Marx, Durkheim, and Weber

By the 19th century the outlines of the modern world were visible. Technological change increased as science extended its power over nature. Old concepts of morality and society gave way to values and customs that differed radically from the medieval, feudal, Christian past that had provided the basis for a thousand years of European history. The means of industrial production became concentrated in the hands of a new class of entrepreneurs. Rural agricultural workers and the artisans of the towns and cities gave way to masses of undifferentiated laborers feeding industrial machines. Raw capitalism became the order of the day, and unceremoniously threw out traditional

relationships of employer to worker, and man to man.

All this bewildering change came upon the West suddenly, with the pace of change and its attendant social and economic conflicts accelerating rapidly. Perhaps most critical of all, modern man suffered a crisis of meaning. In the midst of all this frenetic activity and destruction of traditional ways, what was the significance of life? In the poisonous fumes and unhealthy repetitive labor of the mines and factories, what was left to make life worth living, when the hope of rising from the

misery of the urban proletariat seemed increasingly unattainable?

With the displacement of the royal houses of Europe and the landed aristocracy by an upstart entrepreneurial class, came new social tensions. In the past, revolts and reform mo

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these conditions -- or starve. There were no considerations of workplace safety, no unions, no governmental watchdogs, no health inspections, no unemployment, no labor laws, and no welfare. One of the best ways to really feel the profound injustice and inhumanity of the industrial system of employment in the 19th century is to read Emil Zola's Germinal, an unforgettably gripping account of the hell of working under horrible conditions in an old-fashioned coal mine in northern France. His relentless, first-hand observations of daily life among these victimized workers, and the futile tragedy of their abortive revolt, which is ruthlessly suppressed by the powers that be, is a perfect illustration of what Marx meant when he used the word alienation. Marx's solution to the alienation of the industrial proletariat was simply class war and world revolution, with the dictatorship of the proletariat. After the sorry, brutal, totalitarian history of communist governments in the 20th claiming to base their practices on Marxist ideology, it is fair to say that his solution produced little sustainable improvement in the lives of the workers (although they were generally given free housing, education, and state-provided employment). Bu

Category: Philosophy - M