Marx and Weber’s Conception of “Class”

MARX AND WEBER’S CONCEPTION OF “CLASS”
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Marx and Weber’s Conception of “Class”
Introduction
The subject of the class is a key aspect of the social field. The various opinions as provided by Karl Marx and Max Weber regarding class are considered a potential foundation of debate over the years. This discussion inclines towards a critical comparison of the views held by Marx and Weber, a thorough examination of the major opinions and arguments from the theorists concerning the conception of class as a subject and a concept within social circles. According to Marx, economic factors alone determine the idea of class, while on the contrary, Weber provides for the fact that the definition of social strata cannot be based solely on class as well as economic factors influencing class relationships (Wright, 2019). Eventually, there will be the provision of existing major differences and similarities between the two theories.
Main differences between Marx and Weber’s conception of “class”
Summary
Whereas Marx utilizes the term class to indicate the main strata across the various stratification systems, Weber believes that other factors besides ownership and non-ownership of various properties influence class stratification. Such differences in the opinion of the theorists help society to consider social stratification from different perspectives. Further, Marx holds that the main causes of class division are purely economic factors, while Weber argues that the definition of social networks and levels is possible by the use of status, party as well as class. Yes, while Marx only identifies two classes of division, Weber observes that there could be more, hence identifies four: manual workers, the wealthy, those without properties, and the ruling entrepreneurs. The other difference occurs in the opinion concerning a proletarian revolution, whereby Weber does not support such an occurrence as a possibility. Notably, from the previous class discussion, Weber further expressed a different opinion concerning the Marxist idea whereby political powers override the economic power and further disagrees with the opinion that influence from politics is a derivative of wealth.
Critical Analysis of Marx and Weber
From the perspective of Marx, a social group represents members that share similar relationships towards means of production (Blom and Kivinen, 2017). Conversely, Weber’s theory of class anchored partly upon detailed views from the predecessor (Marx) provides different perspectives on the social system. Weber opines that class is a representation of only one of the many forms of levels that include other perspectives such as status as well as party (Livingstone and Mangan, 2019). While such an opinion seems valuable to the current society, Marx’s proposal points to the idea that there are only two major social classes across all stratified societies: the superior class that rules and the class that is subject to the rule, which also reflects some idea from the contemporary society. Similarly, Weber shares the opinion of Marx on the ground that the main levels of class result from economic differ...