CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGICAL THINKERS

SOC 223
Lecture- 15
• Today’s lecture focus on…………….
• Karl Marx
• Born in Germany in 1818
• Founder of scientific socialism or
Marxism
• Introduced radical changes in the
study of history
• German philosopher, economist,
historian, sociologist, political theorist,
journalist, socialist revolutionary
• Studied History, Law and Philosophy
• During school days- Attracted to Socialism
• Marxism- ideology developed by Karl Marx in 19th century

• Marx and Engles wrote the famous “communist Manifesto in 1846

• Marx developed the political system known as Communism

• Socialism: means of production, distribution and exchange should be

owned or regulated by the community as a whole

• Socialism- considered as dangerous by the rulers

• His socialistic views and anti-state views expelled him from his
homeland, Prussia (Now in Germany)

• When he was in France;

• Organized German workers

• Under the pressure of Prussian Government he expelled from France too

• Migrated to England and stayed there until his death

Important Works

• The Poverty of Philosophy- 1847

• The Communist Manifesto- 1848

• The German Ideology- 1845

• A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy- 1859

• Das Kapital- 1867

 Major Theories
• Historical materialism- economic interpretation of history
• It’s a methodology- understand human society and development through history

• Theory of base and superstructure- society has two parts base and super structure
• Base- forces and relations of production (eg employer-employee relation, property relation etc)
• Super structure- culture, institutions, political power, roles rituals, state etc)

• Theory of class struggle- socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and
poor
• Struggle between classes important in every stages of human society except primitive communism

• Slave society- slaves and slave owners

• Feudal society- feudal lords and serfs
• Capitalist society- bourgeoisie and proletariat ( investors and laborers)
• Stages of historical development- 5 stages of development in societies

• Primitive communism

• Slaverism

• Feudalism

• Capitalism

• Communism / scientific Socialism

• Primitive Communism

• Everything they collected

shared with all members in
society, food, work

• No one owned land

• No class difference-egalitarian
• Gradually some classes formed
• Slavery

• First class society

• Class struggle between slave

owners and slaves

• Ancient mode of production

• Income from agriculture

distributed to citizens and they
exploit the slaves
Dr Aswathy V K
28401
aswathy.28401@lpu.co.in
9526277463

Thank You!