subject: The Sociology of Marx [print this page] 1-Marx viewed work as the center of a meaningful life. Labor is the extension of ones self, it is the world you create. The capitalistic system interfered with this process of self-expression. In the capitalist society labor is a commodity to be bought and expended for the profit of the Bourgeoisie, at the expense of the proletariat. This process causes immense alienation of the worker, and is the source of the class-based conflict.
"Alienation refers to three essential things (processes) according to Marx: (1) alienation from the work process itself (the tedium accompanying most work, especially factory assembly-line work, (2) alienation from a portion of one's own being (objectifying labor), and (3) alienation from other people (competing with each other as 'object-to-object' sellers of their own labor skills). Alienation, then, contributes to the increasing misery of the proletariat and, for Marx, is another nail in the coffin for capitalism." -(p. 81, classical sociological theory)
2-Marx saw conflict in society as coming from the clash between the upper class (the 'Bourgeoisie'; nobles, the rich, etc), which owned the means of production, and the lower class (the 'Proletariat', who were the workers, forced to sell their labor). This was the base of his sociology. He used Dialectical thinking which he believed to point at an approaching end to social structural change and conflict between a thesis and anti-thesis. He believed the over throwing of the capitalist system and the transferal of ownership to the means of production from the few private individuals to the public would stop the class struggle and form a new class-less society.
3-Marx believed that as a sociologist, an intellectual, and an individual that one should be trying to change the world for the better through your understanding of it, not just discussing it like the philosophers he so harshly criticized for their inaction. He spent his life trying to understand and spur the supposed coming revolution against the system, for the greater good.
