Essay Example on Max Weber's Theory of Class: Ownership & Social Divisions

Introduction

Max Weber's analysis of class starts from an economic perspective, and it is based on the argument that the premise all class situations are ownership and lack of property. Weber views property as the means of production or capital. Unlike Marx's theory, where the starting point was capital and property, Max Weber's starting point is the recognition of all humans as individuals. According to Weber, each class comprises of key social divisions forming the basis of status and party membership. A party in this case means any organization that pursues the common interests of its members such as professional associations and trade unions (Garner & Hancock, 2014). From a materialist perspective, the common interests pursued by a party can be considered as a market position. Therefore, Weber’s analysis of class can be viewed as 'gradational' and thus different from Marx’s approach, which is more relational. The analysis identified four categories of class as the manual working class, the petty bourgeoisie, the white-collar intelligentsia, and the property-owning and commercial class.

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According to Weber, each of the four class groupings has different market characteristics, which give them privileges or increase their vulnerability to exploitation. He introduced the sociological idea of life chances, which is an important concept referring to individual's opportunities for success in socio-economic welfare including, health, housing, employment, education, etc (Garner & Hancock, 2014). The market economy is controlled by the forces of demand and supply. People who do not have property depend on their labor and their market position are determined by the relative scarcity of the skills they can offer. Hence, highly qualified workers experience a different class situation with better opportunities than their counterparts with inferior or no qualifications.

The basis of Weber’s social class theory is the view that the inequalities and divisions in a class are reflective of its chances at life in the market and that the job market determines one’s class position. Owing to the role of such markets in the division and sub-division of classes, there is increasing complexity in the differentiation between employee groups. This view differs from Marx’s dichotomous perspective, which categorizes the society into two classes. Another important aspect of Weber's theory of class stratification is that the life chances and status of an individual does not only depend on economic characteristics, but also other aspects of social belonging such as ethnicity.

Weber’s description of society as being increasingly fragmented or divided into smaller groups is in contrast with the increasingly polarized society that Marx predicted. In other words, Weber views stratification as a rather stretching spectrum than polarities. The key point in Weber’s theory is that classes are further differentiated based on status reflecting the social standing of groups and individuals. Compared to the theory of stratification advanced by Marx, Weber’s analysis of class from the perspective of market position and status arguably explains social differences in society more accurately. For example, social groups such as ethnic minorities, the elderly, the disabled, and women face discrimination in the workplace regardless of their class position. Therefore, it is true that various statuses may distinguish people in the same social class positions. The status of an individual may be more important than class in determining identity. Thus, Weber sees party, status, and class as intertwined and provides a theoretical matrix that explains the class position of an individual in a more complex way than Marx.

Emile Durkheim’s Analysis of Different Forms of Suicide

Durkheim developed an argument explaining why a definite number of people committed suicide in every society in a given period. He sought to determine whether this phenomenon could be attributed to individual psychological factors. Following this argument, Durkheim went through empirical research on suicide, which offered a sociological explanation to why people end their own lives. He defined suicide as, death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result (Garner & Hancock, 2014) Durkheim’s research tried to understand why people kill themselves and the factors that contribute suicide.

Initially, Durkheim hypothesized that military activities, marriage, religion, and economic difficulties were key factors that drove people to end their lives. However, by the end of his study, Durkheim noted that the decision to commit suicide was influenced by some other factors. He provided case studies proving that suicide is not entirely based on the action of an individual. Further, the author offered an experimental explanation of how to recognize or understand the state of mind that causes suicidal thoughts.

Durkheim examined several social factors of suicide and came up with intriguing findings. He examined the role of religion on suicide, focusing on varying suicide rates between Catholics and Protestants (Garner & Hancock, 2014). The comparison showed that Protestants were more likely to commit suicide than Catholics and even Jews. Durkheim also found that men had higher suicide rates than women. He further observed that suicide was more prevalent among people in sexual relationships and those with romantic partners than single individuals. Also, people with children were less likely to commit suicide than people without children. The research also showed that solders had higher suicide rates than civilians, and more people were likely to kill themselves in times of peace than in times of war. Likewise, the research showed that Scandinavian countries had higher rates of suicide than other European countries. Lastly, Durkheim associated higher levels of education with more suicide. However, he noted that the rate of suicide was more strongly connected to religion than education (Garner & Hancock, 2014).

Based on the analysis he made of data and the findings he got, Durkheim argued that social factors, and not individual psychological factors, influence suicide. Durkheim perceived that catholic had lower rates of suicide because they had stronger forms of cohesion and social control than their Protestant counterparts. Thus, he argued that greater social integration reduces the rate of suicide while lesser social integration is connected to higher suicide rates. Moreover, Durkheim noted that the social influence of the society on an individual has two dimensions - "social integration" and "social regulation". He defined social integration as the level of connection between a person and society, and social regulation as the extent to which society influences a person.

Conclusion

Finally, Durkheim put forward a theoretical suicide typology, based on the premise that social regulation and social integration influence the likelihood of committing suicide. He came up with four types of suicide i.e. anomic suicide, egoistic suicide, fatalistic suicide, and altruistic suicide. The author categorized suicides that occur as a result of social integration imbalances into two kinds as egoistic suicide and altruistic suicide. He then examined and categorized a person’s degree of social regulation as fatalistic suicide and anomic suicide.

References

Garner, R., & Hancock, B. H. (2014). Social Theory: Continuity and Confrontation: A Reader (3rd ed.). U of Toronto P.