First of all, Marx applied his dialectical philosophical principles to understanding of modern society in order to find out the nature of social change. The central idea of Marx’s dialectical method is the objectively existed contradictions to historical changes (Ritzer and Goodman, 2004, p. 130). Inherited from Hegel’s dialectic philosophy, Marx believed that there are contradictions as dynamical forces existed in the whole process of social development. He was able to link this idea to the analysis of modern society, which significantly helped him to perceive a certain contradiction between human nature and the capitalist labor — Alienation.
Secondly, Marx provided a critical analysis of the structure of the modern society with a reorganization of economic base as the deterministic cause to ideology. Taking his observations of the social, economic, and political environments into consideration, Marx saw the society as a certain system composing two distinctive components – the base and the superstructure. The base refers to material base taken form of the economic and class relations which always involves the mode of production, while the superstructure means other social organizations and prevalent ideas such as state policies (Fulcher and Scott, 2007, p. 30).
One of Marx’s best summary of the internal meaning of this structure is that, “The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, which is the real foundation on top of which arises a legal and political superstructure to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness”
Thirdly, Marx was able to predict the future of capitalism through his view of historical materialism. David Caute (1967, p12) argues that Marx’s philosophy provide a general analysis of the past, present, and future. Respectfully, Marx saw the present modern society through its historical past and tried to predict its future through the current social trends. As discussed before in this essay, Marx believed that human history is a process of class conflicts and social change takes form of class struggles.
Facing the modern society, Marx pointed out that the society has been polarized into two classes – bourgeois and proletarians. He (Marx and Engels, 1848) argued that capitalism had played a revolutionary role in the social development from the feudal relations to the modern relations, improving production and consumption, and bringing civilization to the world, however, he considered the dominance by bourgeois towards the working class as a irrational and “inhuman” process, which would only be changed through the proletarian revolution to reach a new mode of production called communism.
Firstly, Weber conceptualized the social process of modernity as the rationalization of social actions. Weber emphasized that social structures and historical changes should be considered as complex patterns of the subjective meanings of individual acts, because he believed that the causal explanations to the social process are based on individuals’ interpretative understanding of their social actions (Scott, 2006, p.86).
Social action is considered as the most important ideal type and it is divided into four distinctive types – instrumentally rational action, value-rational action, traditional action and affectual action. Among the four types of social action, instrumentally rational action is the most rationalized action which involves scientific-techno method to achieve the goal, rational choice and decision.
Secondly, Weber was able to give an explanation of the genesis of capitalist development through the analysis of religious value and to see the historical change of capitalist spirit. With the question of why capitalism existed first in Western Europe instead of the other areas in the world, Weber took a look particularly in the relationship between religious value and economic action, and he found out that the answer lay behind its specific religious pattern (Fulcher and Scott, 2007, p. 411). Weber believed that religion particularly Calvinsm, played a historical role in the genesis of capitalism.
According to Poggi (2006, pp. 70-71), in Calvinsm, each human being is decreed by God, that their destinies in the afterlife are salvation or damnation, requiring a believer’s faithful commitment to managing his life and his rationally controlled manner – a person “fully identified with his occupation, and who views his success in it as an indication of his own good standing in the eyes of God, guaranteeing his destination of salvation in the afterlife.”
Thirdly, Weber held a multi-dimensional view to illustrate social inequality with concerns of the distribution of social power. With the consideration of the class constructed under the economic relations as Marx clarified, Weber pointed out that class is only one causal component of social power while the other causal components are posited in the non-economic dimensions.
Through Weber, there are three distinctive forms of power constructed according to the nature resources (Poggi, 2006, p. 43). These three dimensions of power are class, estates and parties. In contrast with class, a person’s social status is determined by the evaluation of his style of life which may involves different social and cultural dimensions such as his career occupations, ethic groups, gender roles, etc
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