Durkheim said that the job of these Social institutions is to socialise people into the culture of a society by the use of Norms and Values (What is expected in a community, such as men not wearing skirts). He said that because Social institutions shape us in to what we are, everyone has the same norms and values, so we form a Collective Conscience, which is the foundations of society which holds us all together, creating social solidarity.
In short, Functionalism is a very optimistic theory, and looks to the brighter side of life, but i think it misses a fairly important part of society; such as Criminals like rapists and Paedophiles; Durkheim said that these groups of people were just not ‘Socialised’ enough so do not knows the norms and values of society.
The next major Sociological theory is very much the opposite of Durkheim’s’ Functionalism, this theory is Marxism, by German Karl Marx (1818 – 1883), unlike Functionalism, Marxism is very pessimistic.
Marx believed that there was an ongoing conflict in society, caused by social classes, which was stimulated by the idea of Capitalism; the idea of economic freedom for the population.
Marx believed there were only two social classes, rather than middle, upper and working class there was the Bourgeoisie; i.e. the 1% ruling class, such as Sir Alan Sugar, or Richard Branson, and then there was the rest of us, the 99% Proletariat; the working class.
Marx completely disagreed with the idea of The Organic Analogy, and used a triangle to describe how society is shaped.
Owned by the Bourgeoisie
As you can see in the triangle, there is the Superstructure and the Infrastructure, Marx said that the Bourgeoisie owned the infrastructure; the economy, so therefore controlled the Superstructure (Social institutions). Marx called this the means of production.
Because of the Bourgeoisie owning everything in society, Marx said that the working class; the Proletariat owned only their labour, which is used by working for the bourgeoisie.
Because the Proletariat all work hard for the bourgeoisie, making them lots of money the bourgeoisie are getting richer and richer every day, but only pay the proletariat the bare minimum. Marx called this idea Polarisation (the use of opposites, the bourgeoisie are getting richer and the proletariat is getting poorer).
Marx said that because the bourgeoisie own everything in society, they are brainwashing the proletariat, so they do not realise they are being exploited; they are all living in false class consciousness
Because of this false class consciousness, the bourgeoisie use the social institutions which they own to socialise the proletariat into their norms and values, for example the use of media; they make us watch TV shows they make so they make more money from us.
Marx said because we are brainwashed by the bourgeoisie, we cannot rebel against them so change can only occur when the proletariat; us realise we are being controlled, so we can overthrow the bourgeoisie.
According to Marx, everything is interpreting society in a negative way, i think that in a way Marx is correct, but I think he is being a bit too pessimistic in his idea, because some people may not care that the bourgeoisie control everything, they may just want to have a sustainable income.
In short I believe that although these two theories have completely opposite views on society, they do have some similarities, such as they both believe that Social institutions have a major role in society, in Functionalism Durkheim believes they keep society together, and in Marxism, they control what we do, thanks to the bourgeoisie; but although these are similar, Marx believed that the economic social institutions are the most important Marxism is economically deterministic.
