How Useful Are The Concepts Of Pluralism, Elitism And Marxism In Enabling Us To Understand The Distribution Of Power In Society
Sarah 17/01/06
How Useful Are The Concepts Of Pluralism, Elitism And Marxism In Enabling Us To Understand The Distribution Of Power In Society
Power is an important dimension of social stratification. Power is everywhere in our society. We daily see power in different shapes. When young people accept or reject the authority of parents and teachers or a man puts a woman down for suggesting that he is better informed than she is and when a black person is refused a job because the employer is looking for a white person, these are all political acts. They all involve the exercise of power. Power is a contested concept, in other words there is no agreed definition of power. Max Weber's work is often taken as a starting point in the study of power. Weber defined power as the chance of a man or woman, number of men to realize their own will in a communal action even against the resistance of others. Power is unequally distributed if some are more successful than others in achieving their aims. He identified two types of power, authority and coercion. Weber identified three types of authority1, charismatic, traditional, rational legal authority.
In this essay I am going to describe the concepts of Pluralism, Elitism and Marxism theories of power. Pluralist believes that we all have an equal say. We live in a multi-voice and multi-idea society. Everyone has equal rights. Elite theorists argue that power is concentrated in the hands of a small minority, the elite. For Marx, the structure of society is primarily determined by the way the economy is organised.
Pluralists see society as made up of many different groups pursuing different interests and articulating them so no one group is seen to dominate the decision making process. Power is shared and the role of the state is to arbitrate between these groups. The decision making process is the key to understanding the distribution of power in society. The role of political parties enables all the different sections of the population to be represented. They fight campaigns, develop policies, provide the basis for government and legitimate opposition, articulate the interests of sections of society, socialclasses, religious, ethnic, groups, regional interests. Pluralist theories of power have their origins in the work of Max Weber. While Marxists believed that socialism would lead to a true participatory democracy, Weber was sceptical about the possibility of direct democracy in large-scale industrial societies. Instead Weber argued that multi-party representative democracy provided the best way of representing a range of interests.
How Useful Are The Concepts Of Pluralism, Elitism And Marxism In Enabling Us To Understand The Distribution Of Power In Society
Power is an important dimension of social stratification. Power is everywhere in our society. We daily see power in different shapes. When young people accept or reject the authority of parents and teachers or a man puts a woman down for suggesting that he is better informed than she is and when a black person is refused a job because the employer is looking for a white person, these are all political acts. They all involve the exercise of power. Power is a contested concept, in other words there is no agreed definition of power. Max Weber's work is often taken as a starting point in the study of power. Weber defined power as the chance of a man or woman, number of men to realize their own will in a communal action even against the resistance of others. Power is unequally distributed if some are more successful than others in achieving their aims. He identified two types of power, authority and coercion. Weber identified three types of authority1, charismatic, traditional, rational legal authority.
In this essay I am going to describe the concepts of Pluralism, Elitism and Marxism theories of power. Pluralist believes that we all have an equal say. We live in a multi-voice and multi-idea society. Everyone has equal rights. Elite theorists argue that power is concentrated in the hands of a small minority, the elite. For Marx, the structure of society is primarily determined by the way the economy is organised.
Pluralists see society as made up of many different groups pursuing different interests and articulating them so no one group is seen to dominate the decision making process. Power is shared and the role of the state is to arbitrate between these groups. The decision making process is the key to understanding the distribution of power in society. The role of political parties enables all the different sections of the population to be represented. They fight campaigns, develop policies, provide the basis for government and legitimate opposition, articulate the interests of sections of society, socialclasses, religious, ethnic, groups, regional interests. Pluralist theories of power have their origins in the work of Max Weber. While Marxists believed that socialism would lead to a true participatory democracy, Weber was sceptical about the possibility of direct democracy in large-scale industrial societies. Instead Weber argued that multi-party representative democracy provided the best way of representing a range of interests.
