Examine the usefulness of functionalism for an understanding society

Marxism is a conflict theory and the theory behind this is that groups in society exert themselves for scarce resources. Marxism deals with the conflict between the Ruling class (bourgeoise) and the subject class. It also looks at economic resources such as money and the way the ruling class owns everything. The Marxist theory was first introduced by someone named in a Karl Marx. The ruling class is the minority and they own the forces of production and the majority (subject class) are workers, this causes conflict in Britain because we all live in a capitalist society. The infrastructure of Britain is owned by the ruling class and it controls what happens in the super structure of our country, the subject class are apart of the superstructure. Workers do not own things in the superstructure and are paid to work from the ruling class, they start to feel resentment for the monotony of their work and become alienated. Following this theory of workers struggling to keep up to long hours of work Karl Marx believed that eventually the subject class will rebel and this would lead into a revolution in society, tension between the subject and ruling class build up until an explosion of revolutionary change. This process is known by sociologists and is called Dialectical Materialism. Marxism also looks at how society is controlled by the ruling class and why the subject class allow themselves to become slaves for the ruling class. The main reason is false ideology. Throughout life humans are living through false ideology. False Ideology is beliefs that are transmitted to the working class through institutions in the superstructure such as education and media. This then prevents social conflict because false ideology convinces people that capitalism is acceptable and makes economy society’s instrumental needs. Marxism believed that the solution for this sort of society is communism, where everyone shares everything and everything becomes communal. Marx believed that if a society was communist then the barriers between classes would fall and there would be no inequality, no relations of production and no ideology.

The good side of Marxism is the fact that it is a structural theory and it links major institutions in the super structure. Marxism has a major influence on other theories in society such as feminism, but in feminism there is conflict between genders. Unlike functionalism, Marxism highlights the importance of economy in society and how society needs the economy to function. Marxism is sort of looking at the individual and their thoughts on society; an example of this is alienation. It shows how people think about how society is arranges and what part they play in society.

Functionalists question the fact Marxism highlights the conflict between classes when there is clear evidence that there is harmony and shared values between them. If there was so much conflict then there wouldn’t be social cohesion. It looks at the fact that economy and money runs society. Classic Marxism ignored the roles of women in society because men used to be much more powerful in society; women were not a part of the ruling class and did not own labourers. Marxism is an old theory that cannot occur in modern life because Marxism shows that if communism existed then everything would be fine however, evidence to prove that communism is not the solution is the Soviet Union which is now a capitalist country, Russia, after being a communist country. Not everything is owned by the ruling class and society does not always operate how the ruling class wants it, sometimes the subject class get what they want through strikes and protests.

Feminism is another conflict theory which looks at the fact that women are being exploited through patriarchy. This social theory is seen through the eyes of the women and is completely biased. The aims for feminists are to look at the way men dominate and delimitate women. It also looks at the way women live their lives in modern society. Feminism is against the fact that men dominate and are the leaders of power in all of society and within individual households. This theory wants women to have much more rights and power and it also looks at the social disadvantages of women. It argues over the fact that ideology supports male and how ideology tells women that it’s perfectly normal to be under the dominance of men. Feminism has grown popular in the modern society of Britain because women now have much more rights than previous times however some countries are still lacking feminism. Patriarchy limits the way women have rights in society and it also looks at the way women are perceived by men, models. This is what stops women from reaching higher job positions, the glass ceiling stops women from climbing upwards and is metaphorically showing that sexism is invisible to an extent. Feminism is good because it gives women the rights that they deserve however feminism wants to take away the rights that men have. Feminism tells women to stop being ruled as a housewife but sometimes this could prove to be a bad thing. Women giving birth add capitalism support because birth gives more children to be exploited to false ideology and consumers. A patriarchal society has unrealistic views on men too because it expects men to follow hegemonic masculinity, football and females are the most important types of masculinities. However not all males conform to the way men should be like, subordinated masculinities have les power and carry less status. An example of this is homosexual masculinity and afro-americans.

Interactionism is the only one out of the four theories I have looked at that actually looks at society individually, it takes a micro approach. Interactionism views individual people in society and tells us that social reality is made up of actions and interactions of individuals. Interactionism is an action theory and an action theory tells us that human behaviour cannot be fully determined by a structure of society an example of this is that not everyone relates the criminals to the justice system, people have their own individual system. Interactionism collects qualitative date of people and tells us that people change depending on how you feel and how you are treated in situations or institutions that affect your social life. Interactionists must gain the meanings and interpretations of individuals in society by putting themselves in those peoples shows and views, gaining empathetic understanding of them. This is called ethnography.  A man called hobbs gave an example of Interactionism, he argued that people in the east coast of London have certain characteristics by entrepreneurship and scamming. It’s within this context that needs for this behaviour must be understood. Symbolic Interactionism is the use of language and gestures in social action. Interactionism tells us that people can change themselves through common sense and past experience so they can modify their present action, so it is not the institutions that control our behaviour but individual perceptions of themselves. People who are labelled sometimes get more power through social obedience. An example of this is doctors, people obey doctors.

Functionalism is a useful theory that explains modern society because it looks at how people work in everyday society with a range of different theories.