Social Cohesion and Legal Coercion: A Critique of Weber, Durkheim, and Marx

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Rodopi, 1997 - 402 pages
The book is a critical analysis of the work of Max Weber, Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx. It focuses on their separate analyses of the role of law in society, pointing out their faults and errors, and the resultant impact on modern social science. The author takes issue with Weber's work on rationality, with Durkheim's work on repressive and restitutive law, and with Marx's work on social justice and law as part of the super-structure.
In each section of the book he shows the implications that flow from a re-assessment and re-interpretation of their work for an understanding of society. The book is multi-disciplinary, making ample reference to law, sociology, anthropology, history, religion, ecology, criminology, philosophy and economics. Its various chapters discuss a wide range of themes, including rationality, tradition, science, political authority, conflict resolution, community, justice and altruism.

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Contents

Chapter
1
Chapter
11
Chapter Three
35
Chapter Four
55
Chapter Five
83
Chapter
109
Chapter Seven
129
Chapter Eight
153
ON RADICALISM AND IDEOLOGY
227
ON LIBERTY AND EQUALITY
251
ON WEALTH AND ALTRUISM
279
Chapter Fourteen
309
AFTERWORD by Virginia Black
319
NOTES
335
BIBLIOGRAPHY
377
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
393

Chapter Nine
177
Chapter
207
SUBJECT INDEX
399
Copyright

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Page 215 - At a certain stage of their development, the material forces of production in society come in conflict with the existing relations of production...
Page 207 - The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political, and spiritual processes of life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.
Page 215 - In considering such transformations a distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic — in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.
Page 263 - Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both: (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent with the just savings principle, and (b) attached to Offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.
Page 191 - States, no State has the right to use or permit the use of its territory in such a manner as to cause injury by fumes in or to the territory of another or the properties or persons therein, when the case is of serious consequence and the injury is established by clear and convincing evidence.
Page 274 - A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.
Page 240 - When socialism first began to be talked about, the comfortable classes of the community were a good deal frightened I suspect that this fear has influenced judicial action both here and in England, yet it is certain that it is not a conscious factor in the decisions to which I refer.

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