The forces of production and the social relationship of production form the infrastructure of society. The other aspects of society known as the super structure are largely shaped by the infrastructure Therefore the political, legal and educational institutions and the belief are primary determined by the economic factors. A change in the infrastructure will therefore produce a corresponding change in the superstructure.
Strengths The means of production remain mostly privately owned. There is a still great inequality of wealth and income in Britain and widespread poverty. Unemployment is an on going problem and effects most severely those in the working class occupations
Weaknesses Marx suggested only the two opposing classes of bourgeoisies and the proletariat would emerge, in fact the past century has seen the emerge of a new middle class of professionals managers and office workers, Compulsosy education has given the working classes more chances of upward social mobility While there are still great inequalities in wealth and income still continue to exist the working class has not got poorer as Marx predicted.
Functionalism
Functionalism first developed in the nineteenth century Europe. The French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) was the most influential of the earliest functionalist.
Durkheim believed that individual behaviour could be explained largely in terms of the influence of society on the individual. Functionalism begins with the study that behaviour in society is structured. This means that relationships between members of society are organized in terms of rules. Values provide general guidelines for behaviour and they are translated into more specific commands in terms of roles and norms. The main parts of society, its institutions such as the family, the economy, and the educational and political systems are major aspects of the social structure. An institution can be seen as structure made of interconnected roles or interrelated norms.
For example, the family is made up of husband, father, wife, mother, son, and daughter. Social relationships within the family are structured in terms of a set of related norms we now have to look at the function and the relationship between parts of the structure and their relationship to society as a whole. The function of the family is the effect it had on other parts of the social structure and the society as a whole. A major function of the family is the socialization of new members of society-this is an important contribution of the maintenance of social order, stability and co-operation largely depend on learned shared values
Weaknesses Functionalism has been critiszesd for failing to provide an adequate explanation for social change. If institutions exist to fulfil needs, one the needs are fulfilled these should be no need to change. It overemphasises the conconsenus that exists in society
Strengths it explains patterns of behaviour within social groups i.e. social facts and it explains the influence of culture and society on individuals
Two sociologists that I have written about Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx who have very different theories. Durkhiem-Fuctionalism presents an evolutionary prototype of social change. It is a consensus theory (shared values). Marx-Marxism presents a revolutionary model of social change, which results from class conflict
Sociology can be applied to health care today if we look at Durkheim who looked at suicide, suicide can be shown to be external to individuals by the fact that the suicide rates varies between different social groups and this variation remains fairly constant over time. For example Durkheim noticed that suicide rates were consistently lower in catholic countries than they were in protestant countries and this difference remained stable over relatively long periods. Suicide rates thus seemed to be products of social groups rather than individuals, Secondary the suicide rate could be seen as constraining because the probality that any individual would commit suicide could be shown to vary according to which social groups they belong
Conclusion
This assignment has given us a brief outline and some understanding to two perspectives in sociology, Marxism and Functionalism. How both Durkheim ands Marx gave very different views on how society should be.
