marxist sociology

Tahir Wood twood at uwc.ac.za
Thu Feb 21 01:20:11 PST 2002


Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 12:29:52 -0500 From: "Charles Brown" <CharlesB at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Subject: marxist sociology

CB: Marx pretty much invented scientific sociology and political science.

Tahir: This remark needs either a lot of evidence or a lot of qualification.

_Capital_ is the first or one of the first uses of data as used in sociology and poli sci.

Tahir: Well that's the difference between us. I don't think it does that at all. Which of these thinkers do you think took their lead from Capital: Comte, Durkheim, Weber, Parsons ... ?

If you look in most basic sociology texts, they claim Marx as a founder.

Tahir: Not the ones I've seen.

In the Marxist division of the disciplines , there is a basic divsion between natural history and history. All of what are termed in bourgeois academe "social sciences" fall under history.

Tahir: Charles, this is very confused indeed. Let me short circuit this a little, if somewhat flippantly: Marx did not propose a sociology, a political science, an anthropology, etc. etc. I hope we can at least agree on that. So what are their foundign concepts, how do they delimit themselves from one another and what basis in marxism (as you claim) do these founding concepts and delimitations have? I think if you investigate the matter you will find that the latter are not only foreign to marxism but antithetical to it.



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