Income Inequality The Perspectives Of Marx And Weber Essay

Income Inequality in American Society: The Perspectives of Marx and Weber In the United States, income inequality is drawing more and more attention from the media, sociologists, politicians, and everyday citizens like us since the economic difference during the past decades became more pronounced than before. Karl Marx and Max Weber both discussed their ideas of social inequality and addressed the relationship between inequality and social structure as an important theme in their work. This paper compares and contrasts the approaches of Marx and Weber to the issue of inequality in American society. The discussion includes their arguments concerning how stratification in society influences income inequality and distinguishes their predictions about its trends. According to Marx’s theory, social stratification is created by unequal property relations and by people s differing relationship to the means of production: either they own productive property or they provide labor for others. In a capitalist society, the bourgeoisie, or the ruling class, owns the means of production, such as tools, machines or resources that can be used to produce commodities or objects with value. The proletariat, or the working class, possess no means of production other than their own labor power, which they sell to the bourgeoisie in order to earn wage and survive. However, Marx believed that the capitalist economic order would corrode eventually, through its internal conflict between twoShow MoreRelatedTheories of Social Inequality Essay881 Words   |  4 PagesTheories of Social Inequality In briefly evaluating the classical and modern explanations of social inequality, it is essential that we step outside the realm of our own lives, class position, and discard any assumptions we might have about the nature of inequality. This process of critical pedagogy allows us to view our world, not from our perspective, but from a wider, more critical analysis of inequalitys nature. 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