Karl Marx and his study on human society.

Marx’s analytical style is Materialist approach Marx’s analytical style is Materialist approach. It, in sociology term, materialist refers to a distinctive approach to understand human beings and human society.

Marx’s approach is based on series of fundamental assumptions:
o He suggested that humans can be distinguished form other animals mainly is that humans produce the material necessities of life.
o The need to survival leads the need to produce.
o In these process of production, human beings interact with one another

Therefore, he suggested that to understand human society we must investigate and understand how the production of society’s materials necessities is organized.

The human activities of productions the material good for satisfying his needs, and services involves the using of technology, tools, knowledge, skills which Marx called Productive forces.

The nature of the productive process is determined by both the level of development of the productive forces and the nature of the social relations of production, that is, the patterns of ownership use and control of the productive forces.
Marx linked the existence of classes, based on different economic position, with existence of ideology dominations. Here ideology refers to sets of ideas or beliefs that justify or legitimate the social structures and arrangements of capitalist society.

“The ruling classes’ ideas are in every epoch the ruling ideas.” The ruling class attempts to influence all aspects of the social structure, including the way people think.

The class with economic power is always able to influence the government and the state to ensure that the political order acts in its long-term interests.

Alienation of man, in Marx’s sense, refers to a loss of control over the process, products and relations of material production. The concept is based on the assumption that the essential defining characteristic of human being is their ability to labour and produce satisfaction for their material wants and needs. Humans express and realize and express their true humanity through their productive activity, and loss of control of the various aspects of this activity is a loss of an important part of their humanity.

Marxist Theories of Class- explain social inequality


Stratification- associate with functionalist perspectives, assumes that individuals in society are layered or arranged in strata. According to the stratification theorists, there are three quite distinct dimensions of the stratifications systems: class, statues and power


Concept of class: Bourgeoisie, and proletarian.
Largely based on income (amount or source) a category of people who share similar economic characteristics. The relationship between different classes is usually understood in term of a layering situation in which one class has more income and is placed higher in a hierarchy while another class has less income and is ranked lower. There is no implied antagonistic relationship between and among classes.