Karl Marx versus Max Weber: The Forefathers’ Heritage As a Social History Constant

Abstract

The study gives an analysis of impact of Karl Marx and Max Weber and their classic theories on the development of the social historiography. Marx and Weber not only stood with their theoretical works behind the foundation of modern social sciences but generated homogenous concepts of historical development. Marxsist concepts of socioeconomic formations and class struggle are usually interpreted in sharp contrast to Weberian theories of rationalization and types of domination (Herrschaft). Certainly one can agree that up to the present day both systems are of extreme explicative potential. The opinion which of these systems adequately describes social reality of historical periods and the dynamics of historical change became during the 20th century the distinctive mark of individual research approaches in social history. Marx’s and Weber’s work unquestionablyinfluenced the classics of modern social history, from British Marxists associated with the journal Past and Present and History Workshop, following the founders of Bielefeld school to the post-modern trends of microhistory, historical anthropology and so-called linguistic turn. The main contribution of this study is therefore the reflection of those impacts that up to the present day ultimately determine the debates on the key term of the social history — the character of the “Social”.