Marx, Durkheim, Weber and the Nature of the Social

Emile Durkheim, Max Weber and Karl Marx perhaps contributed more than all other 19^th century philosophers combined to the way in which the nature of the social came to be viewed as phenomenon in the twentieth century. Each of these now widely ready thinkers eventually developed philosophical constructs that places locates the center of the social fabric as a defining phenomenon in the relationship between individuals and their economic conditions; specifically, that quickly growing component of economics that has come to be known as the division of labor. That the effect the forces of labor and economics have on the way societies are both shaped and evolved should not be surprising considering that all three developed their ideas in the midst of the industrial revolution.

Despite the fact that each of these highly influential social observers witnessed a world in which capitalism grew to become the dominant and controlling system of economics, all three men developed separate and for the most part unique explanations for how on how individuals react to the social contexts of economics, and how societies form around those reactions. Modernization and the subsequent emphasis on materialism played a tremendous part in the formation of their theories on socialization. A close examination of the works of each of these writers reveals that the very cohesiveness of society depends in great part upon the construction of the labor mechanism.

A certain irony may felt from the fact that although the theoretical constructs of these three major thinkers diverge greatly, the locus from which their constructs developed is the same. The division of labor between those who own and those who work is the centerpiece of all theories relating to the nature of the social in the works of Marx, Durkheim and Weber. From this one can extrapolate a very important fact: the disagree-ments that arise between these three is not located in the idea that a division does exist; rather the theoretical variances spring from how society both responds and reacts to this division.