Classical theorists understood the dynamic force of capitalist industrial societies in different ways - Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Discuss the adequacy of these ideas.

‘The broad, macro-historical process in which collective human action takes place is never at rest but, through the workings of social struggles and contradictions, permanently challenges all traditions and fixed notions. Thus Marx’s concept of modern societies, or modernity, is one in which ‘all that is solid melts into air.’’(Marx and Engels, 1962).

So Marx thus proclaimed that once started from it’s embryonic stage, capitalism was a force too strong to be stopped, one of his reasons for this was that it was constantly going through change, change that was not slow or progressive but rapid, changing societies economic make up drastically in a matter of decades.  And once economies evolve this affects the social relations, cultures and ideas.

While Marx underlines that history was the product of economic transform and collective action, Weber (1864-1920) contrasting this macro-theory and put forward an assumption of ‘methodological individualism’ rather than Marx’s ‘methodological collectivism’. Weber believed that Marx’s prominence on systems and laws diminished the active role of the individual. Weber argued that society should be conceived first off in terms of the meaningful social action of people. Groups such as classes, bureaucracies and states do not determine performance, but exist as forms of ‘actual or possible social actions of individual persons’ (Weber, 1978: 14). He believed that individuals were self-controlled and limited in relation to use of time and leisure time; rather than the reflection of class interests which highlight a divide and constrained work ethic contributing to the escalation of modern capitalist, effective significant forces. Weber expresses it by saying; ‘Material and ideal interests directly govern men’s conduct. Yet very frequently the ‘world images’ that have been created by ‘ideas’ have, like switchmen, determined the tracks along which action has been pushed by dynamic of interest.’ (Weber, 1948b: 280)

From this statement I see Weber’s idea of rationalization, i.e the role of ideas as the independent variable in capitalist societies.  Weber’s analysis of Marx was that social modify is always unrestricted, based as it is on the unpredictability of human action. The impracticality of forecasting how people will react in a situation means that this subject will lack the predictability of action conditioned by laws. ‘It cannot offer a vision for the future’ (Sociology, Issues and debates, 1999).

Durkheim viewed the market and individualism and analyzed them as interlinking topic. ‘The decline of traditional societies wiped away the limited horizons which people previously had, leaving them with no clear sense of their identity. The sense of meaningless which Durkheim described as anomie, or over-developed individualism, undermined stable social order.’(Sociology issues and debates, Steve Taylor, 1999).

Durkheim followed Compte in many respects, especially in seeing the focal point of sociological queries being on social structures rather than on the individuals who are involved in them. However, not like Compt, he disagreed that these social facts were not simple objective things but exterior to which are general through society, such as laws and religions, which restricts individuals in many factors in societies everywhere. Another one of Durkheim’s perceptions in his analysis is a clause of normlessness, a collapse in the internalizing of values and the tough social bonds generated by social solidarity. ‘Dunkheim believes culture and symbolic representations can strengthen social solidarity and work against the anomic tendencies of advanced industrial society.’(Contemporary British Society, third edition, Nicholas Abercrombie and Alan Warde, 2000).

Durkheim’s theory does not really enlighten which social groups produce definite values.  Durkheim foresaw as society evolved that so would all the negative things that make up part of our society such as crime.  He stated that we are conscious of our identities through entities such as our national flag, he exemplified this by saying that a soldier who dies for his country in battle therefore dies for his flag, and all that it stands for, even though the flag has no meaning in itself.  Social cohesion was achieved through the manifestation of culture and symbolic representations.  Distant with the predicament of social order and the perception of society as an organism Durkheim did not really address questions of power, conflict and transformation like Marx did.

So in conclusion it can be seen that these three scholars all had much to offer in terms of the debate of what constitutes capitalist societies.  However their contributions were flawed in some ways.  Marx said indirectly that communism/barbarism was inevitable; he claimed this was because of the inherent flaws in capitalism, however we can all recall what happened to the former soviet union which was a communist state, and only a handful of countries are still communist namely Cuba and China, however in the next 50 years I think we will see a great augmentation in China as the only next Superpower.  He also saw that class struggle would not diminish, but become less vivid and morph into a lower and upper class, however I disagree because I think class struggle still exists just in different epochs of history.  100 years ago a teacher or journalist would be considered middle class however it is debatable whether the pay and conditions of work would merit the characteristics of a middle class citizen nowadays.  On the other hand Marx made some groundbreaking and very useful views on capitalism such as the relationship between economic development and social class struggle.

Weber came into the debate on a slightly different angle using the role of the individual and making it more pronounced.  However his belief that capitalism in the west was catalysed by the ‘protestant work ethic’ is a claim that has brought much criticism from modern academics such as Economist Jacob Viner and Sociologist Gordan Marshall. However what Weber did was to provide the specifics for the religion catalyzing capitalism argument, with the details of the mechanism by which the belief in a "calling" and in worldly asceticism developed, leading to modern capitalism.  Weber also stated that sociology could not be used to offer a vision of the future, he believed this was because of the unpredictability of humans and human nature.

Durkheim’s views probably were the first to link sociology to economic growth.  He stated that individuals executed their own beliefs, values and ideals; but are not actually involved in changing ideas and symbols through collective action, he never explicitly explained the relationships between power, conflict and change.  So a flaw in his theory is that how could he explain charismatic leaders that really did change societies and cultures such as Gandhi, Hitler and Stalin?

Therefore in conclusion these scholars all put forward different views that all helped to answer the question of the relationship between their ideas and what make up a capitalist society.