The Significance for Economic Anthropology of the Work of...

What is the significance for economic anthropology of the work of Marx and Durkheim? Introduction The works of Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim have proved that they were indeed the finding fathers of modern social theory during the late 19th to the early 20th century. Along with others (i.e. Weber, Simmel, Veblen etc.) they had laid down the foundations of our understanding of the relationships that are held between culture and society on one hand, and economic activity on the other hand. Marx saw economics in terms of conflicts between different interest groups, which he referred to as ‘classes’, over rights to various facets of the processes of production, and the effect that those conflicts had on determining other areas of culture.†¦show more content†¦Furthermore, it isn’t agreed as being ethnocentric to contradict non-western societies their autonomous evolution, as history has already done that (Hart, 2001). As for Marx, economic anthropology is a collection of analytical concepts of the capitalist modes of production, adapted by modern awareness of the world that headed, and lies outside capitalism. Lange (1865-6) wrote a series of newspaper articles in which he considers Marx’s importance to lie in the historical sense that he had agreed to their revision of Victorian capitalism; whilst others such as Althusser (1965) see Capital as a constructive text that leaked from the dialectical historicism and subjectivity of the earlier economic writings (Hart, 2001). Overall, neither the succeeding Marxist tradition nor scholarly anthropologists have ever come near to corresponding Marx’s idea of human history as a whole. Marx’s contribution has been very vast in the outset of economical anthropology and the amalgamation of politics and sociology with economic. The most influential bond of Marxism and anthropology was represented in the French school which succeeded in the 60s and 70s. Emile Durkheim’s significance Emile Durkheim was a French sociologist who lived from 1858-1917, was the author of the both The Division of Labour in Society (1893) in which Durkheim set to inaugurate the social basis of modern economies. Durkheim also accumulated aShow MoreRelatedMarxist Perspective On Religion And Liberation Theology1199 Words   |  5 Pagestheory, which examined the interaction between economic systems and power structures such as religious institutions, the power relations of the economy were reinforced by â€Å"traditional religious icons or the modern icons of mass consumerism† (Callaghan 199). 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