Marx, Weber, and Wallerstein

The twentieth century has been an age full of political and social change. From the turn of the century different groups have struggled to explain these changes through various belief systems and social theories. The first substantial theorists on social change were Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels who co-wrote The Communist Manifesto. They detailed economic history from feudalist, to capitalist, and to the possible future of socialism. It was argued that through revolution the dominant classes must be dislodged and everything redistributed. Their view was that any industrial state could do this within their own country. Max Weber threw a whole wrench in the cogs. He saw the world as being more based on geo-politics. This meant that states are in conflict with each other. Thus, what happens in one state usually is affected by other things in the world rather than just the socio-economic conditions in that country. Immanuel Wallerstein then appropriated Marxist ideas and intermixed them with Weber and many other social theorists to come up with a world system theory to explain how social change occurs. Where Marx was concerned with revolution on a state level, We

Marx believed that social change came through three main ideas: competition, class struggle, and transitions of modes of production. First, the idea of competition is based within classes. For example, an oil company executive wants higher prices for oil so that she/he makes more profit, but the industry that uses oil wants the prices to stay low so they make more profit. Thus, through conflicting points of view a change is achieved, some being more ‘revolutionary’ than others. The next idea is class struggle. Marx believed that the dominant class, whether it is lords or kings in the feudal system or the bourgeoisie in the capitalist system, oppress the lower class, the serfs or proletariat. Marx believed by the growth of class-consciousness that the lower classes could become more aware of their situation and thus throw of the shackles of oppression. Finally, social change can happen because of transitions of modes of production. The industrial revolution is a prime example of this. By changing the way things were made changed the whole shape of society. Instead of making a commodity to be sold on the market in order to buy other necessities, people were starting with capital to make surplus commodities then sell those for profit. Thus, modern capitalism was born and has changed the entire world.

“…a revolutionary situation occurs when an existing mode of production reaches the limits of its contradictions. The decisive contradictions are economic contradictions that develop between the social forces and the social relations of production. In turn, intensifying class conflict is generated between the existing dominant class and the rising, revolutionary class. Thus, Marx theorized that revolutionary contradictions are internally generated within a society.” (Goldstone, 64)

ber was more concerned with geo-politics. Wallerstein went even further by using aspects of both Marx and Weber to better explain social change.

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