on Durkheim and Weber
by David Fasenfest
13 April 2004 14:37 UTC
"Without getting embroiled, I just want to observe that American Sociology has long viewed the work of Weber through the limited perspective of Parsonian translations and his functionalist perspectives. Similarly, the readings of Durkheim were filtered by religious functionalism in the use of his work by early US scholars.
"In fact, Weber's writings were explicitly political. He just thought that a rational state in the political arena leads to a rational corporate structure in the economic arena, and counter to Marx--who argued for political and economic reform organically driven from below Weber sought political and economic reform structurally driven from above by rationalization of organization. That this lead easily to more functionalist and in many instances proto-fascist tendencies does not negate some of the nuance of his argument (some might argue that end was/is inevitable).
p>"And in Durkheim we can easily find the core of the welfare state and liberalism as many argue for it today. He was not willing to declare the system corrupt, though he did argue that there was corruption in the system due to unequal power relations--leading to the rapacious abuse of the disadvantaged by the advantaged, and calling for state intervention as a corrective.
"As Marxist scholars we would be well served to accurately understand the roots of contemporary theorizing much as Marx excavates the then extant roots of social and economic theories in the Grundrisse--must reading to understand the context within which Marx writes. It is in his method of inquiry and not the doctrine of his writings that we uncover our contemporary social and political economy."
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Durkheim and Weber