A Comparison of Two Sociological Theories

Two Sociological Theories

A Comparison of Two Sociological Theories

Discussion

A sub domain of comparison of sociological theories exists which is often sorted under the title relative sociology. These are the sub field of the subject that egresses in the early 1970s, partly in reaction to comprehended defects of functionalism and austere Marxism, and partly as a recurrence to definitive sociological queries involving the evident contradictions in terms and troubles of modernism itself. Though a relative approach is used in almost all subdivisions of social scientific research, within the subject itself, it has for the most part accompanied the works of Max Weber and Karl Marx with respect to the comparability of macro units of evaluation social class, the state, culture, and capitalism. Marx and Weber are instance of a sociology that looks denotative to past to formulate and interpret the inceptions, auspices, and agreements of social organization, establishments, and procedures (Sassoon, 1998, p.234).

The differentiation between scientific discipline and history is not apparent in the first glance. It is a tension that runs the range of sociological thinking, going back to at least Comte's proposal of a “science of society,” as well as to the chronological succession of Enlightenment minds, who originated the scientific study of economics, law and politics. Marx reasoned that their theories were “scientific.” According to Marx,

“If capitalism persists for several more centuries, as seems to be highly likely, then from the vantage point of the future, capitalism may be seen as the system responsible for the transformation of the human condition from one of mass subsistence to mass prosperity”.

This “science” was connected to the study of history. Nevertheless, it was Weber who committed the soberest consideration to the comparison between the natural and social sciences the issue of whether sociology should be adjusted with the empirical sciences or with the customs of interpretation and hermeneutics.

The contrast of respective sociological theories comes forth as a discrete subject area within sociology in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as in the influence of all of the classical sociology that was itself invested in historical probes of the ascension of the nation-state, capitalism, and modernity. In this regard, many researchers at the beginning, focused extensively, on the constructs of the nation-state and social class where the impact of Marx and Weber are most visible. According to Weber,

“Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed”.

Although a relative, historic approach can arguably be employed to a diversity of processes, its stress on the state and class. It also contemplates basic touches of Weber and Marx concerning the sources and function of social class, bureaucracy, the rise of the modern state, revolution, and industrialization. In spite of their differences, these two minds both conceived that history itself allowed for a significant instructive function in their various studies of social interchange (Itoh, 1995, ...