiplies schism, lacks
hierarchical organizations and has fewer common beliefs and practices. Catholicism on the other and is an
idealistic religion which accepts faith readymade, without scrutiny, has a hierarchical system of authority and
prohibits variations. Thus 'the superiority of Protestantism with respect to suicide results from its being a les
strongly integrated church than the catholic church'. This conclusion is confirmed by the case of England the
Protestant country here suicide is least developed. This, Durkheim reasons, is because the Anglican church is far
more power-fully integrated than other Protestant churches, has the only Protestant clergy organized in a
hierarchy and has a highly developed traditionalism which more or less restricts activity of the individual.
Family, like religious group, is a powerful counter agent against suicide. Before unmarried increases the tendency
to suicide, while marriage reduces the danger by half or more. This immunity increases with the size of the family.
In other words, contrary to the popular belief, some individuals are more likely to take the extreme step of
committing suicide than others. It is the result of their psychic disposition, but the determining forces which drive
these individuals towards suicide are of social origin.
Durkheim rejected the various extra social factors such as heredity, climate, mental alienation, racial
characteristics, and imitation as the, cause of suicide and arrived at the conclusion that suicide which appears to
be a phenomenon relating to the individual is actually explicable sociologically with reference to the social
structure and its ramifying functions which may (a) induce, (b) perpetuate, or (c) aggravate the suicide potential.
Durkheim's central thesis is that suicide rate is a factual order, unified and definite, for each society has a
collective inclination towards suicide, a rate of self-homicide which is fairly constant for society so long as basic
conditions of its existence remain the same.
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Based on the analysis of a mass of data gathered from many societies and cultures, Durkheim identified three
basic types of suicide:
1. EGOISTIC SUICIDE: Egoistic suicide results from the lack of integration of the individual into his
social group. Durkheim studied varying-degrees of integration of individuals into their religion, faintly,
political and national communities, and found that the stronger the forces throwing the individuals on to
their own belief that it diminishes as these burdens, Durkheim insists that it diminishing as these burdens
increase. Small families are unstable and short lived their sentiments and conscience lack intensity. But
large families are more solidly integrated and act as powerful safeguards against suicide .Again, contrary
to the common belief that great political upheavals increase the number of suicides, Durkheim contends
that great social disturbances and Popular wars rouse collective sentiments, stimulate patriotism and
national faith, and force men to close ranks and (confront the danger, leading to a more powerful
integration or the individual, into his, community, thus reducing the rate of suicide.
2. ALTRUISTIC SUICIDE: This kind of suicide results from the over-integration of the Individual into
his social, group. An individual's life is so rigorously governed by custom and habit that he takes his own
life because of higher commandments. Examples are legion: women 'throwing themselves at the funeral
pyre of their husbands (known as sati in India) Danish Warriors killing themselves in old age; the Goths
jumping to their death from high pinnacles to escape the ignominy of their chief. As opposed to these
obligatory altruistic suicide, there are optional varieties-which do not require suicide but praise self-
sacrifice or ultimate self-renunciation as a noble and praiseworthy act. Japanese harakiri, self-immolation
by, Buddhist monks self-homicide by army suicide squads and self-destruction' in Nirvana under
Brahminic, influence (as in the case of ancient Hindu Sages illustrate, other variants of altruistic suicide.
In all these cases, the individual-seeks to strip himself of his personal being in order to be engulfed in
something which he regards as this true essence while in something which he regards as his true essence.
While the egoist is unhappy, because he sees nothing real in the world but the individual. The intemperate
altruist's sadness, on the contrary; springs from the individual seeming wholly unreal to him. One is
detached from life because seeing no goal to which he may attach himself, he feels himself useless and
purposeless; the other because he has a goal but one outside this life, which henceforth seems merely an
obstacle to him.
Durkheim believed that his analysis-of-military suicide lent support to his conclusion. He rejected the
popular conception which attribute military suicide to the hardship of military life, disciplinary rigour and
lack of liberty. With longer service men might be expected to become accustomed to barrack life. Their
commitment to the army and aptitude for suicide seem to increase. Moreover military life is much less
hard for officers than for private solders, the former accounts for greater suicide rather than the latter.
Above all, volunteers and re-enlisted men who choose military as a career are more inclined to commit
suicide than man drafted against their will. This proves that where altruistic suicide is prevalent, man is
always ready to sacrifice his life for a great cause, principle or value.
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3. ANOMIC SUICIDE : This result from normlessness or deregulation in society. Although this kind of
suicide occurs during industrial or financial crises, it is not because they cause poverty, since crises of
prosperity have the same result, but because they are crises of the collective order Ever)' disturbance of
social equilibrium, whether on account of sudden prosperity or instant misfortune, results in deregulation
and a greater impulse to voluntary death.
Durkheim attributed anomic suicide to unlimited aspirations and the breakdown of regularity norms man's
aspirations have consistently increased since the beginning of history. There is nothing in man's organic
structure or his overweening ambitions. Social desires can be regulated only by a moral force. Durkheim
views the collective order as the only moral force that can effectively restrain the social and moral needs.
However, occasionally this mechanism breaks down and normlessness ensues.
Thus any abrupt transitions such as economic disaster, industrial crises or sudden prosperity can cause
deregulation of the normative structure that is why, Durkheim reasons that anomic is a chronic state of
affairs in the modern socio-economic system. Sudden changes upset the societal scale instantly but a new
scale cannot be immediately created. Collective conscience require time to reclassify men and things.
During such periods of transitions their is no restraint on aspirations which continue to rise unbridled. The
state of deregulation or anomic is thus further heightened by passions being less disciplined precisely
when they need more disciplining". Overweening ambition and the race for unattainable goals, continue
to heighten anomic. According to Durkheim, poverty protects against suicide because it is a restraint in
itself the less one has the less he is tempted to extend the range of his needs indefinitely. In analyzing the
consequences of anomic, Durkheim showed that there was a high rate of anomic suicide among those who
are wealthy as well as among divorced persons. Sudden upwards changes in the standard of living or the
breakup of a marriage throws life out of gear and puts norms in a flux. Like economic anomic, domestic
anomie resulting from the-death of husband or wife is also the result of a catastrophe that upsets the scale
of life. Durkheim also points to a number of factors that contributed to anomie in modern society.
Economic progress has largely freed industrial relations from all regulation, and there is no moral strong
enough to exercise control in the sphere of work and industry. Further-more, religion has lost most of its
power. And Government instead of regulating economic life, has become its tool and servant.
AFTER DURKIEIM
Three characteristics of Durkheim's works have been adopted in later works on suicide (1) a concern with
aggregate rates of suicide rather than individual acts and motive (2) a positivistic approach that relates
suicides rates to objective external variables (3) the use of government statistics as the data source. M
Halbwachs (1930) concluded that Durkheim’s analysis could be simplified to an inverse relationship
between social complexity and suicide rates, demonstrated by the fact that suicide rates were lower in
rural areas where lifestyles were simpler than in towns: Modem theories usually assume that rapid changes
of socio-economic status are the cause of suicide, though unlike Durkheim they include various
psychological factors to explain why only certain individuals commit suicide in these circumstances.
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Outside the Durkheimian tradition, ecological accounts such as R. Cavan's (1928) also focus on social
dis-organization, which is conceptualized in terms of population variables such as high rates of social
mobility and social complexity that weaken that influence of social values on individuals.
The devastating criticisms of Durkheimian theory made by J.B. Douglas (1967) indicate that existing
accounts lack foundation and are misguided. He shows that official statistics are highly inaccurate and
systematically biased in ways that support disintegration theories; suicide are more accurately reported in
towns than rural areas, highly integrated groups are more likely, then poorly integrated ones, to conceal
suicides by ensuring that other causes of death are recorded, the medical competence of those who
categorize deaths for-official purposes varies and may be assumed to be greater as societies modernize
and row more complex Thus Durkheimian and ecological theories simply and uncritically reproduce the
distortions inherent in official statistics. Existing theories are also misguided, because they impute social
meanings to suicide such as egoistic' and anomic that are based merely on untested commonsense
judgments and ignore the actual meanings for-those involved. To Douglas's view, particular social acts
like suicide cannot be explained by abstract social meanings such as suicide' lies in its demonstration of
the function of sociological theory in empirical science.
4. SOCIOLOGY OFRELIGION: Durkheim’s last major book 'Totemisn, - The Elementary Form of
Religious life (1912), is often regarded as the most profound and the most original of his works. The book
contains a description and a detailed analysis of the clan system and of Totemism in the arunta tribe of
Australian aborigines, elaborates a general theory of Religion derived from a study of the simplest and
must primitive' of religious institutions, and outlines as sociological interpretation of the forms of human
thought which is at the heart of contemporary sociology of knowledge.
Durkheim began with a refutation of the resigning theories of the origin of religion Tyler, the
distinguished, English anthropologist, as well as Spencer himself supported the notion or Animism', i.e.
spirit worship as the most basic form of religious expression. Max Mueller, the noted German linguist,
put forth the concepts of naturism i.e. the worship of nature's forces. Durkheim rejected both these
concepts because he felt that they tended to explain religion away by interpreting it as an illusion; which
is a reductionist fallacy. Moreover, to love spirits whose unreality one, affirms or to love natural forces
transfigured merely by man's fear would make religious experience a kind of collective hallucination. Nor
is religion defined by the notion of the mystery of the supernatural. Nor is the belief in a transcendental
God, the essence of religion for these are several religions such as Buddhism and Confucianism which
have no concept of God. Moreover reliance on spirits and supernatural forces will make religion an
illusion. To Durkheim it is inadmissible that systems of ideas like religion which have had such
considerable place in history, to which people have turned in all ages for the energy, they needed to live,
and for which they were witting to sacrifices their lives, should be mere tissues of Illusion. Rather, they
should be viewed as so profound and so permanent as to correspond to a true reality. And, this true reality
is not a transcendent God but society. Thus the central thesis of Durkheim's theory of religion is that
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throughout history men have never worshipped any other reality, whether in the form of the totem or of
God, than the collective social reality transfigured by faith.
According to Durkheim, the essence of religion is a division of the world into two kind phenomena, the
sacred and the profane. The sacred refers to things human beings set apart, including religious beliefs;
rites, deities, or anything socially defined as requiring "special religious treatment Participation the sacred
order, such as in rituals or ceremonies, gives a special prestige, illustrations of the social functions of
religion. The sacred thing, wrote Durkheim is per excellence that which the profane should not touch or
cannot touch with impunity'. The profane is the reverse, of the sacred. 'The circle of sacred objects
continued Durkheim, 'cannot be determined once for all its existence varies infinitely, according to
different religious.
The dichotomy of the sacred and the profane arises out of the dualistic nature of life experience itself.
Sacredness is essentially a matter of attitude on the part, of the people towards various animate and
inanimate objects. But it is not an intrinsic characteristic of the objects themselves. It is the society which
designates certain objects as sacred and expects its members to show an attitude of awe and reverence
towards these objects. For example, the holy water from Ganges is regarded as sacred by the Hindus
inspire of the fact that Ganges, these days is highly polluted, with a very high coliform level. Similarly
the piece of cloth which formed the shroud to wrap Ayatollah Khomeini's body, came to be regarded as
sacred by his followers simply because it was associated with him. Had it not been used as a shroud for
Ayatollah's body, it would have remained a mere piece of cloth. Thus sacredness is a quality superimposed
by society only further, according to Durkheim, the sacred is radically opposed to profane. Unlike the
profane, the sacred is non-utilitarian, and non-empirical, does not involve knowledge, but involves power,
is ambiguous with respect to nature, culture and human welfare, is strength giving and sustaining, elicits
intense respect and makes an ethical demand on ,the believer.
Accordingly, Durkheim defines religion as ‘A unified system of beliefs and practices related-to-sacred
things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden, these beliefs and practices unite into a-single moral
community called-a Church, all those who adhere to it beliefs and practices unite people into a social
community by relating them to sacred things. This collective sharing of beliefs, rituals, etc., is essential
for the development of religion. The sacred symbols of religious belief and practice refer, not to external
environment or to individual human nature but only to the moral reality of society.
Here in lies Durkheim's functional explanation of religion. He is trying to bring out the consequences of
religion, which is a part of the society for the society as a whole. The attitudes of reverence and respect
which are expressed, through religious beliefs and rituals, towards the sacred objects are in fact an indirect
expressions of reverence for the society. Participation in religious worship builds respect for society's
values and norms, hence, acting as an agency of social control. Further, collective participation in common
ritual sand holding common beliefs creates a sense of 'We-ness' among the members of-the society and
thus strengthens solidarity in the, society.
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Instead of Animism or naturism, Durkheim took the totemism' among the Australian tribes as the key
concept to explain the origins of religion. Ordinary objects, whether' pieces of wood, polished stones,
plants, or animals, are transfigured into sacred objected once they bear the emblem of the totem. Totem,
Durkheim explained refers to an implicit belief in a mysterious or sacred force or principle that provides
sanctions for violations of taboos, inculcates moral responsibilities in the group, and animates the totem
itself. The emphasis, in keeping with his overall emphasis upon analysis of social phenomena was upon'
the collective activities as the birth place of religious sentiments and ideas.
According to Durkheim, the essence of Totemism is the worship of an impersonal, anonymous force, at
once immanent and transcendent. This anonymous diffused force which is superior to men and very close
to them is in reality society itself. Durkheim believed that he had solved the religious moral dilemma of
modem society. If religion is nothing but the indirect worship of society, modern people need only express
their religions feelings directly towards the sacred symbolization of society, the source and object of
religion, Durkheim pointed out are the collective life. The sacred is, at the bottom, society personified.
Therefore a secular sociological explanation of religion could sound something like this the individual
who feels dependent on some external moral power is not a victim of hallucination but a responsive
member of society. The substantial function of re1igion, said Durkheim, is the creation, reinforcement,
and maintenance of social solidarity.
Religion, as Durkheim saw and explained it, is not only social creation, but is in fact society divinized.
Durkheim stated that the deities which men warship together are only projections of the power of society.
1freligion is essentially a transcendental representation of, (he power of society, then the disappearance
of traditional religion need not herald the dissolution of society. Furthermore, Durkheim reasoned that all
that is required for modern men now was to realize directly that dependence on society, which before,
they had recognized only through the medium of religious representation. We must he 'explained,
'discover the rational substitute for these "re1iglous notions that for a longtime 'have served as the vehicle
or the most essential moral ideas'. On the most general plane, religion as a social institution serves to give
meaning to man's existential predicaments by tying the individual to that supra individual sphere of
transcendent values which is ultimately rooted in his own society. Thus, he advocated a new humanistic
religion for the modern society.
COMMENTS
1. With this study of religion, Durkheim successfully demonstrated the application of functionalist
methodology in sociology and social anthropology which subsequently influenced the works of B.
Malinowskiand A.R. Radcliffe Brown.
2. Durkheim's view, that the idea or sacred and the beliefs associated with it are a symbolic representation
of society itself, has been corroborated by the later researches of Guy Swanson. He carried out a
competitive study of religious beliefs in simple societies organized on kinship principle and the complex
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and highly differentiated societies of the present day. Kinship based societies had no concept of single
God and neither did they have any ecclesiastical organization which competed with kinship organization
for obeisance. Instead they tended to practice totemic type of religion which symbolized and strengthened
the kinship organization. On the other hand, highly differentiated types of societies, like kingdom or a
nation tended to have a belief in a single supreme God. Such a belief in a single God provided a rallying
point for the members of the society and thus helped in maintaining solidarity. Thus, the nature of
religious belief corresponded with the nature of social structure as postulated by Durkheim,
3. However Durkheim's work on religion has been criticized on various grounds.
a) Durkheim's view that religion act as an agency of social control and provides solidarity, is true only
for simple small scale societies which practice a single common religion. In the case of modem
industrial societies religion has lost both these function. Give the highly differentiated and diversified
nature of modem societies, religion can no longer and as an agency of social control. Next, the
existence of a plurality of religions, quite often, lead to inter -religious conflict and therefore endanger
solidarity rather than enhancing it.
b) Durkheim's approach has been criticized for its extreme form of social realism. He has been concerned
forever emphasizing society and the group at the expense of the individual. Durkheim has adopted a
determinist point of view according to which individual has been subordinated almost' totally to the
collectively. Religion, laws, morals etc., are the aspects of conscience collectively which according to
Durkheim, shaped and his values. Thus individual's choices, meanings and motives have no
independent place in Durkheim's scheme of things. In fact, they themselves are viewed as shaped by
the social forces. By thus exaggerating, the importance of collectivity over individuals Durkheim has
inadvertently ended up, legitimizing fascism. This extreme form of social realism is manifested in 'his
work of suicide, where he speaks of suicidogenic currents as collective tendencies which dominate
individuals and force some of them to commit suicide. Here as pointed out by Doughlas, Durkheim
totally ignores the meanings and motives which the individual impute to their circumstances before
they take the extreme step of committing suicide.
c) Durkheim has also been criticized for his extreme positivism as can be seen in his attempt to make
sociology a natural science. It has been argued that the study of the phenomena of suicide can never
rely exclusively upon statistical data, because such data can never be authentic. The official records
reveal what the police, the doctor or the coroner regards as the case for suicide. Sometimes the deaths
caused due to accidents or murders may get registered as suicide in the official records and vice-versa.
Further, the positivist emphasis on explaining a phenomena exclusively on the basis of outwardly
observable characteristic ignores the human side of social behavior It fails to take into account the
subjective dimension of human behaviour manifested in the meanings, choices and motives of an
individual.
d) Durkheim's absolute distinction between sacred and profane has also been criticized. Critiques have
objected that the distinction is faulty at an empirical level that is as an account of what aborigine
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religious were can only the two classes of objects. Is there not also at least one other class which
consist of things which are neither sacred nor profane but, simply 'mundane'? Again, critiques asked
whether the relationship between the two classes of objects one of total hostility or one of a division
between two complimentary systems of thought? Edmund Leach insists that actions fall in between
the two extremes on a continuous scale. At one extreme are actions which are entirety profane, at the-
other actions which are entirely sacred. Between the two extremes fall the majority of-social actions.
e) Further, Worsley has criticized Durkheim's explanations of religious beliefs and rituals. Despite the
length and detail of Elementary Forms' the explanation is cast in a very general form. The origins of
the actual religious systems are not accounted for at all, but treated as if say, the choice of the sacred
object or of the actual ritual prescription themselves were arbitrary and unimportant. This is especially
regrettable in the case of rituals since. It has been argued that rituals do, in fact always contain an
important material basis in the agricultural technology of the to be or to the group which implies them.
f) Next criticism is related to Durkheim’s views on relationship between society and religion or between
society and the conceptual order. Durkheim's views on this aspect, are irritatingly ambiguous and even
tautological. At various points, he seems to be claiming that social organization exerts a casual
influence over religious thoughts. At others, as when he asserts that 'nearly all the great social
institutions have-been borne in religion', it is religious thought which is seen as the determining
element. Yet at still other points, he appears to be arguing that religion end society are the same thing.
This does not exhaust the list. Steven Lukes has identified no less than six distinct hypothesis, none
of them reducible to the other about the relationship between society and ideas which can be found-
within Durkheim's sociology of knowledge as a whole.
AN ASSESSMENT OF DURKHEIM
To the main problems in sociological theory, Durkheim gave clear answers, both for theory and method.
Durkheim faced up to complex methodological problems and demonstrated by implementing in his works, the
necessity of empirical research for a science of society. Durkheim defined sociology as the science of social facts
and of social institutions. Social facts, in turn, are analyzed in their capacity as constraining forces in the
determination of human conduct or in more modern terms, as part of the apparatus of social control.
In this connection, His discussions of the collective conscience, in spite of some variations, call attention to the
ways in which social interaction and relationships significantly influence individual attitude, ideas and
sentiments. For Durkheim, the reality of society preceded the individual life. Durkheim frequently, especially in
discussions on the collective conscience, reached a degree of sociological realism that seemed to deny altogether
the social significance of individual volition or decision. Society is real, to be true, but so is the individual. And
the two, it should be remembered, are always in interaction. Giving priority to one or the other is misleading in
the long run.
1. Durkheim showed convincingly that social facts are facts sui-genesis. He brought out vividly the social
and cultural importance of division of labour. He analyzed the nature and many of consequences of social
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solidarity. He indicated the role of social pressure in areas of human activity where it had previously
escaped detection. Along with Max Weber he brought the attention of sociologists to the significance of
values and ideals in social life.
2. Durkheim believed in formulation of causal explanations. It is argued by him that it is the business of the
sociologists to establish causal connections and causal laws. Although many are skeptical about this
approach, a great number of causal connections and functional correlations have been established by
sociology with a reasonable degree of probability. Moreover, those who are skeptical about finding causal
relations concede the existence of such trends in sociology. While pleading for causal explanations,
Durkheim argued that since experimentation is impossible in sociology, we should go in for indirect
experimentation, by using the comparative method. This particular method continues to be used by
sociologists.
3. "Durkheim is the pioneer of function approach in sociology, A great number of times, he simply explained
social phenomena by their Radcliffe-Brown. More clearly than Durkheim, the latter identified different
kind of problems what kinds of social structures arc there? How do social structures function? And how
do new types of social structures come into existence?
After Radcliffe Brown, the functionalist approach was pursued by Talcott Parson and R.K. Merton. It is
in the context of functionalism that Durkheim distinguished between normal and pathological functions.
This openinging sociological research has been further elaborated by later thinkers. Closely following
Durkheim, Merton distinguished between 'Manifest and Latent' functions. Also, the idea of dysfunction'
goes back to Durkheim's idea of pathological' functions. Although Durkheim claimed that religion
contributes to social solidarity, Merton pointed out that it can be dysfunctional in some societies since it
can be very frequently, a source of discord and social conflict.
4. Durkheim established a relationship between suicide rates and the degree of integration of individuals in
asocial group. This part of the work of Durkheim has been found to-be useful, and it has been con finned
by laterstudies like those of Douglas and Giddens.
5. One of the important contributions of Durkheim is in 'distinguishing the phenomena studied by
psychology and sociology. According to him, sociology must study social facts, those which are external
to individual minds and which exercise coercive action on them. Taking a cue from this view of Durkheim,
many sociologists have developed their thoughts. Ginsberg concedes this point. There might be
psychological, generalization firmly established by relating them to general psychological laws. In the
same manner, Nadal argues that some, problems of social, enquiry might be eliminated by a move to a
lower level of analysis into the fields of psychology, psychology and biology.
6. Durkheim did population size an important factor in the study of sociology. Societies can be classified
according to their volume (individual and density (number social relations). He thought the increase in
volume generally brought about increase in density and the two together produced variations in the social
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structure. In recent sociology this particular problem has been taken up in a different way in the book. The
Lonely Crowd by Riesman. Otherwise, modem sociologists attach considerable importance to the problem
of population. The influence of population movements upon economic growth is examined by Lexis in
his book. The Theory of Economic Growth.
7. Durkheim did contribute to the typology of societies. He distinguished between mechanical solidarity and
organic solidarity. Besides, Durkheim as aware that societies might be classified in other ways also. He
classified them as a simple societies (the hordes), simple poly segmentary societies (the three tribes which
founded Rome) and doubly communed poly segmentary societies (The Germanic tribes). This attempt of
Durkheim was further relaborated in terms of scale and internal differentiation by Moret and Davy.
8. Durkheim argued that division of labour was the primary sources (social solidarity. In mechanical
solidarity law would be repressive, while in organic solidarity, law would be restitutive. Durkheim also
discussed abnormal forms of division of labour that is those which go against the promotion of social
cohesion. In the abnormal forms he found two the anomic and the forced. By the first he meant examining,
specialization. As-a remedy Durkheim proposed contact through professional association and negotiation
between capital and labour. What Durkheim anticipated is very true of modern times. This approach is
greatly followed by a number of thinkers who discount Marx's ideal of social or class conflict.
9. Finally, after Durkheim very little work has been done on the importance of religion, However, there are
a number of empirical studies of particular sects in terms of their relation with and response to the social
milieu in which they exist just as those of B.R. Wilson and Peter Berger, etc.
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Topic-4 : TALCOTT PARSONS (1902- 1979)

INTRODUCTION
Talcott Parsons was one of the most important American sociologists of this century. He had a powerful influence
on sociology after the Second World War particularly in America and his ideas have influenced other disciplines
like political science. Being a theorist he was not in line with the dominant tradition of American empirical
research.
After his graduation not finding any attraction in the courses in sociology in America, he moved over to the
London School of Economics where he came into contact and was influenced by sociologists like Ginsberg,
Hobhouse and anthropologist B. Malinowski. After he moved to the University of Hidelberg for his doctoral work
Where he was influenced by the works of Max Weber. After returning to America, he finally settled down at the
University of Harvard for rest of his career. Other important thinkers who influenced his ideas were Alfred
Marshal, the classical economist, Emile Durkheim and Vilfredo Pareto. Parsons also reached against the
contemporary trends in American Sociology. American sociology of this period, was dominated by the Chicago
School which was pre-occupied with empirical research. Parsons considered this over emphasis on empiricism
by American sociologists as futile. According to him, empirical research tends to be 'barren unless 'guided by
general theoretical frame work.
Parsons took upon himself the responsibility to provide a general theoretical structure for the whole of sociology
which would serve also to integrate all the social sciences. Thus in his own words, he wanted to build an ecology
of sociology. Parsons surveyed the works of various social scientists, including idealists 1ike Weber, positivists
like Durkheim and utilitarian like Alfred Marshal. Critically analyzing these works, 'Parsons come to the
conclusion that all their ideas represent only partial truths. Their works were like the efforts of blind men to see
the elephant. Whereby each blind man came out with one sided view of the elephant, not being able to describe
the elephant in its totality. Following is a brief summary of his criticism of these traditions:
1. Utilitarian Economic Theory:- Parsons found that economic theory has been more successful in building
general analytical models but, it was able to do this only by making over simplified assumptions about
the nature of the man, Classical economic theory treats man as a purely rational being, ignoring thus, the
non-rational aspects of human behaviour Secondly, it also ignores the fact' that economic activities of man
are, essentially embodied in a wider non-economic sociological dimension. Such a theory will therefore
have only limited applicability for the empirical world. Thus, a purely economic theory could never
achieve the status of a general theory not even of economic behaviour because it left out 'sociological
factors. Which are to be taken into account.
2. Positivism:- According to Parsons, the positivist tradition, in its attempt to mould sociology on the pattern
of natural sciences has ignored the fact that man essentially an active, creative, evaluating creature. While
trying to objectify the study of human behaviour, positivism ignores the subjective aspects of action. Thus,
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Parsons argues that positivist theories leave no room for such notions as mind, consciousness, motive,
values, etc. However, a comprehensive sociological theory must necessarily be a volutaristic theory
should take into account the subjective factors like meanings motives, values etc. along with, factors of
heredity and environment.
3. Idealism:-Idealists have been concerned with the uniquely human qualities of social" action like meanings,
motives, values, etc. Parsons did appreciate this Nevertheless he also 'saw, serious defects in the way these
elements have been treated by the idealists. According to him, they tended to explain or interrupt each
society in terms of its own unique spirit. They have not formulated general theories or laws which would
apply to all societies. Social science, in this case has been reduced to a kind of historicism in which all
efforts are used up inexhaustive descriptions of the unique historical situations. According to Parsons a
sociological theory while taking into account the subjective dimensions should also be a general theory
permitting systematic comparisons of all societies and the development of general laws about them. Thus
having surveyed and critically evaluated theories of Marshall, Durkheim, Weber and Pareto, from Pareto
he took the concept of system Parsons made an attempt to extract from their work a single theoretical
scheme which he presented in his important works namely, The Structure of Social Action' (1937);
Towards a General Theory of Action (1951) The Social System (1951).
Parsons basic orientations sociological theory can be summarized as follows:-
1. Sociological theory should be adequately general theory which could be applied to different societies.
2. Sociological theory must be an action theory based on voluntaristic principle which means it should take
into account goals, values, normative standards and action-choices which actors make on the basis of
alternative values and goals.
3. Sociological theory must take into account the principle of emergence; for Parsons, 'this means that at
various levels of organizational complexity, systems emerge with properties which cannot be explained
merely in term of the way their component parts operate.
4. GENERAL THEORY OF ACTION:
Parsons starts with the idea of social action and gradually moves over to the concept of system. For him,
social action is that behaviour by which a man reacts to the external forces after cognizing, understanding
and interpreting them. It is motivated and directed by the meanings which the actor discerns for the
external World meaning which he takes into account, to which he responds. So the essential feature of
social action is the actor’s sensitivity to the meaning of the people and things about him, his perception
of these meaning and his perception to the meaning they convey. Thus according to Parsons all action is
behavior but not all behaviour is action.
For example, the flight of the moth towards a candle which is simply a mechanistic response of the
organism to the stimulus of light is a case of behaviour but not additional, suppose for a moment a moth
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approaches to flame with the following reasoning, "what a pretty light? I would like to be close to it then
such behavior becomes action. Since action, for Parsons is primarily defined by its meaningfulness it
must be interpreted for the actor`s point of view. The actor in question can be an individual but it may
also be a group, an organization region or even a society.
The actor being in a situation because his action is always the outcome of his reading of a complex of
sign which he perceives in his environment and to which he responds. The environment consists of other
social objects other actors, physical environment and cultural environment. With the presence of social
objects action turns into interaction because both the actor and after responds to eash other's action. Such
interaction is the main-pivot of Parsonian theory. Cultural environment consists of signs, symbols, norms,
beliefs and value It is through these symbols, norms and values that the actor discerns experiences and
evaluates his environment. Action and interaction therefore, take place within a symbolic universe from
which action acquires a meaning, both for the actor and for others. Through norms and values, the actor
is able to interpret the situation, to discern within it, the landmarks, limits and force of which he must
take into account in behaviour. Norms and values supply the actor with goals and means which serves as
a guide to him, at the same time· giving his actions a particular meaning both for him self and for the
others. Human action is also bound by physical environment which acts as kind of constraint and the
complex-of conditions with which action is reckon. To summarize, social action consists of four basic
elements.
1) The subject:- An actor which can be an individual group or a collectivity.
2) The situation:-The situation consists of the physical and social objects to which the actor relates.
3) Cultural Symbols:- Cultural symbols are the means of which the actor relates the different elements of the
situation and attributes meaning to them and thus guides the orientation of the action.
4) Involvement of energy
SYSTEM OF SOCIAL ACTION
According to Parsons social action, constitutes the subject matter of all social sciences. Parsons starts with
promise that human action always exhibits the characteristics of a system. Here, system refers to a way looking
at things. System is not real. It is only a means of understanding reality or a heuristic device. According to
Parsons, if sociology has to be a science, it must resort to systemic analysis as has been done in natural sciences
like biology. The characteristics of a system are:
1. System is a unified whole:- made up of interdependent parts called sub-systems each sub-system can also
treated as a system by itself.
2. Structural conditions:- The units or sub-systems must be organized in a relatively stable manner so the
definite patterns of relationship come to exist between subsystems.
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3. Boundary:- each system has boundary and beyond the boundary there is the environment. The exists
symbiotic interdependence between the system and the environment.
4. Internal dynamics:-By its very nature the system symbolizes dynamics. That is variations or changes who
occur not by choice but in a definite manner.
5. Functional pre-requisites:- If a system of action is to exist and maintain itself certain elementary need of
system must be met. Those needs are two types namely, universal needs that is those which are universal to
all systems, they have been termed as imperatives or Functional Pre-requisites also there are needs when
unique to each system. They are known as derived needs for example all societies have to fulfill the need
getting which is a universal need, but an agrarian society which has a special mode of food getting will own
unique needs different from house of a society based on hunting and fishing.
Viewed in this way, even a single social action can also be treated as a system. It is a complex of involving one
or more actors which can be broken down into inter-related subject systems consisting acts, gestures and words
etc. can also be broken down into still smaller units and can be viewed as system. But that would beyond the
scope of sociology because social action is die basic unit of the subject matter of sociology. Similarly, even
society as a whole can also be treated as a system and can be broken down into its subsystems as would be shown
later.
The structural conditions of the system are fulfilled by cultural patterns. Here culture· has been interpreted in
narrow sense employing symbols, norms, Beliefs and values. These cultural patterns help in standardizing the
meaning gives by the actor to the situation and also his response based on these meanings. Thus, some order is
observable in individual as well as collective action. Parsons claims that the idea of human behaviour being
culturally shaped' is also echoed in the writing of Durkheim and Freud. According to Parsons, Durkhiem view
that social facts are constrained by collective conscience is an affirmation of the above mentioned only and
Freud’s concept of super ego which refers to internalization of cultural norms, values and belief psychological
level also implies the idea of cultural determinism of human behaviour. What Durkheim do at social level, Freud
locates the level of personality. Durkheim is concerned about the cultural pattern far as they are institutionalized
while Freud is concerned with the cultural patterns in so far as the interualised. Thus, conscience collective and
Superego are two different manifestations of the same thing.
The pattern variables of the systems of action:-The cultural patterns serve to structure the system of action
Parsons shows that they themselves are structured in a particular way. The cultural patterns are dualistic nature.
Due to this duality they force the actor to make choices and judgments and compel them to take to choose one
thing or one from one behaviour instead of another. Other sociologists before Parsons has highlighted the duality,
as can be seen in Tonnies’s dichotomy of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschsft However Parsons thought that Tonnies
dichotomy does not bring out the quality of cultural patterns in all dimensions. Parsons regarded the duality of
cultural pattern to be multi dimensional. In his scheme of pattern variables duality is manifested at four levels.
Parsons sees these pattern variables as a series of dilemas confronting every actor who has to resolve the main
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orientation of his action. Parsons claims that these four are logically exhaustive and universal choices to be made
in all social relationships.
1. The first pattern vatiab1e is particularism vs. universalism this is dilemma which relates to the criteria
adopted in judging a physical or social object. Whether someone is a good student beautiful woman
jugded according to criteria applicable to a whole range of objects. If one adopt such criteria one has
opted universalism. Alternately, while Judging the object one can look at the ways in which the objects
is unique father tries to look at his son or a man looks at his girl friend. To look at things in this way is
to opt for particularism. Normally a teacher is supposed to judge his pupils by universalistic criteria but,
if one of the also happens to be teachers son in that case teacher may opt for particularistic criteria.
2. The second pattern variable is quality vs. performance. The actor can judge, a physical or social object
according to what it does or achieves his judgments in this case is based on the objects performance
other hand the actor might attribute importance to the object in itself independently of its achievement
or its benefits, to the actor to this case judgment is based on the quality of the object.
3. The third pattern variable is affectivity vs. affective neutrality. If the actor while defining his
relationship with the object, chooses to set aside his own feelings and emotion for the benefit of an
instrumental relationship oriented to the ends external to the relationship itself than it is a case of
affective neutrality. Relationships in the occupational sphere are characterized by affective neutrality
like in case of civil servant and mercenacy soldiers.
The other possibility is that the actor allows his feelings and emotions to dominate his relationship with
a physical or social object which is a case of affectivity. The relations in a friendly or peer group are
characterized by affectivity.
4. The pattern variable is diffuseness vs. Specificity. If the actor orients himself a diffused manner than
involved as a total persons as in the with one's spouse. On the other hand, one might relate with the other
in a highly specific manner for a limited purpose as in case of consumer shop keeper relationship or
participant of workers in a trade union. Particularism, quality, affectivity and diffuseness comprise
Tonnies, gemeinschaft relationship, while universalism performance, affective neutrality and specificity
are typical patterns in gesellschaft relationships. These four patterns variables represent dilemmas or
choices of orientation which have to be resolved before action is performed. Referring to the way these
dilemmas get resolved, Parsons emphasizes on the fact that choice of one pattern over other in different
situations has been defined by culture and are institutionalized as normative patterns. Suppose the police
officer and his wife went for a birthday party and· an emergency call regarding riot comes just as guests
are arriving, the culture is very clear as to how the police officer might resolve the dilemma. Here, the
claims of the larger collectivity are expected to take precedence over those of the family. However, the
cultural prescriptions are unambiguous and clear only in large stabilized social systems of developed
industrial societies. In third World countries which are in the process of transition from gemeinschaft
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type of relations to gesellschaft relations one can often comes across conflicting cultural prescriptions,
because cultural pattern. So both gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft co-exist. In such situations it is not easy
to, resolve dilemma. For example if a bureaucrat has to distribute some industrial licenses in India,
whether he should purely by merit or whether he should prefer his own caste men or kinsmen, as has
been a traditional practice in India, is a choice which he will find very different to make.
DYNAMIC STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS
Given the way Parsons has conceived the concept of system as a methodological tool, adoption structural
functional approach as a way of analyzing social reality, becomes unavoidable. Durkheim, and
Malinowski influenced Parsons Views regarding his structural functional approach. But at the same time
introduced some new elements in his approach. An important innovation in Parsons' approach is that is
dynamic in nature unlike the earlier static approaches. After describing the different pattern variables,
structural elements of the system of action Parsons raises the question regarding the cause and
consequences of this variability of cultural patterns. He seeks the answer in the effective functioning of
the system. Cultural patterns tend to get institutionalized. Any departure from these patterns would have
serious disrupt consequences for the systems equilibrium, for example, if the doctor-patient relationship
was allowed to become diffuse or particularistic it will have serious disruptive effects. How does the
system maintain its equilibrium? This is the basic question in structural functional analysis. Parsons
answers this question by starting with concept of needs or 'imperative' every system has certain needs,
which must be fulfilled if the system has survive. What are these needs? Needs can be identified by
showing that if certain conditions are not fulfill then dysfunctional consequences follows the system, then
these conditions constitute the needs. Needs can be divided into two categories, first category of needs are
those which are universal, all systems, if they have survive as systems, must fulfill these needs. These are
called 'Functional prerequisites' or imperative. Second category of needs are those which are unique to
each system. They are called derived needs example, getting food is a need common to all societies and
is therefore, one of the functional prerequisites.
Now, food can be procured either through a hunting and fishing economy or through an agrarian economy
each of these modes of procuring food would generate their own needs which would be unique to them
only. The needs of the system are fulfilled by its parts of sub systems. As systematic representation of the
needs and how they are fulfilled by the sub systems has been called by Parsons as the, “Functional
Paradigm".
From the foregoing analysis, we can conclude that Parson's dynamic structural functional analysis consist
three main elements viz.
1. The concept of needs or functional pre-requisites.
2. The concept of parts or sub-system as fulfilling these needs
3. The concept dynamic equilibrium which results when parts function or fulfill the needs.
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Now, each of these elements will be discussed in detail below:

Functional prerequisites of the systems of action: Functional prerequisites refer to a complex of
activities directed towards meeting the needs of a system, These functional prerequisites can be, divided
into two categories, one set of functional prerequisites consist of those activities which are related to the
system environment relations and the second consist of a set of activities related to the internal
organization of the system itself.
Any complex of behavior which can be treated as a system of action is both dependent on the wider whole
and at the same time, to some extent, contributes to the whole. For example, if the interaction between a
newly married couple is treated as a system of action when we know that behavior between them will be
to some extent, influenced by the larger family setting of which they are a part and at the same time their
behavior produce certain changes in the larger family itself which in, this case constitutes the environment.
The first group of system needs springs from such a situation those which are related to systems relations
with its environment. Second the system of action is itself composed of parts or units which are related to
each both by differentiation and integration. The second group of needs spring from here. Those pertaining
to exigencies of the exigencies of the internal organization of the system.
If the system is functioning and maintaining, itself it must be responding to these two types of problems.
So inside a system of action are to be found functions or complex of activities some dealing with 'System
with environment and others with its internal organizational needs. Parsons identifies four needs which
he calls as functional prerequisites of any system of action. According to Parsons, at any moment in the
life of a system of action, the unit-acts which comprise it are related to one or the other of these four
functional are requisite.
1. First functional prerequisite to Parsons is adaptation. It involves a set of activities which serve to according
establishes relations between the system and its external environment. Through these activities, system
adopts itself to the environment, and also adapts the environment to its needs, by modifying, controlling
and exploiting it.
2. Goal-attainment is the second functional pre-requisites of any-system of action. Parsons puts in this
category all actions which serve to define the goals of the system and which seek to mobilize resources
efforts to attain these goals. It is this capacity for establishing, goals and methodically pursuing them which
distinguishes a system of action from non-action systems. Adaptation and goal attainment are the needs of
their category which relates as system with its environment.
3. Third functional prerequisites is called integration. This is the stabilizing dimension of the system
comprising of action which tend to protect the system 'against sudden changes and disturbances,
maintaining the solidarity and coherence necessary for its survival. The unit acts related to this need aims
at establishing control inhabit deviant tendencies and maintain coordination between parts.
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4. Finally; a system of action needs a complex of unit acts which supply actors with necessary motivation has been
called by Parsons as need for pattern maintenance and tension management. The control and distribution of
motivational energy is released through a body of knowledge consisting of symbols, creation of motivation and
its direction towards action. This body of knowledge is hidden inside the system. Therefore, convenience sake,
Parsons has called it as the need for Latency. Integration and latency relate to the second category of needs, that
is, those needs which are related to the internal organization of the system.
The sub-systems of the system of action: Initially, Parsons insisted that social action necessarily implies
inter-section of the systems: personality, culture and social system. Later he added a fourth system
organismic system. These four systems can be recorded as the sub-systems of the system of action. Through
analytically separable, they are interpenetrating system related to each other in the same way as the four
functions of system of action. The biological organism corresponds to the function of adaptation because
it mediates the relations with the physical world, adapting to it at the same time, manipulating and
transforming it.
The personality system corresponds to the function of the goal-attainment. Personalities, according to
Parsons organized the total set of learned needs, the demands, goals and action choices of individual actor.
Personalities of two individuals are ever like. Although, they may speak the same language and share the
same cultural values and beliefs. Social system represents the function of integration. It is this which creates
solidarity, maintains value consensus, generates loyalities, defines the limits of the permissible actions and
imposes constraints.
Cultural system represents the function of latency or pattern maintenance. It supplies the actor with
motivation and support for their action, by means of norms, ideas, values and ideologies which it makes
available to and even imposes on them. Next, Parsons proceeds to show the links between the pattern
variables and functional prerequisites as has been shown in the schematic representation below. According
to Parsons activities relating to the four different functional prerequisites involve different types of
behaviour, each of being governed by its own rules. Thus, each of the four functional pre-requisites
corresponds to a particular set of pattern variables as shown below.
Dynamics of the system of action:-
By its very nature, action involves a change·, disturbance of an existing stand transition to a new state. By
his action, an actor intervenes in a situation leading to a transformation either of the situation or the actor.
Thus, the system of action is always a moving dynamic system. While analyzing the processes of change
in the system of action. Parsons found it useful to take the idea of equilibrium a starting point. Equilibrium
of a system of action is of rather different sort than that of a table or a building which stay as they are
because nothing happens within or outside them to provide an impulse for change. Such static equilibrium
is never possible in the system of action for two reasons:
a) There is always certain amount of continuing process with in the system which provides an impulse for
change of state.
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b) There is always same elements of flux in the external situation which tends to throw the off balance.
Thus equilibrium referred to by Parsons is a dynamic one which is continuously disturbed with the
system having the capacity to return to status quo after each disturbance by means of appropriate
adjustment.
Another important aspect of the concept of equilibrium used by Parsons that it is almost impossible to
achieve and scarcely ever corresponds to the empirical reality. For, him equilibrium is only a theoretical
point of reference from which to begin the systemic analysis of action. Thus the systemic analysis of
action analyses the interplay of two opposite tendencies. Action by itself is disequilibrating factor.
While, system always tends to regain the equilibrium without every fully attaining it.
Social system and Society: According to Parsons, subject matter of sociology is social action as it is
embodied in social systems. This means that within the framework of the system, of action, the social
system correspond to the integration function, the latter is sociology's field of study. So if general system
of action is taken a point of departure, Sociology is to be distinguished from all other social sciences by
social system being specific field of enquiry.
A social system is essentially a network of relationships between people and between groups; it links
together plurality of actors. In other words, actors action in a social system are considered specifically
from the point of view of their interaction with other actors. Physical and symbolic or cultural objects
do not strictly speaking belong to the social system they become external factors conditioning
interaction, between actors.
Social interaction involves three elements:
I. There must be reciprocal expectations between the actors. One actor-say the ego expects the other actor,
represented by the alter to behave in such and such a way, given their common circumstances and relations
with each other, at the same time ego knows that alter for his part also has expectations relating to the
same situation.
II. There must be norms and values which govern actor's behaviour. Indeed reciprocal expectations exists
because of norms and values. The essential point here is that ego knows which norms guide alter and alter
knows which norms guide ego.
III. Sanctions are the third element contributing to interaction. Ego and alter ego confirm or do not confirm
expectations.
Parsons sees these three elements as the components of roles. For him, a role refers to an institutionalized definition of
explicit or implicit expectations, norms and sanctions which condition the behavior of an actor in consequence of the
position he occupies in the social structure. For example, there are expectations, norms and sanctions for those
occupying the positions of father and son in any given society. For Parsons, interaction necessarily implies actors-in-
roles because it is only by and through roles that it is possible for actor into a relationship with each other. What is
called an institution is nothing but a complex of complementary a co-ordinate roles.
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Parsons describes this interdependence of roles as a situation of double contingency. Ego's behavior depends on
what he thinks alter is expecting from him and on sanctions which alter can bring to bear. At the same time alters
behavior is conditioned in a similar way by what he thinks ego is expecting him to do. Thus interaction for Parsons
is essentially an exchange. It is an exchange of information about reciprocal expectation and sanctions and
therefore an exchange of gratification and frustrations. Interaction is what distinguishes the social system from
the other sub-systems of action. Artificially abstracted from the rest of the system of action social system is a
theoretical entity constituted by interaction among the members of a collectivity. Interactions get institutionalized
and patterned. Multiplicity of the patterns of interaction constitutes social system. Further, each of the sub systems
of the system of social action can be analyzed in terms of the AGIL Scheme. In the case the three sub-systems
comprise the environment.
Taking social system as the system of reference, it can also be analyzed into four sub system which constitute its
internal organization and which correspond to adaptation, goal- attainment, integration and pattern maintenance.
However, at this point Parsons change his level of analysis and instead of social system society that he dissects
into sub-systems. The distinction between the two is that social system is a patterned interaction through which
actors relate to each other and Influence each other. Viewed thus, it only an represents away of perceiving social
reality but does not correspond to any concrete reality. It is only analytical tool which can be applied to any
collectivity. On the other hand, society refers to concrete reality. When Parsons speaks of a society, he means an
actual collectivity, that can be identified located and delimited.
Sub-system of society: According to the AGIL scheme the internal organization of the society can be organized
in to four sub-systems. Adaptation corresponds to complex of activities concerned with production and
distribution. Work is the principle means through which society is related to the environment and seeks to servive
in it and use it. Thus, the economic sub-system fulfills the adaptation need.
Goal attainment in a society becomes the pursuit of collective objective and mobilization of society’s actors and
resources to achieve these objectives. These needs are fulfilled by the policies of political sub-system. Integration
functions are fulfilled by the societal community. This includes the complex of institutions which function to
establish and maintain interdependence between the members of the society. This ensures cooperation and avoids
chaos and conflict. It is the sphere of social control and of consent of coercion. Latency or pattern maintenance
function is performed through the socialization process. Through socialization, culture is transmitted to actors,
internalized by them and becomes an important factor motivations perform this role to a large extent, through
mass media, Political parties, religious organization also have an educational role.
SOCIAL CHANGE
Parsons identifies change in two forms. One is called structural-change and the other is long term evolutionary
change. Structural changes are important changes in the organization and functioning of a society mover from
one social type to another. Transformation of traditional society to industrial feudal to capitalist or capitalist
society is examples of structural change.
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Sources of such changes may lie in the variation in physical environment, changes in technology, changes in
personality or cultural values and norms. The other major source of change is located in the in organisation of the
society. This is manifest in the form of strains that develop in the society. When strains cannot be relieved through
institutionalized means, are seviour of tension builds up, which leads to structural changes, with greater or lesser
violence. Strains themselves may sometimes be provoked by other factors of change mentioned earlier. However,
these forces of change will not succeed in bringing about change so long as the remain weaker than the forces
maintaining equilibrium and social control.
Following the tradition of the founding fathers of sociology, Parsons regards evolution as the second form of
change. It is a long term process of change. Parsons builds his theory of change on the model of the biological
theory of evolution. As in living organism, systems which have shown greater ability for adapting to environment.
Thus, the fundamental principle of evolution is the capacity for adaptation.
Capacity for adaptation in turn, depends upon two basic processes, viz, differentiation and integration, increasing
structural differentiation enables society to respond fully to. all its needs. Thus it increase, upgrades its
adaptational capacity. At the same time, as it becomes more differentiated new modes of integration have to be
invented in order to coordinate the new and more numerous parts of which it is composed. Increased
differentiation accompanied by sustained integration enables a society to evolve according to the exigencies of
the environment. Here changes in the culture are very important for both, increased differentiation an as well
as for new integrative mechanism to be effective because culture plays the important role in maintaining control.
According to Parsons, cultural change that accompanies increasing differentiation is characterized by increasing
generalization of cultural value which helps in greater inclusion.
Applying his evolutionary model parsons has distinguished five stages of evolution in terms of which various
societies can be classified. These stages are characterized by increasing by levels of differentiation and
integration. First type are primitive societies like Australian abrotines, second type are archaic societies like
Mesopotamian and Egyption empires, third type are historic societies like China and India, fourth type are seed-
bed societies like Israel and Greece and the fifth type are modem societies like the U.S. the Soviet Union, Europe
and Japan.
Each of these stages represents a similarity in their degree of differentiation and their integrative solutions.
These features Parsons terms as evolutionary universals. If a civilization at a lower evolutionary stage adapts
certain evolutionary universals belonging to a higher stage, it can easily leap over one or more stages altogether.
Here Parsons give the example of Europe. The fiefdoms of medieval Europe were at a lower stage of evolution
than their contemporaries like the Indian and Chinese empires. Yet feudal Europe absorbed some of the higher
level evolutionary universals that had originated in the Roman, Hellenistic and Judaic civilization, which together
transformed the medieval European societies into modern advanced stages. One evolutionary universal happened
to be the concept of transcendent god which late made possible a strict separation between the Church and the
State, leading to modern secular and rational cultures. The second evolutionary universal was the concept of
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citizenship as developed in Roman law and more radically in the Hellenistic civilization. From the latter, emerged
a formal system of law which in turn formed the legal matrix for such institutions as contracts and property. These
were further accelerated by the growing differentiation of the economy set in motion by the introduction of money
banking etc. this enabled the transition to modern societies.
PROBLEM OF ORDER
The problem of order integration and equilibrium have always played a central role in Parson’s thinking. Let us
see what his specific views are on this problem. At the outset, it will be fair to say that Parsons's concern with
equilibrium does not reflect the views that everything is automatically integrated and adjusted in the best of all
possible worlds. Instead, it reflects the view that society represents a collection of conflicting forces, pushing and
hauling in all ways at once. That any sort off equilibrium is achieved at all, as it evidently is in most societies
most of the time, thus represents for Parsons something both of a miracle and a challenge. Thus, far from taking
societal equilibrium for ganted, he sees It as a central problem demanding detailed explanation.
According to him value consensus is the basic integrating principle of a society. Guided by its values, various
goals are formed and norms are created to pursue those goals. Cooperation in this pursuit of goals can be achieved
if consensus about-goals exist. The values, norms and sanctions to be applied in case of failure follow norms, are
all structured into the roles, the state of double contingency 'resulting from reciprocity of roles, engenders a mutual
steering mechanism whereby all the actors, engaged in a system of interaction, tend to conform to their role
expectations. Thus, order results at the interactional level. Further, at the social system level, order is achieved as
a result of institutionalization of the interactional patterns.
However, the foregoing analysis is based on the assumption that the actors are fully equipped with information
about role expectations and values. A society realizes this goal through socialization. Socialization is the process
by which the information regarding values, goals, role expectations, etc. is inculcated in the individual members.
Thus socialization plays a crucial role in the maintenance of order in society. The important process being social
control exercised through Mutual-steering mechanism at the interactional level and societies communities at
the societal level.
Another level at which the problem of order of equilibrium arises, is when there exists incompatibility between
needs and goals of the social system and those of the individual; members comprising it. Parsons calls it
'motivational problem of order. This has to be resolved by each system by devicing arrangements to meet
biological and psychological needs of the individual members without jeopardizing the needs of the system.
Next, problem of order may develop in a highly differentiate if system due to incompatibility between cultural
pattern related with different sub-systems. This is resolved through internal dynamics of the system leading to
adaptive changes in it. For example; industrialization demands inculcation of specialized skills geographical
mobility and cultural pattern characterized by universalism performance, affective neutrality and specificity
while traditional extended family is incapable of inculcating specialized skills, discourages mobility and it’s
cultural patterns are characterized by particularism, quality, affectively and diffuseness. This incompatibility
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between the two would therefore generate strain in the system. To avoid strain adaptive changes will have take
place among the sub-systems.
For example, with industrialization traditional" extended families transform themselves in to nuclear family
which permit social and geographical mobility and thus have a structural fit with the industrial economy.
Moreover, education system gains important as the agency of socialization to inculcate specialized skill the value
orientations of universalism, achievement, affective neutrality and specificity. Thus it acts as a between family
and industrial economy and helps in maintaining order in society.
AN ESTIMATE OF PARSONS:
1. Parsons had a powerful influence on American sociology for more than two decades and shaped a whole
generation of sociologist. Some of his important students included Robert Merton, Kingsley Davis, Wilbert
Moore, Marion J Neil Smelser, Harold Garfinkel etc.
2. Parsons achievements lies in the fact that he made a successful break with the empiricist tradition of
America sociology which was bogged down into minute. He started with the ambitious objective of
synthesizing disparate element into a single conceptual structure for the whole of sociology which also
serves to integrate all other social sciences. Constituent elements of his theoretical system were drawn from
British utilitarian economics, French positivism and German historicism. While such an enterprise
provided a corrective to over empiricism of American sociology his theoretical model became too grand
to be of any empirical value.
3. Parsons attempted to blend action theory with functionalism by using concepts of pattern variables and
systemic analysis. However due to these very concepts, he ended up in subordinating action· theory of
system. His whole analysis is based upon over socialized conception of man. He has shown too much of
preoccupation with order and equilibrium. This has rendered his theory status quo oriented. Social conflict
and social change have not been given adequate importance in his scheme.
4. His concept of power is also characterized by a functionalist bias and functionalism is teleological.
5. Too much of importance has been attached to value sand norms.
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R K MERTON (1910-2010)
R. K. Merton is an American Sociologist, a one time student and a famous critic of Talcott Parsons. Among the
wide range of areas to which he contributed,
. .
the. most
.
important ones are- '
related
..
to the nature of
!
sociological
theory, re-codification of the functional approach, consequences of anomie in contemporary American society
sociological of science and theory of reference group behavior. Most often his writings have been in essay form
important compilation of these essays is The Social Theory end Social Structure. Merton launched a critique of
Parsons functional strategy for building sociological theory. At the heart of this criticism was Merton’s contention
that Parson’s concern for developing an all-encompassing system of concepts would prove futile and sterile. For
Merton such grand theoretical schemes are premature since the theoretical and empirical, ground work are
necessary for their completion has not been performed. In the absence of these foundations, what passes for
sociological theory in Merton’s views consists of general orientations towards data suggesting types of variables
which sociologists must somehow take into account, rather than clearly formulated statements of relationship
between specified variables. According to Merton, sociology in the present state of its development needs
Theories of middle range. Such theories should be grounded in empirical data and at the same time should use
concepts which are clearly defined and can be operationalized. Middle range theories are so formulated that
specific and variable hypothesis can be deducted from these theories and can be subjected to empirical
verification. Further, Merton suggested that the functional approach should be utilized in formulating the theories
of middle range. Thus, functional approach for Merton was, primarily a method or sociological research in order
to build theories. Merton presented the steps involved-in-functional approach in the form of a systematic
arrangement as the functional paradigm.
PARADIGM FOR FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS
Merton begins his discussion with the review of the mistakes of the early functionalists particularly Malinowski
and Radcliffe Brown. Merton saw functional theorizing as embracing three, questionable postulates:
1. The functional unity of social systems
2. The functional universality of social sytems and
3. The indispensability of functional items for social systems
According to Merton, the belief in the above mentioned postulates as self-evident truths rather than, tentative
.
propositions by the classical
. .
functionalists had been responsible for' . the ideological which functionalism had come

to acquire as a result of which it was criticized as conservative teleology which in turn motivated the functionalists
to defend their approach as radical. However for Merton, both the criticism as well as the defense is equally
misplaced because he regarded functional approach as purely a methodology. The ideological tilt of the functional
approach can be done away with if one abandons the belief in the above mentioned postulates and does not treat
them as self-evident truths as Merton has in the following discussion.
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THE FUNCTIONAL UNITY POSTULATE

According to Merton functionalist so far have frequently transformed the hypothesis that social systems may
reveal social integration into necessary integration nor need for social survival. While it is difficult to argue that
human society does not possess some degree of integration, for otherwise they would not be systems. Merton
views the degree of integration in a system as an issue to be empirically determined. To assume that a high degree
of functional unity must exist in social system is to preclude the possibility of its empirical verification. It is due
to such a presumption regarding high degree of functional unity that the functional approach has come to acquire
a conservative bias and an ideological coloration which can be derived from the works of the functionalists from
Durkhiem to Talcott Parsons. Thus, the degree to which functional unity exists in the social system should be a
matter subject to empirical investigation.
THE POSTULATE OF FUNCTIONAL UNIVERSALITY
One result of an emphasis on a high degree of functional unity was that the early functionalists assumed that if a
social item exists in an ongoing system, it must therefore have had positive consequences for the integration the
social system. In its most extreme form, Malinowski extended this form of reasoning to the point of ascertaining
that every custom, material object, idea and belief fulfills some vital function. For Merton, however if an
examination of an actually existing system is undertaken, it would be clear that there is a wide range of empirical
possibilities. First, items may not be positively functional for a system or part thereof, but can also be
dysfunctional for either the part or the whole system. Secondly some consequences whether functional or
dysfunctional are intended and recognized by the system and are thus manifest, whereas other consequence
intended or recognized and are therefore latent. In turn, functional analysis therefore should arrive calculation of
a net balance of consequences of the part for the social system under study.
THE POSTULATE OF FUNCYIONAL INDISPENSABILITY
An automatic consequence of the assumption that all parts are functional is that the existence of all parts is
essential for the survival of the social system. Hence all parts are functionally indispensable. Merton contends
that such conclusions would have been taken for granted by various functionalist are unwarranted as can be seen
from the empirical evidence. Examination of the empirical world reveals quite clearly that alternative structure
can exist to fulfill basically the same requisite in similar and diverse social system. This fact leads Merton to
postulate the importance of functional analysis and a concern with various types of functional alternative or
functional equivalents of the social system. Further, more in looking for functional alternatives at end drawn to
the questions about the range of the items that could serve as functional equivalents within the existing structural
constraints or structural limits of the social system. Having critically analyzed the limitations of the classical
approach strictly as methodology. Merton suggests the following steps for his functional paradigm
1. First requirement is that the item to be subjected to functional analysis such as social roles, social process
group organization, devices for social control etc., must be described properly. Such description can also
provide a major clue to the functions performed by the patterned activity.
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2. Next the investigator should look for subjective dispositions motives, purpose etc.) of the actors involve
also to the objective consequences of the activity, the investigator must be careful that the subjective
disposition are not confused with the objective consequences.
3. Further, the objective consequences may be of various types. Functions are those observed consequence
which lessen the adaptation or adjustment of the system. There is also the empirical possibility of non
functional consequences which are simply irrelevant to the system under consideration. We can take
religion as an example. The functional aspect of religion is that it provides solidarity to the social group.
But at the same it can have a dysfunctional aspect. Religion may act as a hindrance to the modernizations
of the group by perpetuating the belief in mystical ideas and superstitions. Thus, Merton enjoins that
both positive and negative consequences of the item under study be observed. And in such cases the
investigator should try to assess net balance of the aggregate of consequences. This is of course most
important in the use of functional analysis for guiding the formulation of a policy.
MANIFEST AND LATENT FUNCTION
1. Further the investigator should distinguish between manifest and latent functions Manifest functions are
objective consequences which contribute to the adjustment or adaptation the system and which are
intended and recognised by participants in the system. Latent functions are intended and recognised by
participants system. Latent functions are those which are neither intended nor recognized. For Merton,
this distinct important, although Merton was not the first to point it out. Earlier, Durkheim in his study of
religion had pointed out the two level of the consequences- as what people think and what actually
happens. To highlight the distinction between manifest and latent functions Merton cites an example of
the Hopi Indian rain ceremony. The ceremony is rarely followed by rain. yet, the Hopi Indians persist in
performing it. Here, Merton argues when we view the ceremony from the focus of the latent function,
then the sociologist would realize that the consequence of the ceremony exists not in the rain gods but for
the groups which conduct the ceremony. This ceremony performs a latent function of reinforcing group
identity.
2. According to Merton, this distinction between manifest-and latent functions have various advantages for
sociological enquiry. In the first place the distinction aids the sociological interpretation of many social
practices even though their purpose is clearly not achieved. Here, Merton advises that sociologists should
not dismiss then as mere superstitions or irrationalities and instead should try to look for the latent
functions. The Hopi Indians' rain ceremony is an example of such a situation.
3. The distinction serves further, to direct attention of the sociologists to fruitful fields of enquiry. For
example he is analyzing new wage-payment system he might ask if it has attained its avowed purpose of
reducing labour turn-over or of increasing productivity. Next, the discovery of latent functions represents
significant increment in sociological knowledge. For example, in case of the famous Hawthorne
experiment the initial failure to discover any relationship between illumination and output made the
sociologists to look for latent functions. This provided new insights regarding the role of informal social
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arrangements in influencing efficiency therefore, subsequent research was oriented in this direction.
Finally, this distinction helps to preclude naive moral judgement in sociological analysis. This was
illustrated by Merton in his analysis of The Political Machine in America.
4. Next step in functional analysis is the identification of the range of units in which the item under study
consequences. Thus, the investigator should look for the consequences of the item for individuals in
diverse statues various groups, and the total social system.
5. The investigator should empirically. Identify the need so functional requirements of the system under
investigation and then he should provide a detailed account of the mechanism by which these functional
requirements are fulfilled.
6. The investigator should explore the possibility of functional or equivalents, which can be substituted for
the item under investigation. This focuses attention on the range of possible variations in items which can
sub serve the same functional requirements. For example the secular ideology like Marxism can serve as
a functional alternative to religion. Further the investigator must take into account the constraints of the
limits imposed by social structure. The interdependence of the elements of social structure limits the
affective possibilities of change or functional alternatives.
7. Functional analysis so far as focused on the static aspects of the social structure, and has neglected the
study of structural change. According to Merton, the concept of dysfunction provides an analytical
approach to the study of dynamics or change. Thus, Merton demands that the investigator, after observing
dysfunction consequences of an item, should investigate the strain or tension generated by those
dysfunctional consequence Then we should try to find out whether the system is able to manage the
tensions within itself or the strains accumulate to produce pressure for change in such directions as are
likely to lead their release. While anticipating the probable directions of change, the sociologist should
keep in mind the limits created by structural context.
8. Such a functional analysis should be repeatedly subjected to validation through comparative studies and
investigator should examine his analysis again and again to identify if any of his assumptions has brought
ideological bias.
Merton applied the scheme of functional analysis to numerous studies, including those on the political
machinery in America and on reference group behaviour.
THE POLITICAL MACHINE
Merton in his functional analysis of the political machine in American cities, the local political party organizations
in the US has tried to bring out the various functions fulfilled by these organizations, which totally corrupt and
immoral. How and why do they survive? Merton in his investigation found that the official administration is
characterized by general inefficiency necessitating, the generation of an unofficial or alternative structure to meet
the requirements of the people. The political boss organizes his area through his precinct captains who develop
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personal relationships and links with the local people. To get their votes the members of the political machine
give to the local inhabitants the services required by them, such as provisions of go jobs, advice and practical
assistance. Merton states that the political machine serves four major functions wants of the socially deprived are
satisfied since they are not adequately met by the legitimate social stricture. For the big business, the political
bosses provide political privileges which bring immediate economic gains. It provides jobs and career prospects
for people possessing poor? And disadvantageous backgrounds and machine supports illegitimate business like
prostitution, Illegal gambling drug trafficking, etc. Thus the machine cannot be alienated until a stable functional
alternative is devised to fulfill these functions.
SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENCE
One of the fields touched by Merton is the sociology of knowledge or the sociology of science. Science is more
away of viewing the world rather than as source for contributing to the needs of man. Weber saw capitalism
emerging from Protestantism. Merton sees science as yet another contribution of the Protestant ethic. Merton
isolated several facts of Puritan thought and concluded that scientists of the 17th century functioned innovators.
The scientists adopted the posture of turning to nature itself rather than to theological inspiration speculation, as
a means to attain their goals Besides the Puritan ethic was strongly utilitarian and the early scientist was too eager
to indicate the social merit of his work as it was for the sake of dedicating to the glory of God. Furthermore,
scientific studies promote the need discipline to work hard and pursue serious thoughts which are Puritan values.
MERTON'S THEORY OF DEVIANCE
Merton begins with the premise that deviance results from the culture and structure of society. Merton from the
functionalist premise that for the smooth functioning of a society, value-consensus among the members is
essential. However, since members of society are placed in different positions in the social structure example for
they differ in terms of class position they do not have this same opportunity of realizing the shared values. This
situation can generate deviance. In Merton words, the social and cultural structure generated pressure for socially
deviant behavior upon people variously located in the structure.
Using U.S.A. as an example, Merton state that as state of anomic may exist in the social structure. One form
anomie is that there might be lack of co-ordination between culturally approved goals and structurally permitted
means to attain these goals. The member of the member of the society placed variously in the social structure
may adapt differently to this anomic situation. For example, the Americans variously share the goal of in
American society which is equated with wealth and material position. The American Dreams states that all
members of society have an equal opportunity of achieving success, of owning a Cadillac, a Beverly Hills
mansion substantial bank balance. In all societies, there are institutionalized means or reaching culturally defined
goals in America, the accepted way of achieving success is through educational qualification, talent, hard work
determination and ambition.
In a balanced society an equal emphasis is placed upon both cultural goals and institutional means and members
are satisfied with both. But in an anomic situation such an equal emphasis may not exist. Individuals would adapt
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to the anomic situation in various ways. The anomie lies in the fact that simply by hard work, education and
determination alone an average American member cannot attain the success goal. Merton outlines possible
responses to this state anomie.
1. The first and most common response is 'conformity'. Members of society conform both to success goals
and normative means of reaching them. They strive for success by means of accepted channels.
2. The second possible response is innovation this response rejects normative means of achieving success
and deviant means to attain success goals. Thus, the public servant who accepts bribe to get rich quickly
indulges in innovative type of deviance. So does the politician who accepts commission in arms deals.
Merton argues that members of relatively poorer sections of society are most likely to select this rout.
They are least likely to succeed by conventional channels. Thus there is a greater pressure upon them to
deviate, because have little access to conventional and legitimate means for becoming successful. Since
their ways are blocked innovate, turning to crime which promises greater rewards than legitimate means.
Merton argues that abandon institutionalized means while retaining success aspirations.
3. Merton uses the term 'ritualism' to describe the third possible response.' Those who select this alternative
are deviant because they make a fetish of the means and cling to them even though it means loosing the
sight of goals. The pressure to adopt this alternative is greatest for members of lower middle class. Their
occupations provide less opportunity for success than those of other members of the middle class.
However, compared to the members of the working class they have been strongly socialised to conform
to the social norms. This prevents them from turning to deviant means. Unable to innovate and struck up
with jobs that offer little opportunity for advancement, their only solution is to abandon their success
goals. Merton paints the following picture of the typical lower middle class ritualist. He is a low grade
bureaucrat, ultra respectable but struck in a rut. He is stickler of rules given to follow the book to the letter,
clings to red tape, conforms to all the outward standard middle class respectability, but has given up
striving for success. The ritualist is a deviant because he has rejected the success goals held by most
members of society.
4. Merton calls the fourth type of response as retreatism: It applies to psychotics, artists, outcasts,
vagabonds, tramps chronic drunkards and drug addicts. They have strongly internalized both the cultural
goals and the institutional means yet are unable to achieve success due to the existence of the anomic
situation. They resolve the conflict of their situation by abandoning both the goals and of reaching them.
They are unable to cope with life and hence drop out of society defeated and are designed to their failures.
They are deviants in two ways. They have rejected both the cultural goals and the institutionalized means.
Merton does not relate Retreatism to social class position.
5. Rebellion forms the fifth type of response. It is a rejection of both the success goals, the institutionalized
means and their replacement by different goals and means. Those who adopt this alternative wish to create
a now society. Lenin, Christ and Gandhi are examples of rebel type of deviants. Even terrorists in different
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types of societies are an illustration of the rebel type of deviants. Merton argues that rebellion is typical
of members of a rising class rather than the most depressed strata, who organize the resentful in to a
revolutionary group.
To summarise, Merton, claims that his analysis shows how the culture of the society generates deviance
due to lack coordination between the cultural goals and institutionalized means created by the state of
anomic. This tendency exerts pressure for deviance a pressure for deviance pressure which varies
depending on a person’s position and the class structure. The way the person responds to this pressure will
also depend on his position in the class structure. Thus he explains deviance in terms of the nature of the
individual and hence his theory is a sociological theory of deviance. Subsequently, Merton’s theory has
been modified by other types of deviance and covered by Merton’s theory of deviance.
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KARL MARX (1818-1883)

INTRODUCTION
Karl Marx is one of the most important and most controversial of the sociological thinkers, who has been
misunderstood. The sociological importance of Marx lies in the fact that his ideas have contributed to the
development of a new approach for the study of social phenomena. At the same time, Marx himself was partly
responsible for the controversy and misunderstanding that surrounds his works. His writings were too
voluminous, lacked precision and were not written with the objective of building a new science of society. They
were dedicated to the revolutionary cause of building a humane and just society. Only latter-day sociologists have
discovered ideas of sociological relevance in his writings and have presented them in a systematic manner. Given
the lack of precision in the original works, there has been a scope for multiplicity of interpretation even mis-
interpretations. The ideas presented below are based upon recent interpretations which are generally deemed as
more balanced.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Karl Marx was born in 1818 in Trier, Germany. His parents were Jews who, had converted into Protestantism to
avoid discrimination and loss of civil rights and, in particular, to protect his father's law practice. Marx began to
study law. However, at University of Berlin, he became fascinated by the philosophy of Hegel who interpreted
the whole of history as the process by which spirit (and consequently humanity) progressed towards complete
self-knowledge and a rational and free society. Marx became a Young Hegelian on of a group of young
philosophers who questioned many parts of the master's techniques while remaining beholden his approach.
Indeed, in later years. Marx came to see his own writings as contending Hegel's, replacing Hegel’s
(incorrect)emphasis on mind as the crucial determinant of history with his own(correct) 'materialist 'philosophy
which demonstrated that material factors determined events. He also became an anti-religious radical, and
completing his thesis, he worked as a writer and publicist in Paris and Belgium. During this period he wrote the
Communist Manifesto, which sets out a programme for a revolutionary government and outlines his the social
structures and social change. When the revolution of 1848 broke out in Germany, he returned to radical
newspaper. After the revolution failed, he went into exile again and settled in London, his home for the rest of
his life.
During much for this period, Marx and his family were extremely poor helped from his friend, friedrich Engles,
a socialist textile manufacturer, was vital. Nonetheless, his theories became increasingly well know influential
especially outside England. He was consulted more and more frequently by Russian and German radicals and
revolutionaries and since "his death, 'communist' parties have developed all over the world. Their dogma is the
analyses of Marx and Lenin, who led the first communist' revolution.
SOCIAL CONDITIONS
Marx grew up and matured in times of profound change and turmoil in Europe. Europe of that period above all
else the product of two great historical transformations. First, the explosive growth of modern factory and industry
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and the associated expansion of the world market and the second, the French Revolution of followed by
Napoleonic wars, which swept through all Europe and effectively dealt the death blow to absolute monarchies
and the remnants of feudal power, even if latter's death agony with somewhat prolong Germany, the Eastern
Europe and Russia. To the men and women of Europe who lived in 19th century, the world had undergone in
degenerations and series of transformations, so profound, that it was almost impossible to grasp them. Great cities,
far surprising anything in the past had sprung up, and were expanding at break-neck speed. Watt's steam engine
had made possible, location of factories in those centres. The increasing steam newly invented machines scattered
in factory towns, eliminated many thousands of independent craftsmen and small workshops and disrupted the
equilibrium between agricultural and handicrafts in the village country towns.
At the same time, hundreds and thousands of small family farms were ruined by the enclosures of the 18th century
(to take advantage of the new improved agricultural techniques, landlords concentrated. Production in large firms
and for this purpose they took over the animals). The new factory towns were therefore soon flooded with destitute
0

small farmers and their families. Here was the mass of the cheap labour which the new factory owners needed.
In cities, the individual and women lived a life unlike that of any earlier historic period. The old community of
the village the solidarity of the craft guild in the traditional towns, the old ties of the ownership group and the
extended family had gone and the individual was drifted into the mass. His life and social relations at work in the
factory or in commerce were separated off from his experience of home an neighborhood. Traditional loyalties,
mutual obligations and the solidarity of community and kin were very where replaced by the isolation and
individuality of the citizen. Thus, a new industrial class of wage earners with no attach merits to the land and
free to sell their labour for wages was coming into existence every where, much more quickly in some countries
than in others At the same time, the brilliance of the scientific and technical achievements stimulated a widespread
optimism and a belief in unlimited progress among the middle classes despite the mass poverty, starvation and
appalling conditions of life in the cities.
Believing that the age of reason, science and enlightenment had dawn, many thought that the evils of the life
under the new capitalist system were just temporary. Marx was also witness to this era. From his self assumed
position of a marginal man, wrote about the crushing out of individuality by the exploitation and operation of the
masses in the new factory system. The individualism of capitalist era, meant for a vast majority, only isolation
and alienation from their fellow men. At the same time Marx himself being a product of 19th century Europe share
the optimism that emergence of a just and human Communist Society was inevitable. In fact, he even believed
that such a society was round the corner.
HISTORICAL MATERIALISM
This was the term used by Plekhanov (Lenin's mentor) to refer to a set of assumptions, Marx made about the
nature of social reality and its development. These assumptions serve as Marx's basic world view or perspective,
and at the same time they constitute the methodology for analyzing social reality. With historical materialism,
Marx tried to create a philosophical view point which synthesized elements from two opposite views on the nature
of reality Hegelian idealism and the18th century Materialism.
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Idealism was an attempt to explain the nature of society in terms of the development of human consciousness or
ideas. For Hegel, society was guided by, and had limits placed in its development by the human spirit' society
being the outward protection of the spirit spirits develops in a dialectical manner each set of ideas producing their
opposite ideas or antithesis, the conflict between the two being resolved in the form of a synthesis, which in turn
becomes the new thesis. Thus, for Hegel, the social reality is the result of an interaction between matter and
consciousness in which primacy has been give to consciousness. Marx thought that such a view leaves some basic
question unanswered. Firstly, where does the spirit come from? And secondly, how could the claim made by
Hegel be substantiated? Thus, it was pure Meta physical speculation that could not be scientifically investigated.
So Marx, in his famous phrase, "made Hegel stand on his feet by inverting his ideas. He assumed a materialistic
outlook whereby the material world is characterized by its own independent existence' and is not simply a result
of human thinking. In fact, it existed even before there were humans to think. However, having given primacy
to matter, Marx differs from 18thcentury materialists in that they considered man as only the passive recipient,
through the senses, of his material world. Marx insisted that men and women do not confront the world just with
their senses, automatically reflecting it, as it were. Rather, then have always been compelled to act on the world
in order to live. Only by changing the world through their labour have men survived and developed .In order to
understand how human knowledge reflects the external world, we must start from the fact that men are creators
of the world they live in while ,at the same time being shaped by that world When Marx says that being determines
consciousness then what he meant was that man was not a passive being but an active being involved in a
constantly changing relationship with nature and other social beings. Through this active relationship they make
their own history but under conditions which are not or their choice. These conditions are the constraints placed
by the external material and social world. It is only due to this conception of man as interacting' with the external
material world which he shaped and by which he gets shaped that Marx's materialism is called Historical
Materialism.
Further, Marx borrowed from Hegel a dialectic view of nature and synthesized it with his materialist stand point.
Instead of seeing the world only as a quantity of fixed things or objects, defined and distinguished from one
another by their external characteristics dialectics views the world as- series of mutually interconnected processes.
All phenomena are in a process of changes, and such change is rooted in what Marx called a unity and conflict
of opposites. Each social formation (thesis) develops its own anti-thesis finally leading to a conflict between the
two which is resolved with the emergence of a new synthesis, having elements of both and which in turn becomes
the new thesis.
Having viewed man as essentially a creative being who is distinguished from other species by his capacity to
produce socially, Marx finds the basis of-society in the need for cooperation to carry out production which is the
most fundamental condition of human existence. Unless a society is able to organize the production of its
subsistence needs, there would be no society at all. Hence, according to Marx, the way production is organized
determines .human existence in the last analysis.
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Furthermore, Marx refers to the productive organization of the society as the mode or production. It consists of
the forces of Production and the relations of production. The former consist of the scientific and technical
knowledge machinery and raw materials, etc. while the latter includes the social relations which people enter into,
in order to carry out production. These social relations are inevitable because production being essentially social
activity can never be carried out in isolation.
For the purpose of understanding and explaining society and its development, Marx views it as made up of two
interconnected parts viz. base and superstructure. Base consists of the total productive organization or the sphere
of economic activity in its broadest sense. While superstructure includes ideological elements of a society and
other social institutions like political institutions, religion, kinship etc. Any analysis of society must begin with
an analysis of the base because in the last analysis superstructure is determined by base. Here, is extent to which
base has a determining influence over superstructure, has been the subject of intense controversy. One set of
Marxists led by Engels, Lenin and later Althusser, etc. have taken determinist position whereby, base is seen as
the sole determining cause of the superstructure. But latter day interpretations of Marxism, taking into account
some of recently translated works of Marx like Grundrisse; have taken a more balanced position. According to
this view, Marx simply postulated a correspondence between the superstructure and base or economic sub-
structure. He never sought to establish a-causal connection between the two. Rather he postulated a mutual
interdependence between the superstructure and the sub-structure. According to him, human beings do shape the
development of their society but in this they do not have complete freedom, instead they are constrained by the
conditions of the sub-structure. Thus, the role of sub-structure is restrictive and not prescriptive.
Explaining change in society, Marx starts with an assumption about human nature, viz., Man is constantly
struggling for supremacy over nature and thus constantly tries to improve upon the forces of production. Hence,
forces of production are inherently dynamic in nature. Society being made up of interconnected parts a change in
the forces of production necessitates a corresponding change in the relations of production, sooner or later, lest
the existing relations of production should become a hindrance to further development in the force of production.
It is to be noted here that there is no one to one correspondence between changes in the force of production and
those in the relations of production. The forces of production may go on developing without producing a
corresponding change in the relations of production. Only when the existing relations of production become
fetters to the further development in the forces of production that the relations of production and superstructure
have to be overhauled by cataclysmic change. When, both forces of production and relation of production have
changed, the whole economic substructure is transformed leading to corresponding transformation in the
superstructure too. Changes in the forces of production are gradual and evolutionary while in the relations of
production and superstructure are intermittent and revolutionary because they come to be valued for their own
sake and tend to resist change.
Further, analysing historical development in European society, according to the methodology of historical
materialism. Marx identified four stages, viz. (i) Primitive communism (ii) Ancient society (iii) Feudal society
and (iv) Capitalist society. Primitive communism represents the earliest stage where forces of production were
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extremely simple and were commonly owned. Next stage was represented by ancient Greece and Rome where
the society was divided into, masters, those who owned the forces of production, arid slaves, who were themselves
owned, by the masters. Feudal society was essentially an agrarian society consisting of land owning nobility and
the landless serfs who enjoyed the right to work in the lord's land. Finally, capitalist society emerged fully with
the growth of industrial mode of production and consisted of bourgeoisie who owned the forces of production
arid the proletariat who contributed their labour. According to Marx, capitalist society was inherently unstable
and would eventually transform into a communist society. The foregoing analysis of historical materialism can
be summarised as follows, clearly highlighting the assumptions which constitute the Perspective and
Methodology.
PERSPECTIVE
1) The world, including the social world, is better characterised by flux and change rather than by stability or
permanence of phenomena.
2) In the social world, as in the world of nature, change is not random, but orderly in that uniformities and
regularities can be observed and therefore, scientific findings can be made about them.
3) In the social world, the key to this pattern of change can be found in men’s relationship in the economic order.
Subsistence, the need to make a living, must be achieved in all societies. How subsistence is achieved affects
crucially, the whole structure of any society.
4) Society can be viewed as an interrelated system of parts with the economy influencing the other parts.
5) Men in a society are shaped in both attitude and behaviour by its social institutions. Marx believed that
underlying all the different kinds of the social man' which are produced by different types of societies-
primitive, ancient, feudal, 'oriental and capitalist is a basic and essential human nature. For Marx, man is
essentially rational, intelligent and sensitive, but these qualities can be warped and changed into their opposites
if the social arrangements of a society are so badly designed as to allow some men to pursue their own interest
to the detriment of others. This creates conditions for the, conflicts between the deprived and the exploiters.
METHODOLOGY
1. Social reality being an external reality, with its own independent existence, is amenable to sense perception
and therefore methods of positive science can be employed. However, mere empiricism is not adequate in
knowing the essence of human behaviour therefore, empirical data have to interpreted from historical
materialist standpoint.
2. Change is a characteristic feature of human society and it takes place in an ordered fashion. Thus laws
governing change can be discovered.
3. Change in the relations of production and the superstructure is normally preceded by conflict between
groups having mutually opposed interests.
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4. Conflict and changes in society must be explained in the light of the forces operating in the economic
structure.
5. Man's thinking and attitudes are shaped by the nature of society he lives in especially, by the way he
participates in the process of production therefore it is very difficult to study one's society in a detached an
dispassionate manner as is required of science. Some men can however succeed in being objective. Marx
considered himself to be such a man.
ILLUSTRATlON
Historical Materialist' approach of Marx is best illustrated in his own analysis of transition from feudalism to
capitalism in Europe and the analysis of the nature of capitalist system. Some examples can also be cited from
Industrial society as well as contemporary developments in other societies. According to Marxian approach, all
institutions values ideas and literature tends to serve the interests of those who dominate the economic sub-
structure. Thus we found in India land owning castes are generally considered upper castes and their life-style is
admired. Religious doctrines like Karma theory tend to justify their superior position vis-a-vis-the landless lower
castes and have helped in keeping these castes in perpetual subjugation. Similarly, the liberal ideology which
developed in Europe and America during 18th and 19th century, can be seen as a legitimization of the interests of
the emergent, bourgeoisie who had come to dominate the economic sub-structure. It's defense of the right to
property, which was legally sanctified, could help only the rich and gave no succor to the property-less workers.
Similarly, principles of equality and liberty meant the rising bourgeoisie would be treated by law on par with the
landed aristocracy and that bourgeoisie would enjoy unbridled freedom in the pursuit of their economic interests.
Thus, we find that superstructure tends to suit interests of those who dominate sub-structure.
Further recent development in Russia and China can also be explained in terms of the base-superstructure
relationship. The policy of Glasnost in Soviet Russia which seeks to liberalize the political system (a part of the
super-structure) can be appreciated in the light of needs of the economic sub-structure.
In order to have great efficiency and modernization of the economy, the economic sub-structure needs the
liberalize and restructure the in turn has created the needs for liberalization and reform of the political system.
Similar situation is to be found it, China where recent liberalization of the economic sub-structure along capitalist
lines has generated a demand for political democracy a characteristic of capitalist societies, as can be seen from
the students led protest movements.
However, the above mentioned examples show only one side of the relationship between economic substructure
and the superstructure. They only support the orthodox. Marxist view as to how the sub-structure shapes the
superstructure. But there is other side too viz., the superstructure can change sub-structure. For example, the
Russian revolution and subsequent industrialization were changes which were rooted in the superstructure.
Similarly planned economic development in India is a case of superstructure led change. Thus, we see that the
relationship between economic sub-structure and superstructure in a way relationship. According to latter day
interpretations, Marx also viewed it in the same way as is evident from Grundrisse from his dis owning of those
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Marxists who believed in pure economic determinism. However, Marx did over emphasize the importance of the
sub-structure but perhaps that was meant to draw a attention towards the role of the anomic factor.
CLASS AND CLASS CONFLICT
The concept of class is one of the central concepts in Karl Marx's theory of social change. It has been as one of
the basic tools for analysing inter-group dynamics and changes in society. However, Marx never developed a
systematic analysis of class. What, then, does Marx mean by the term class? A survey of works shows that he
uses the term in two different ways in sociological sense and in a descriptive sense.
In the sociological sense class is viewed as a group sharing Same relations to the 'means of 'product. in this sense,
all societies except the most primitive have had two main-classes namely, that consisting of the owner of the
means of production, and that consisting of non-owners. These class divisions result consequence of the
development of the institution of private property. It is this view of class which was crucial to Marx's theory of
social change. However, in some of his writings, Marx has used the term class in a purely descriptive sense too.
Here it serves simply as a classificatory, device that is he classified people in society into various categories
according to some relevant criteria. Thus, in Revolution and Counter Revolution in Germany. Marx distinguishes
classes the feudal landlords, the bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie the rich and middle peasants, the poor peasants,
the proletariat and the lumpen proletariat. And in The Class Struggle in France' he refers to the bourgeoisie, the
peasants, the proletariat and the lumpen proletariat. But, the second meaning of class is not important in Marx's
scheme because Marx was not interested merely in describing the stratification system of a society. Also, he never
tried to produce a theory of stratification. His major concern was in building a theory of social change. Therefore,
he examine society for those key groups which either have a strong interest in maintaining the existing social
system or which had a strong interest in trying to change it.
He found that the class that owns the means of production' would have a vested interest in preserving the existing
social relations and institutions, so that it can perpetuate its dominance. While, those who are deprived right of
ownership of means of production or those who represent the emerging 'means of production would be interested
the existing social relations. And it is the conflict between these two interest that will manifest itself as class
conflict and would act as the mid-wife of change. Thus, it is the sociological meaning of class in Marx's writings
which is crucial for understanding the theory of class and class conflict.
Origin of social class:- Social classes arise out of the relations : of production, that is, the way, the production is
organized in society. This in turn depends upon the level of development of the 'means of production''. In primitive
communism the means of production' are communally owned and hence there are no class divisions because all
members share same relations to the means of production'.
However, with the development of agriculture, surplus becomes available and the institution of private property
or private ownership of the means of production' comes into existence. As a result of this, some people come
town and control the means of production' to the exclusion of others, thus class division emerge. Hereafter all
stages of social development are characterized by a twofold class division. For example there are masters and
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slaves in Ancient society 'feudal lords' and serfs in the feudal society'. The relations between these two classes
are antagonistic and exploitative. The antagonism between these classes is not confined to their economic interest
alone, but also manifests' itself in social and political relations because according to Karl Marx, the class which
dominates the economic, substructure by virtue of the ownership of the 'means of production' also dominates the
political institutions and becomes the ruling class. Other social institutions too sub-serve the interest of this class
and help in perpetuating its domination over the non-ownership class. With the continuous growth of the means
of production the deprived class gradually acquired an awareness of its class interest and resorts to political action
to achieve those interests. Suchan active group was termed by Marx as “class for itself” (Class without the
awareness of its interest was termed "class in itself'. Thus, over the conflict ensues between the deprived class
which becomes progressive and demands change, on the one hand and the dominant class which tends to be
reactionary and wants to Preserve the existing social order, on the other. This conflict may often become violent
leading to profound changes in society. Thus, according to Marx, class conflict is the primary vehicle for social
change. This is evident from the opening sentence of the Manifesto of the Communist Party.
The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles
Marx applied this theory of social change to explain the transition from feudalism to capitalism in Europe and
also on the basis of this theory he predicted the breakdown of capitalism and emergence of the communist society.
Following is the brief summary of his analysis.
The feudal system was fundamentally based on agriculture. Land was owned the nobility while serf contributed
their labour. The relationships between the serfs and their lords were hereditary and non-contractual Gradually
with the decline of feudal system and the growth of trade and commerce in towns the wealth bourgeoisie came
into existence. These bourgeoisie were the forerunners of the capitalist system. They attracted men from the
countryside to work for them in producing goods to be sold in widely expanding markets.
In this and other ways, they acted in opposition to the predominant feudal arrangement that confined serfs to the
areas of their birth. Finding themselves hampered with feudal laws, the bourgeoisie endeavoured to change them
and thus entered into a political struggle with the' aristocracy. They justified their actions by appealing to new
ideology according to which aristocratic distinctions based on family connection sand control, that restricted the
movement of men and trade, were in opposition to the natural order of individual freedom and equality. As the
new methods of production and the new modes of life that went with them were tended new order of society was
gradually formed within the old. New type of production and trade had been adopted that could come to function
only if the laws and customs that hampered them were abolished. When, therefore the bourgeoisie were strong
enough, they took political action to achieve this goal and gained political power by a series of revolutions.
The French revolution of 1789 is one such example. Thus bourgeoisie played the role of a progressive class but
soon after capturing power through revolutions they themselves became the ruling class and developed a vested
interested in preserving the new society which emerged, namely the capitalist society. With the rise of capitalism
a new class namely, the proletariat came into existence who sold their labour in return for wages to the capitalist
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employers. According to Marx the antagonism between the interest of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat becomes
inevitable with the growth of the capitalism, because capitalist system is primarily geared to continuous
generation of profits which is possible only through progressive exploitation of the proletariat Capitalist system
by its very nature is an exploitative system where the, majority of people, namely, the proletariat are exploited by
a few capitalists. In their incessant drive for greater and greater profits the capitalists tends to drive wages down
to a minimum level the bare level required for a worker’s existence. The condition of the workers become even
worse during times of slumps which become more frequent and protracted as the capitalist system grows. Thus,
growth of capitalism renders the workers into paupers and leads to polarization of society into two hostile camps.
Consisting of a few monopoly capitalist and the other consisting of the exploited proletariat. As part and parcel
of the polarization process, individuals within each of the two main camps, the capitalist and the laborers, become
more and more alike or homogenous in several respects.
The laborer's become more homogeneous in terms of their new skills dictated by the rapidly changing machinery
the factories. They also become homogenous in respect of their dependence on the capitalist factories for work
and subsistence. While, the development of monopoly capitalism brings about greater homogenization the
capitalist class.
The increasing pauperization, homogenization and the consequent polarization of capitalist society may
contribute to the development of class consciousness among the workers and-they become the new progressive
class who will find it necessary to wrest the control of the state from the capitalists in order to bring capitalism
to an end. The proletariat will be the only class and the class divisions will come to an end. In the absence of
class conflict, politics and the state will become redundant and a social order was termed by Marx as a Communist
society.
WEBER’S CRITICISM ON MARX
The above mentioned theory of class and class struggle propounded by Marx has generated an intense debate.
One of sociologists who criticized the Marxian view of class was Max Weber. Firstly, Weber views class like
Marx, in economic terms but he differs from Marx while rejecting the idea that classes existed in all stages of
social development except in primitive communism. He argues that classes developed in market economies
only, in which individuals compete for economic gain. He defines a class as a group of individuals who share a
similar position in the market economy and by virtue of this fact they receive similar economic rewards'. Thus in
Weber's terminology the present class situation of an individual is basically his market situation. Those who share
a similar class situation also, share similar life chances. Further, Weber rejects the Marxian view that there would
be only two main classes in the capitalist society. According to Weber, there will the important differences in the
market situation of the property less group in societies. Thus based on the market situation, Weber identifies the
following four classes in the capitalist society.
1. Propertied upper class,
2. Property less white collar workers
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3. Petty bourgeoisie and

4. Manual working class
Weber sees no evidence to support the Marxian idea of class polarization. Although, he sees some decline number
of petty bourgeoisie the smaller propertied owners due to competition from large companies argues that they
enter the white collar class or skilled manual workers rather than being depressed into the rank of the unskilled
manual workers. More importantly, Weber argues that the white collar middle class expands rather than contracts
as capitalism develops. He maintains that capitalist enterprises and the modern nation state require a national
bureaucratic administration which involves large members of administrators and clerical staff.
Thus Weber sees a diversification of classes and an expansion of the white collar middle class rather class
polarisation. Weber rejects the view, held by Marx and some Marxists, of the inevitability of the proletarian
revolution. He sees no reason why those sharing a similar class situation should necessarily develop a common
identity, recognize shared interests and take collective action to further those interests. For example Weber
suggests that the individual manual worker who is dissatisfied with his class situation may respond in a variety
of ways. He may grumble, work to rule, sabotage industrial machinery, go on strike or he may attempt to organize
other members of his class in an effort to over throw capitalism. Thus proletarian revolution is only one of the
possibilities, in fact a rare possibility. Increasing social mobility and rise of the welfare state in modern industrial
societies have dampened the revolutionary fervor of the industrial workers and therefore Weber’s views have
been vindicated.
Finally Weber rejects the Marxian view that political power necessarily derives from economic power. And that
the distribution of class inequalities corresponds to distribution power inequalities. Similar views are echoed by
C.W. Mills in his work The Power Elite, Mills finds the Marxian idea that the ownership class would
automatically become the ruling class as rather simplistic, in fact in modern industrial society’s power comes to
be exercised by as mall and cohesive group of elites, rather than, the propertied class as a whole. Even Robert
Dahl maintains that economic notables do not necessarily become political notables' and that wealth is only one
of the resources needed for acquiring political power, others being organizational or a technical skills.
The underlying cause of revolutionary movements is conflicts of the interests, principally between social classes
as argued by Marx. Taking the view from here, various writers have shown that many other social elements like
ethnic and religious difference, national sentiments may impinge on the process. Crane Britan has argued that
revolutionary movements may develop only under special circumstances like bitter class antagonisms, desertion
of the ruling class by the intellectuals, inefficiency and corrupt government machinery and a politically bankrupt
ruling class.
Looking at the situation in industrially advanced countries one finds that although antagonisms remain the
situation is now where near what Marx predicted. Thus some of the sociologists have attempted a substantial
revision of Marx's theory to adapt it advance industrial societies. Ralf Dahrendorf's work is one of most notable
in this context. According to Dahrendorf's Marxian theory of class and class conflict was largely correct in the
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context of the19thcentury capitalist society. But today’s capitalism has undergone certain fundamental changes
and hence Marxian theory needs to be reviewed. Dahrendorf has termed the contemporary industrial societies as
post-capitalist societies. One of the important feature of the post capitalist society is that the, link between
ownership and control has been weakened For example, the modern joint stock companies are owned by a large
number or shareholders who do not have a say in the day to day, running of the companies while the control has
passed into the hands of the technically qualified managerial class who do not necessarily own the organisations
they work for Dahrendorf calls, this. phenomenon as the decomposition of capital. Second important feature of
the post-capitalist society is that the working class has become highly differentiated and has got divided into
numerous categories like skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled. Thirdly, the middle class consisting of people from
diverse occupations has come to occupy an important position Dahrendorf calls this phenomenon as the
decomposition of labour. Fourthly, increasing opportunities for social mobility and decline of social and
economic inequalities have rendered a revolutionary movement unthinkable. However, Dahrendorf believes that
the conflict of interest remains but conflict is largely centered around authority. An example is the labour
management disputes.
Thus, class still remains an important conceptual tool to analyze conflict in modern industrial societies, but today
class should mean any faction or group centered around common interest which actively participates in the pursuit
of that interest. However, due to increasing institutional autonomy in modem industrial society conflicts tend to
be insulated, i.e., conflict in one sphere shall not necessarily lead to conflict in other spheres. Hence, there is no
possibility of a general conflagration as envisaged by Marx.
Regarding the class situation, other sociologists also support the views of Weber and Dahrendorf Various studies
have shown that in advanced industrial societies the middle class is increasingly becoming more numerous with
no change of polarization. Some sociologists have pointed out a trend towards embourgeoisement of workers in
modern industrial societies. However Marxian idea still appear relevant for the analysis of Third world societies.
ALIENATION
Alienation is a socio-psychological condition which denotes a state of Estrangement of individuals form
themselves or from others. This concept gained currency in the writings of Hegel and was developed by Fuerbach
before he adopted it in his early writings. In his later writings, he showed a preference for the term exploitation'
in stead of alienation.
According to Hegel, the world is a result of human creation but it acquires its objective existence only as a result
its alienation from the spirit-and stands opposed to it. For Hegel alienation was a meta-physical concept. Marx
transformed it in to a sociological one in his “Economic and Philosophical Manuscript (1844)”. Marx saw human
estrangement as rooted in the nature of society which destroys the essential human nature.
Man in the early stage of his-development was alienated from nature because he finds himself helpless before a
hostile nature. In order to snatch his livelihood from nature man develops the forces of production and the division
of labour increases. This enables him to control the nature and overcome his alienation from nature. However,
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with increase of division of labour alienations transferred to the social sphere in the capitalist society division of
labour and the institution of private property, develop to their highest level and relation become contractual
consequently alienation also reaches the highest level.
According to Marx man is essentially a creative being who realises his essence and affirms himself in labour or
production a creative activity carried out in cooperation with other and by which the external world transformed.
The process of production involves transformation of human creative power into material objects or
objectification of human creative power. This process of objectification under the specific historical
circumstances of capitalism, leads to alienation because in capitalism the means of production are owned
controlled by a few capitalists while the workers have no control. Alienation manifests itself in four ways:
1. The worker is alienated from the product of his labour, since what he produces is appropriated by the
capitalist and the worker has not control over it.
2. The worker is alienated from the act of production because all decisions as to how production is to be
organized are taken by the capitalist. For the worker labour ceases to offer an intrinsic satisfaction and
instead becomes only a means for survival. It becomes a compulsion forced from without and is no
more an end in itself. In fact work becomes a commodity to be sold and its only value to the worker is
its salability.
3. Man is distinguished form the animal by his creative ability to do labour but due to above mentioned
aspects of alienation man loses his distinctly human quality and gets alienated from his real human
nature species being. Prevalence of religion and belief in God as an independent power are the result
of his self-estrangement of man the more man puts into God, the less he retains of himself. The
capitalists system stratifies man destroys the human qualities and renders man to a state worse than
animal. No animal work for its survival another's bidding while man has to do that in a capitalist system.
4. Further, the worker in a capitalist system is also socially alienated, because social relations become
market relations in which each man is judged by his position in the market, rather than his human
qualities. Capital accumulation generates its own norms which reduces people to the level of
commodities. Workers become merely factors in the operation of' capital and their activities are
dominated by the requirements of profit rather than by their human needs.
Marx believed that men can be freed from his alienated existence only with the emergence of a
communist society wherein each man shall work to affirm himself rather than working for self-
destruction. Since Marx alienation has undergone a lot of change of meaning, though it has become
one of the important concepts in mainstream sociology especially in the writings of the American
sociologists of 50's and 60's.
Max Weber disagreed with Marx regarding the factors leading to alienation and believed that
alienation was inevitable feature of modem industrial society irrespective of whether the means of
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production are owned privately or collectively. For Weber the cause of alienation lies in the
rationalization of social life and predominance of bureaucratic organizations in modern industrial
societies. The compulsive conformity to impersonal rules in bureaucratic organizations renders people
into mere cos in giant-machines and destroys their human qualities. The American sociologists after
World War II have further changed the meaning of alienation to adapt it to contemporary advanced
industrial societies.
According to C.W. Mills, the growth of the tertiary (service) sector in modem industrial societies
contributed self-alienation among the white collar (non-manual) workers. In these societies, skills with
things have been replaced by skills with persons which the non-manual workers have to sell like
commodities Mills calls this a personality market since aspects of personality at work are false and
insincere. Mills gave the example of a girl working in a department store, smiling, concerned and
attentive to the whims of the customer. He states that the sales girl becomes self-alienated in the course
work, because her personality be the instrument of an alien purpose. At work she is not herself.
Similarly, Herbert Marcuse, talking of work and leisure in advanced industrial societies, says than
both work and leisure alienate people from their true selves. Work is stupefying' and exhausting' while
leisure involves modes of relaxation which only soothe and prolong this stupefaction and it is largely
a pursuit of false needs.
Seeman has tried to define alienation in a comprehensive way. He argues that alienation could be
decomposed into five separate elements powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness isolation and
self-estrangement. However, Seeman simply treats them as subjective dispositions which can be
measured with the help of attitude scales.
Robert Blauner has further developed four of these conditions and has related them with different type
of technology. He has plotted and relation between technology end alienation in the form of an
inverted U-curve. According to him is low in craft industries like printing but it increased to a high
level in assembly line industries of mass production like automobile industry, but in process industries
with high degree of automation, alienation tends to decline further because workers feel more Involved
and responsible. However, as can be seen from the foregoing analysis the latter day meaning of
alienation as undergone change, it is no longer based upon objective conditions rather it has come to
be identified with subjective dispositions.
AN AS ESSMENT
Karl Marx never saw himself in the role of a sociologist, his prime concern being to bring about a
revolutionary transformation in the then contemporary European society. Nevertheless ideas of Karl
Marx have greatly contributed to the development of modern sociology. In fact, he is the founder of
the conflict tradition in modern sociology and his ideas have stimulated a likely debate which has
enriched and discipline.
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His contribution can be briefly summarized as follows:

1. He contributes a new perspective and a new approach to the study of social phenomena. He highlighted
the role of economic factors in shaping various institutions or society. This has been accepted as an
academic methodology in social science.
2. His theory of class and class conflict, though no longer relevant to a present day society has been an
immensely valuable contribution. It has stimulated further debate and research which enriched sociology
as a discipline. Ralf Dahrendorf has, modified the Marxian theory of class and Class struggle to make it
applicable to contemporary industrial societies.
3. In Marx's ideas, one can also find a theory of social change. Although, Marx's predictions regarding the
future of capitalist societies have been largely disproved by the developments of history in 20th century
yet, Marx’s theory of social change, if shorn of the prophetic elements, remains a valuable contribution.
4. Marx's study of alienation is important contribution to sociology. The concept of alienation was further
developed by other sociologists like C.W. Mills and Herbert Marcuse etc. to adapt it to contemporary
societies.
5. Marxian ideas have influenced the thinking of many sociologists. Prominent among them being C.W.
Mills and the critical' theories of Frankfort School namely, Adorno, Habermas, and Marcuse. The critical
theorist have aimed to restore the philosophical dimensions of Marxism. They have developed as series
of concepts intended to go beyond Marx to interpret the changes that have taken place, in the world since
'his death. These consists mainly in adding the dimensions of social psychology to Marx's work and
emphasizing, the basic proposition that, if society is increasingly under the artificial control of technocrats,
any purely empirical approach to social reality must end up as a defense of that control. In Eros and
Civilization. Marcuse attempted a synthesis of Freud and Marx But it was One Dimensional Man which
made Marcuse famous particularly when some of its ideas seemed too effective interpretation of the
student revolts of the late 1960s. Marcuse's pessimism about the revolutionary potential of a proletariat
dominated (along with the rest of society an all pervasive technocratic ideology led him to place his faith
in the substratum of the outcast and the outsiders, the exploited and persecuted minorities such as students
and blacks which would involve a meeting of the most advanced consciousness of humanity and its most
exploited force.