Economy (Sociological Approach)

Abstract

The general problem of how to conceptualize and explain the relations of the economy to wider contexts of human behavior has been one of the main themes of major theorists in the sociological tradition. In the classical phase of sociological thought, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim each treated the problem. In the writings of Marx, what has been called the base–superstructure model rests upon the concept of a mode of production that includes social relations of production and forces of production, corresponding approximately to economy and technology, respectively. Social classes consist of persons who occupy the same position in the social relations of production, such as lord and serf in the feudal mode of production and capitalist and wage laborer in the capitalist mode of production. The dominant class employs its power advantage to shape a superstructure consisting of non‐economic institutions along with a dominant ideology reflecting the interests of the ruling class. This model is associated with a theory of social change, as inThe Communist Manifesto, in which Marx and Engels analyze the historical dynamics of the rise and fall of capitalism in terms of revolutionary change involving conflicts between aristocrats, who represent the declining feudal mode of production, and the bourgeoisie, who in ushering in capitalism are also giving birth to their own “gravediggers,” the class of wage laborers.