John Kilcullen
Copyright (c) 1996, R.J. Kilcullen.
I want to go through Articles, Chapters and Lectures, p.113 ff. Val Burris, "The Neo-Marxist Synthesis of Marx and Weber on Class" (from N. Wiley, ed., The Marx-Weber Debate, Sage Publications. 1987). Read the first paragraph, to the bottom of p.113 (p.67). The "de-Parsonsizing" of Weber is a reference to the American sociologist Talcott Parsons, who translated some of Weber's material into English (e.g. the extract in Readings p.171ff) and wrote books developing Weber's ideas and other ideas in his own way into a social philosophy that many regard as idealist.
Read the rest of the introduction, down to the heading "structure versus action" on p.69.
The four distinctions set out in the bottom half of p.68 will not be entirely clear at this stage, but if you look at the headings in the rest of the article, you will see that they correspond to the distinctions--so we will get further explanation under each heading.
Read from the heading on p.69 to seven lines down p.70. For an illustration of this account of Marxism, look at Readings p.142; read the first half of the page. According to Engels here, human action differs from nature in that human actions have conscious purposes. But it is only because, and in so far as, these purposes are frustrated, so that outcomes are, on the surface, accidental, that it is possible to have a social science that discovers laws of historical development. Marxists since Engels have downplayed the importance of the conscious choices of human agents.
For an illustration of the point about Weber, turn to Readings p.164, and under heading B notice the words "social action", and near the end of the page the heading "social actions flowing from class interest". If you read this page and the next you will notice the recurrent reference to the actions of individuals. There is more explicit material on this in Weber's The Theory of Social and Economic Action, p.88 ff. There Weber defines sociology as
a science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects. In "action" is included all human behaviour when and in so far as the acting individual attaches a subjective meaning to it. (p.88)The sociologist interprets the meanings (in effect, the intended purposes) of individual actions. At a later point he says:
A correct causal interpretation of typical action means that the process...is shown to be both adequately grasped on the level of meaning and at the same time the interpretation is to some degree causally adequate. If adequacy in respect of meaning is lacking, then no matter how high the degree of uniformly and how precisely its probability can be numerically determined, it is still an incomprehensible statistical probability. (p.99)To illustrate: If it is a statistical fact that church-going Protestants are much more likely to vote Liberal than Labour, you don't have a sociologically adequate understanding of this until you can say what meaning this behaviour has to the individuals who engage in it--how voting Liberal connects with their belief and intention. Turn to Readings p.72, J.S. Mill, and read the first two paragraphs. Mill's view, which Weber shares, is that social structures are the resultant of individual actions done for reasons that make sense to the individuals. The doctrine that social scientists have not completed their task until they have resolved social phenomena into the intentional acts of individuals is called methodological individualism. (It has nothing to do with the idea that people are individualistic in the sense of selfish.)
Return to Burris and read the next paragraph, "Weberian critiques" on p.70. A "functionalist" explanation attempts to explain a certain feature of society by suggesting that that feature is conducive to the society's continued existence into the future. This sounds like an explanation in terms of purpose (a "teleological" explanation): the society has this feature because it needs it to survive. But functional explanations need not be taken that way in sociology any more than in biology. If we explain some feature of an animal in terms of its survival value, we understand, against the background of evolutionary theory, that competition among life forms selects those that are well adapted to their environment, meaning capable of living long enough to propagate. We are saying the possession of this feature in understandable because without it the ancestors of this animal would have been eliminated. Similarly, to say that some feature of society is functional is to say that it helps stabilise the society--and that being so, it is not surprising that the society has it, because if it hadn't it would have been unstable and would have changed or perished. So there is no implication that someone engineered this feature because it was needed, any more than Darwin's theory suggests that there is a designer of forms of life. Read to the middle of p.72. This should be clear enough. The point of it is that Marxists do not or need not downplay the importance of intentional human action as much as their critics say they do.
The next two paragraphs use a contrast between under-determination and over determination in causal explanations. A situation is under-determined with reference to a given cause if the positing of the cause does not guarantee the production of a given, specific effect. You need to know what other causes are operational before you can say what exactly will happen. A situation is over-determined if there are two or more causes at work, each complete and capable of producing its characteristic effect, but, since these causes are opposed to one another, we can't say which of the possible effects will actually be produced. Now read the rest of this section, to the heading uni-dimensional vs. multi-dimensional views on p.74.
You might relate the section you have just read to the later views of Engels (Readings, p.150)--economic factors, such as class, are only ultimately determining, the student of society must also take seriously the ideas entertained by individuals or groups. Or you might compare it with Mill's discussion of the importance of individual effort, Readings p.79 (last quarter) and ff.
Before reading the next section recall Weber's essay on "Class, Status, Poverty" (Readings, p.163ff); and for the Marxists, see Engels, Readings, p.143.
Read to the middle of p.75, "Although". To illustrate Parkin's criticism: How can talk about classes--the working class, the capitalists--illuminate conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, or between Serbs, Croats and Muslims in the former Yugoslavia, or between men and women everywhere? This question would not leave Marxists entirely speechless. For example, they could suggest that in Northern Ireland the Catholics are the proletarians and the Protestants the property-holders, and they might suggest that the religious conflict is a disguised class conflict. But it would be implausible to suggest that it is merely a disguise, that the religious conflict can be reduced to a class conflict. With Yugoslavia a class interpretation is less plausible, and with the conflict between men and women less plausible still--since the conflict is found at every level of society. This is why Parkin says that the Marxist category of class is not sufficient by itself to make sense of all social conflicts. Read on to the next heading, at the bottom of p.78. "Class reductionism" means the attempt to reduce other conflicts to class conflict, as if other conflicts were merely disguised class conflict.
The next section is clear enough. But some points perhaps need some emphasis. On p.79, lines 3 and 4, underline "appropriate the labour" and "command the obedience". This is a definition.
In the next paragraph underline the first sentence "relations of domination are in no sense subordinate". This defines the theoretical point at issue.
5-6 lines from bottom of p.79 underline "salaried managers and professionals". This is the particular question over which the theoretical issues comes to a head.
On p.80, 3 lines for the end of the first paragraph, underline "domination"--the Weberians seem to win.
Read now to 2 lines through p.81, "what characterises".
According to Marxists class is somehow more fundamental than any other category. At least in the last analysis, social conflict is class conflict. So how is this true? Read from p.81 to the next heading, p.82, two thirds of the way down.
Before reading the next section, refresh your memory of Weber's account of class. Turn to Readings, p.164, and read the page. At the bottom of p.927, "property and lack of property are therefore the basic categories of all class situations... Within these categories however class situations are further differentiated"--and read to the end of the paragraph.
Now return to Burris, and on p.83, 6 lines down, underline "only in the process of production". Now read to the heading on p.86.
On p.83, 5 lines from the bottom, "Sraffian" is a reference to the economist Sraffa. Behind the argument of this section lies Marx's rejection of buying and selling as the explanation of the possibility of capitalism and his claim that what explains the existence of capitalism is the fact that there is certain commodity, labour power, which has the peculiar use of generating value. In the market M money is exchanged for C commodity, which is again exchanged for money--but for more money, because meanwhile the commodity has been used in the process of production. Of the commodities used in production only labour power has a capacity to generate increased exchange value. So factories employing labour are essential for capitalism, whereas on Weber's analysis the focus of attention is on the markets outside the factory gates.
The last sentence of this section, that "Marxism has become increasingly entangled in the web of appearances", might remind you again of the late Engels: the superstructure has to be taken seriously and its history must be studied, since superstructure reacts upon base.
Now read the conclusion.
If you haven't already done so, send Parkin, "Beliefs and Social Action". In Burris's article Parkin figures as a Weberian critic of Marxism. In "Beliefs and Social Action" you will find him criticising Weber from a position that clearly owes something to Marx -- though as I said in commenting on Weber, Weber owes a good deal to Marx, and is not too far from the late Engels: the conflict between Marx and Weber has often been exaggerated.
Return to Teaching
Materials on Political Thought
Return to Home Page