Individuals as Source of Social Order

Marx

The Problem

• How do humans… – …achieve predictability (COORDINATION) – …overcome urge to self-serve (COOPERATION)

• In other words: “what mechanisms lead to

coordination and cooperation?”

Ants Do It

Slime Molds Do It

Wolves Do It

How Do They Cooperate and Coordinate?

Communication

• Requires common understanding and belief – About things – About others – About concepts – About symbols

• With shared meanings we can interpret actions as meaningful, communicate intent, settle on abstract agreements, empathize

Shared Social Meanings

But Where Do Those Come From?

Time Line

Karl Marx 1818-1873

George Herber Mead 1863–1931

Ludwick Fleck 1896 – 1961

Émile Durkheim 1858-1917

Dov Cohen contemporary

Joe Vandello contemporary

1850 1900 1950

Karl Marx and Social Theory

Karl Marx’s

Birthplace

Trier, Germany

1818-1873

Karl Marx’s Grave

Highgate Cemetery

London, England

Engels’ “Speech at the Graveside of Karl Marx”

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fkdsNwQrwRY/T2KcIlZVSuI/AAAAAAAAIo8/C6cI8DEiAv8/s1600/Engels.jpg

“On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and when we came back we found him in his armchair, peacefully gone to sleep -- but for ever.”

“Just as Darwin discovered the law of development or organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.;

“that therefore the production of the immediate material means, and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch, form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case.

Biography cont’d

• Father was successful lawyer • Grew up as assimilated Jew, baptized

Protestant • Classical Gymnasium • Studied law at Bonn and Berlin • 1841 (age 23) Ph.D. on Pre-Socratic Greek

philosophers

Biography cont’d

• Radical activities at university kept him from becoming a professor

• Started career as journalist/editor • Chased out of Germany 1843, then out of

France and Belgium. Ends up settling in London

• Meets Engels 1844. They work together for rest of their lives.

Influences

• German Philosophy

• English Economics

• French History Aron (1968, 178):

What does Marx take from Hegel?

• Unity of succession of societies • Stages of humankind • Idea that “history hangs together” • Connection of consciousness and history

– that there is a “spirit of the times”

• Dialectical thinking

How does Marx depart from Hegel?

• troubled by Hegel’s approach as “all ideas” – how do we find it in PRACTICE?

• For Hegel – THOUGHT as subject, EXISTENCE as predicate.

• Feuerbach offered alternative: – HUMAN as subject and THOUGHT as predicate

The Dialectic

Thesis Antithesis

Synthesis(Thesis)

Antithesis

Synthesis(Thesis)

Antithesis

Synthesis

Figure 2. After http://www2.bc.edu/~heineman/marx.html

Hegel’s Dialectic vs. Marx’s

• Marx’s is about battles between classes

FeudalLords

Serfs &Peasants

CityLife

Guilds

EntrepreneursProletariat

ClasslessSociety

Figure 3. After http://www2.bc.edu/~heineman/marx.html

Hegel vs. Marx Idealism v. Materialism

• Idealism: ideas/concepts first, actual material conditions of the world follow

• Materialism: real conditions of real people come first, ideas/concepts come later.

Marx

• What is Marx trying to explain?

• Shared meaning: consciousness/ideology

Marx: Cause

• Humans differ from animals – they produce their means of life

• What individuals are derives from – what they produce – how they produce it

• The production of ideas and concepts flows from man’s material activity and commerce

THUS Marx: Cause

• Cause: The mode of production – What we produce and how we produce it

Marx: Causal Relation

• Mode of Production Ideology

Ideology

Marx: Mechanisms/Assumptions

• People are malleable – Not innately “good” or “evil” – Rather, we change depending on our material

world

Marx: Draw the theory

Mode of Production

Ideology

Marx: How do we know if the theory has merit?

• Look at the empirical world

Empirical implications

• Ideals of sharing should be more pronounced in societies dominated by big game hunters than in those dominated by gatherers of salmon and berries

• Groups that participate in the global economy ought to see things differently than those that engage primarily in subsistence agriculture (see work by the Norms and Preferences Network)