Karl Marx and Max Weber, both social scientists, devoted much of their work to the defining of capitalism through understanding its creation, causes, workings, and destiny. In their evaluations of capitalism they arrive at two distinct conclusion caused by similar and distinctly different factors. It seems abstruse that Marx and Weber could study the same system and come to two radically different conclusions it would seem that one must be right and the other wrong. Their estimations of capitalism were generated from two distinct angles of approach, causing them to start and finish at two divergent theories. As a result of Marx and Weber's opposing approaches to the analysis of capitalism their understanding and beliefs of the origin, the dynamics, and the future of capitalism are fundamentally different.
Marx's comprehension of history is described through constant class struggle, "oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another" (Marx, 474), throughout the phases of the world. He believed that each phase of history was defined by and ultimately driven by the dominate mode of production of the time. Marx analysis of capitalism is derived from his concentration on class struggle and its means of subsistence, not other factors of the dominate superstructure (religion, law, culture, and morality). Weber on the contrary focused on social reaction based on aspects of the superstructure, the Protestant religion, drawing from a broader range of factors. Unlike Marx, Weber understood that people are part of other social groups not just the dominate mode of production, and focused on what distinguished these groups from the rest. Their two dissimilar components of analysis, social interaction and control of capital, provoked conflicting understanding of capitalism!.
between Marx and Weber.
These differences are evident in their explanations of the origins of capitalism.
