Marx and Weber on the Transition to Capitalist Modernity Essay

Marx and Weber on the Transition to Capitalist Modernity - Essay Example Thus, the predicate "modern" specifies not historical time, but to the degree of development of on what it is applied. Two moments – the representation of capitalism as universal transhistorical process and the concentrated expression of the capitalistic nature not in its basis, and in its superstructure named by "spirit of capitalism", - the researchers distinguish the concept of M. Weber from similar concepts of his ideological opponent K.Marx. It is possible to be expressed so: Weber adhered to a principle of plurality of historical forms of capitalism and Marx supported the thesis of the uniqueness of capitalism. Â  The ethical additive to the former forms of capitalism allowing them to become modern capitalism, according to Weber, is a qualitative change. Between "old" capitalism what Marx has had time to find, and "new" capitalism what Weber looked at, the distance of the huge size lays. The critical descriptions of capitalism (sale of children in slavery, prostitution, criminality, merciless operation of workers, falsification of products, brutal working conditions and a life, unemployment and poverty) which we meet on pages of "Capital" by K.Marx, should concern, according to Weber’s logic, not to the modern civilized capitalism, but to the vestiges of the old, adventurous capitalism which has historically settled. Â  The main thing, that differs the approach of M. Weber from similar attempts to explain an origin and evolution of K.Marx’s capitalism, is the concept of the motivation of labor activity. Anybody from them at all has not mentioned and has not explained, why the traditional thinking and the traditional attitude to work brakes the promotion to a market economy and interferes with an increase in labor productivity.