Karl Marx, born in 1818, and Emile Durkheim, born in 1858, are well-known in sociological circles as being pinnacle developers and contributors to the field of sociology. Both were alive during monumental and transformative years of the industrial revolution, and both experienced rebellions, outbreaks of war, and various transitions occurring in Europe and around the world. In an effort to understand the emergence of the industrial world and the machinations of the people and events around them, Marx and Durkheim independently developed their own divergent theories that would go on to shape two of the most prominent paradigms in sociological theory today.

Karl Marx

Karl Marx is perhaps most well-known for his ideas on communism and socialism, philosophies that stem from broader concepts within conflict theory. Conflict theory is macro-level sociological perspective that organizes people into groups based on social status due to competition over limited resources (Conerly et al., 2021, 1.3 Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology). Conflict theory arose out of Marx’s observations of the excessive power the bourgeoisie class had in material and physical resources, wealth, and social status as compared to the laboring, or proletariat, class.

Class struggle is innately tied to the division and alienation of labor. Steeped in the development of factories and the foundations of mass production, Marx saw how workers were alienated from the products of their labor when bourgeoisie members offered them wages in exchange for the resultant value of the workers’ labor combined with raw materials–an exchange that developed a cycle in which the workers were beholden to alienating themselves from their work in order to receive wages for survival (Anderson, 2021). This conflict was further exacerbated by the very advancements of the industrial revolution that propelled society into the next stage of civility. Marx believed that use of technology, machines, and factories, which were notably all wholly owned by members of the bourgeoisie, both further alienated the worker from their labor and progressed commodification of their labor, and actively diminished the middle class (Hurst, 2018).

Capitalism fuels commodity production and idealization of profits through private ownership by relying on ever-expanding markets and fierce competition (Scott & Palumbo, 2005). A byproduct of capitalism was further exploitation and alienation of workers, a phenomenon that Marx called commodity fetishism. Instead of objects as commodities and humans as sources of relations, commodity fetishism turns humans into commodities and elevates objects to the status of holding relations. Marx saw capitalism as inherently unsustainable for many reasons, but one of which was that the working class could only be exploited, subjugated, and alienated for so long before social transformation occurred.

Marx believed that as long as there were inequalities between groups of people, conflict among them was inevitable. The inevitability of conflict is tied to the contradictory existence of, or negation of the negation by, humans with their environment (Anderson, 2021). Negation of the negation occurs when something positive results from previously negative actions, such as the initial loss of land and other means of capital by the working class in one generation only to be gained back when the working class eventually revolts against the upper class. Marx aimed to apply these Hegelian-influenced ideas universally. He generalized from one type of oppression, like slavery, to another, like the capitalist system with a drive for surplus value and profit on a global scale, but without ignoring differences between certain peoples and oppressions. These ideas are illuminated in one of his main frameworks: historical materialism.

Historical materialism stemmed from the Hegelian dialectic, which was the exchange of logical and reasoned arguments between opposing sides until a so-called truth could be established. The presumption in historical materialism is that material survival dominates the human species, and that anything else, such as religion, government, and class creations, are reflections of the intense material focus of human society (Scott & Palumbo, 2005). Marx used this methodology to understand social and economic behaviors of past and present societies. He established that the stages of human history, also referred to as the various modes of production, are hunter-gatherer, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and eventually communism after the final proletariat revolt (Hurst, 2018). Marx applied a modified form of Hegelian contradiction to human development, purporting that humans continuously evolve from existing in contradiction to their environment, and changes are made when humans either adapt or are destroyed. In this way, Marx believed the proletariat, or the exploited and subjugated working-class laborers, would eventually overthrow the ruling bourgeoisie class and establish an adapted existence. This will continue until another societal change is required, in which case the cycle will continue as it has throughout human history.

With the failure of capitalism looming before him, Marx proposed a new form of communism as a solution to the irrevocable materialistic nature of humans. Marx’s communism revolved around removing power and control of capital from the ruling people and organizations and returning it to control by society as a whole. The intention of this was to remove competition and desire for profit and instead replace it with cooperation and provision of equitable resources (Hurst, 2018). Marx advocated for a form of communism that celebrated human creativity and free development, and he actively argued against other forms of communism and socialism that reduced every human to the oppressed capitalist worker (Anderson, 2021). Perhaps misconstrued today, he “differed from other European socialists in that, for him, the socialist transformation would involve the working class as a whole exercising political power through the democratic state” (Monahan, 2021. p. 381).

While the ultimate fall of capitalism has yet to manifest itself, Karl Marx has undoubtedly made a robust contribution to the field of sociology. Beyond his own ideas, there are many theoretical offshoots of his theories that are still applicable in modern sociology, such as critical theory. Critical theory expands on conflict theory to incorporate other social sciences and to provide methods of solving the systemic problems that led to inequalities and thereby conflicts within society (Conerly et al., 2021, 1.3 Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology). The trend is continued in issues of race, feminism, and the environment.

The historical method can be applied to the exploitation of women’s labor in the home and beyond. As Meagher (2020) notes, “For classical or orthodox Marxist feminism, women’s oppression is a fundamental feature of capitalist economic systems” (p. 400). To help rectify these capitalist-derived issues, suffrage and general civil liberties were required ingredients for Marx’s form of socialism (Monahan, 2021). These ideals can be extended to the modern environmental movement in much the same way. Marx identified the unique, interconnected relationship between humans and nature, and he foresaw environmental crises arising to capitalist methods of resource exploitation and agricultural production (York & Dunlap, 2020).

Marx is still studied, quoted, and read today, signifying his continuing contributions to sociology even post-mortem. However, as Sica (2020) points out, this should not be surprising since conflict theory inherently understands that:

So long as contemporary societies produce conditions of ‘alienation’ and ‘reification,’ operate through ‘the cash nexus’ and ‘commodification,’ ‘immisserate’ laborers while capitalists flourish, destroy the global environment in pursuit of profits, and subordinate broad groups of people to elite control, Marx and Engels’ works will be studied, taught, and elaborated. (p. 16)

Emile Durkheim

Although Emile Durkheim’s contributions to sociology are wide-ranging, his progression of the structural functionalist perspective, one of the three primary paradigms in sociological theory, and the development and application of theories related to social solidarity, deviance, and religion, are perhaps the advancements most famously attributed to him.

Structural functionalism is a macro-level social theory derived from Herbert Spencer that assumes each group, or social institution, of society works in tandem with other groups to meet both the physical and social needs of that society (Conerly et al., 2021, 1.3 Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology). In this way, a society operates like a clock, with each group representing different gears inside of it that work together to keep the society functioning as a whole.

Durkheim extended Spencer’s ideas about the interrelated functions of society to explain the changes and evolutions of society over time. He also suggested that additional facets about a society, called social facts, needed to be considered besides just its social institutions to truly understand how the society functions (Keim, 2021). These social facts encompass a wide range of information about the nuances in a society, such as beliefs, religious practices, morals, values, taboos, rituals, and aesthetics. Durkheim identified social facts as immaterial phenomena that should, nevertheless, be treated no different than physical objects or places, and that these social facts were influential and external interchanges between people (Scott & Palumbo, 2005). Treating social facts as physical things allowed Durkheim to then make the leap of applying positivism and a rudimentary scientific method to the study of society.

Positivism uses logic, reductionist thinking, and observations of the physical world to construct theories (Stepnisky, 2020). Durkheim used positivist concepts to establish a sociological practice of studying causal relationships and impacts of social facts on society through the collection of data and records based on a set of rules (Hurst, 2018). Durkheim wanted to establish sociology as separate from philosophy, psychology, or any other field. He also sought to provide results and explanations of particular aspects of social structure and events through empirical observations (Kivisto, 2021). This was in contrast to existing sociological methods of seeking generalizations for society, like Marx’s methodologies. While Marx primarily employed observations, dialectic, and the historical materialism framework, Durkheim sought to follow the scientific method as rigidly as possible.

Durkheim used his scientific methodologies to understand deviance, social solidarity, and religion. He suggested that deviance is normal within a society, partially because every society has some form of deviance or crime within it, and he expanded on that to then propose that deviance must serve some necessary function within a society (Hurst, 2018). In this way, deviance is not only natural for a society, but is actually beneficial for a society. Deviance reiterates the norms, rules, and mores of a society, it unites both deviant and non-deviant members of a society under social bonds, and it can lead to necessary alterations of social structures and systems (Ben-Yehuda, 2020). Deviance can therefore reinforce solidarity within a society.

Solidarity exists amongst a group of people with the same interests, goals, and morals. Durkheim proposed that there were two types of solidarity within a society: mechanical and organic. The bisection of solidarity into mechanical and organic forms was Durkheim’s attempt at understanding social life, as compared to Marx’s ideas of feudal or capitalist modes of production over the course of human history (Scott & Palumbo, 2005). Durkheim was less focused on capitalism in itself, as opposed to Marx, and he instead fixated on the industrialized modern society as a whole and the emergence of classic industrialist professions.

Mechanical solidarity is tied to older and more simplistic social structures and division of labor, such as a small village whose members follow a relatively predefined and simple lifestyle, have clear divisions between genders or familial bonds, and operate together primarily due to physical proximity (Kivisto, 2021). In a mechanical solidarity society, there is a collective consciousness among its members. Organic solidarity, on the other hand, is predominantly found in modern society in which social structures are filled with complexity and where the division of labor has many layers and nuances. The multitudes of options and distinctions within a complex society lead to the development of many types of people, thus promoting an individualistic consciousness rather than an overarching collective consciousness.

In a society arranged by organic solidarity, an individual is differentiated from the whole of society, and thus seeks out other similarly differentiated individuals to form an association that is not based on forced physical proximity and forced social sameness. Modern class and social problems, such as exploitation, may occur in organic solidarity, but Durkheim did not see them as issues inherent to organic solidarity itself but rather the result of a rapidly changing society, and he overall viewed organic solidarity as the product of society adapting itself to better fit a modern environment (Scott & Palumbo, 2005). This is in contract to Marx’s concerns about societal change and exploitation under an industrial society. However, Durkheim still acknowledged that social problems existed, and he proposed a solution that included the creation of organizations that could encourage cooperation and communication between all people, primarily through what he called moral education, so that people would choose on their own to put societal interests above personal endeavors.

Marx and Durkheim also differed on the subject of religion. Marx saw religion as a manifestation of materialistic needs of humans, whereas Durkheim view religion as a product of human social needs. According to Durkheim, factual beliefs are not at the center of religion, and religion should be viewed sociologically as a function of society that provides a solution to some societal need, so even if a religion involves an obscure or strange ritual, there is some function in society that it is fulfilling (Hurst, 2018). Religions tend to develop in simple, mechanic solidarity where people are relatively homogeneous, but they become increasingly complex as society shifts into organic solidarity and pronounced differentiation between individuals dominate the social structure.

Durkheim, like Marx, significantly contributed to one of the predominant sociological paradigms that are still used today. Durkheim continuously worked toward the establishment of sociology as a scientific, legitimate, and distinct field in French universities and institutions, though these achievements were not fully realized in his lifetime (Kivisto, 2021). However, his work and methods eventually led to the advancement of sociology as a field globally. This is partially due to his novel application of rigid scientific methods to societal studies that had been previously absent, such as when he “wrote one of the first manuals on sociological methods” (Sica, 2020, p. 18). From his methods also formed a critical foundation for studying deviance and crime, which has been tremendously expanded upon in many fields. Prime examples of this are strain theory and social disorganization theory.

Strain theory, developed by Robert Merton, focuses on the societal strain inflicted on people who want to pursue socially acceptable goals but are actually inhibited by and prevented from achieving their goals by the society in which they live (Conerly et al., 2021, 7.2 Theoretical Perspectives on Deviance and Crime). Social disorganization theory assumes that areas without proper social control measure or institutions will have high rates of crime and will both produce and exacerbate weak family and community bonds (Rose & Clear, 1998). Both of these theories of crime and deviance were built off of Durkheim’s ideas of the functions of deviance within a society and the connections between deviance and morality.

Conclusions

Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim contributed immensely to the field of sociology over the course of their lives. Some of their perspectives overlapped at times, such as a general concern about industrial societal changes, but many of their ideas branched into what are considered today as two of the predominant paradigms of sociological theory: conflict theory and structural functionalism. Marx and Durkheim employed different methods of study, but their methods and perspectives are still valuable and necessary for modern societal studies.

Want to Know More?

• Anderson, K. B. (2021). Karl Marx. In P. Kivisto (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Social Theory (pp. 45-64). Cambridge University Press.
• Ben‐Yehuda, N. (2020). Deviance: A Sociology of Unconventionalities. In G. Ritzer & W. Murphy (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Sociology (pp. 124–140). John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
• Conerly, T. R., Holmes, K., & Tamang, A. L. (2021). Introduction to Sociology 3e. OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/1-introduction.
• Hurst, A. L. (2018). Classical Sociological Theory and Foundations of American Sociology. Oregon State University.
• Keim, W. (2021). Frenchman, Jew, Positivist: Reading the Rules and Mapping Émile Durkheim in Germany. Durkheimian Studies, 25(1), 154-186. https://doi.org/10.3167/ds.2021.250107.
• Kivisto, P. (2021). Émile Durkheim: Theorist of Solidarity. In P. Kivisto (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Social Theory (pp. 84-102). Cambridge University Press.
• Meagher, M. (2020). Contemporary Feminist Theory. In G. Ritzer & W. Murphy (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Sociology (pp. 398–416). John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
• Monahan, S. F. (2021). The American Workingmen’s Parties, Universal Suffrage, and Marx’s Democratic Communism. Modern Intellectual History, 18(2), 379-402. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479244320000062.
• Rose, D. A., & Clear, T. R. (1998). Incarceration, social capital, and crime: Implications for social disorganization theory. Criminology, 36(3), 441-479. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1998.tb01255.x.
• Scott, A. & Palumbo, A. (2005). Classical Social Theory, II: Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim. In A. Harrington (Ed.), Modern Social Theory: an introduction (pp. 40-60). Oxford University Press.
• Sica, A. (2020). Classical Sociological Theory. In G. Ritzer & W. Murphy (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Sociology (pp. 3–20). John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
• Stepnisky, J. (2020). Contemporary Social Theory. In G. Ritzer & W. Murphy (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Sociology (pp. 23–38). John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
• York, R., & Dunlap, R. E. (2020). Environmental Sociology. In G. Ritzer & W. Murphy (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Sociology (pp. 283–300). John Wiley & Sons Ltd.