Functionalism and Marxism

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Key Ideas Key Criticisms • Purpose and Needs • Organismic Analogy • Supports political and economic status quo (everything has a function) • Consensus Theory (value consensus) • Social Structure (Macro approach) • Over-emphasis upon the "beneficial" aspects of institutions, structures. • Social Solidarity • Collective Conscience • Difficult to explain rapid social change • Institutions (Functional interdependence) • Social system • Tautology (a statement that contains its own proof): "If something exists • Functional sub-systems: Economic. Political. Family/Kinship. Cultural it has a function. It has a function because it exists…"). • Functional Imperatives (GAIL): ü Goal Attainment • Error of reification (Belief that non-human things like "society" can have ü Adaptation human qualities such as" needs and purposes"). ü Integration ü Latency (Pattern maintenance) Key Critics: Any Marxist sociologist, Radical Feminists, Marxist Feminists. • Latent and Manifest functions (Merton) • Dysfunctions Key Names: Durkheim, Parsons, Merton, Malinowski www.sociology.org.uk www.sociology.org.uk Key Ideas Key Criticisms • Traditional (Instrumental) and Neo-Marxist types • Unscientific (the "Faith of Marxism" - Popper) • Social class (economic - Ownership of the means of production) • Conspiracy theory (especially aimed at Instrumental Marxists) • Class conflict • Communism does not appear imminent • Ruling class / Subject classes (Exploitative social relationships) • Left Functionalism (Jock Young: argues most "Marxism" is little more than • Class consciousness and False Consciousness form of Functionalism that replaces interests of "society" with "ruling • Social Structure (Macro approach) and Institutions class"). Especially “Instrumental Marxism” (e.g. Milliband) • Alienation • Subjective beliefs and interpretations of individuals ignored (Weber) • Ideology • Economic determinism • "Ideological State Apparatuses" (ISAs) - Althusser • Forms of (non-economic) conflict (gender, ethnic group) ignored in • "Repressive State Apparatuses" (RSAs) - Althusser favour of economic conflicts • Hegemony • Economic base (infrastructure) and Political/Ideological superstructure Key Critics: Popper, Weber, Dahrendorf, Young ("Left Idealism") • Classes and class fractions Any New Right Theorist, Sociobiologists, Radical Feminists. Critical of Capitalism Key Names: Marx, Althusser, Gramsci, Poulantzas, Milliband, Hall, Taylor, Walton and Young, Bowles and Gintis www.sociology.org.uk www.sociology.org.uk.

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