Karl Marx viewed religion not as an independent force, but as a social product deeply intertwined with economic structures and class struggle, serving to legitimize inequality and alienate the oppressed.
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[Music]
good afternoon and welcome to cc gurukul
lecture in continuation with the series
on sociology of religion in today's
lecture i am going to discuss a very
important thinker that's karl marx most
of us who have studied sociology are
familiar with karl marx as he is one of
the founding figures in sociology
today we are going to discuss karl marx
concept on or his understanding on
religion but before we understand what
karl marx talks about religion we need
to understand who was karl marx and
specifically his method approach to
study society and to begin with we'll see
see
that karl marx was a german philosopher
and he made an attempt to understand
religion from a scientific objective
perspective if we keep in mind the
context in which karl marx was writing
it was a time when sociology was being
designed as a science of society that is
people were making attempt to understand
society from a scientific perspective
what is known in sociology as positivist
school of positivism so in that
perspective karl marx was making an
attempt to understand society and we see
that nowhere is he specifically talking
about religion he's known for his theory
of class struggle for the understanding
of capitalism alienation but he is not
specifically addressing religion as such
but then through his understanding of
society because he's trying to
problematize understanding of society he
makes reference to what is religion and
we'll see in the course of the
discussion that he is putting religion
within the context of class struggle
between how people from the
class which does not have property who
don't own property uh take on religion
as a kind of an illusion for them it is
a means of coming out of the class
structure and therefore it is very
important to first understand mark's
theory of class struggle marx theory of
class analysis and we'll kind of
understand that when we look into karl
marx or we try to understand karl marx
it what comes into mind is his
understanding of materialism or and in
that context he will put religion as an
ex expression of material realities now
what does it mean when we talk about
materialism it says something which has
a value something which can is kind of
has an exchange value and therefore he
will be putting an understanding of
religion within the broader context of
economic determinism or what we call as materialistic
materialistic
or historical materialism in literature
or text on karl marx we get to unders
here a lot of terms dialectical
materialism historical materialism so
these are where in which he is trying to
understand the structures of society
from an economic perspective
he tries to
reduce most of the understanding of what
the structure of a society is
dependent on the relations of modes of
production and that is materialistic
understanding so when we try to
understand religion he would be actually
looking into the problems of society and
problems of society in terms of the
inequality the difference oppression in
terms of exploitation
or also within the larger uh
discourse on the shift of social uh
society due to industrialization
urbanization towards an alienated
society towards a fetish society so we
will put his understanding of religion
and keep in mind his larger debates of
class struggle and dialectical
materialism so we kind of quickly look
into his theory of class struggle we
know that karl marx looked into history
as a class struggle and what was the
struggle around the club struggle was
around the material production
when he talks about material production
basically he wants to say that there is
a means of production that is through
which you can produce or manufacture and
what are the means of production it
could be a land it could be ownership of
factory it could it could be the modes
of production so one there is a class
struggle between those who have
ownership of the mozart production
versus those who are denied any kind of
access and in in this context he will
say that as society moves it is an
indication of change in the ownership of
mozart production so history is a
representation of the struggle over the
material production and history in in
according to karl marx is basically
based on material economic and social
conditions for him the social condition
of individuals in a society at a
particular point of history is the
outcome of his economic conditions so if
you are say in a position to own owner
property then your social status in
society is better because you have a
bargaining power and you can bargain
whereas those who do not have any access
to property their social status is kind
of at the margin because they cannot
kind of determine what price should they
get for their labor he
he
marx was looking into
most of the time referring to the
european history and he says that all
developing society kind of passes
through this phase and as the modes of
production or the relations of material
production changes there is a social
change that kind of takes place
so materialism according to karl marx
and this is in the words of marx is the
sum total of the natural environment and
this includes all of inorganic nature
the organic world social life and human
consciousness so he is the kind of not
making any kind of a distinction between
economy so social and your
capacity to kind of be conscious about
your status in society so they are kind
of related and the base for him if we
kind of look into his theory he says the
base is the economy and on the base we
can kind of place the culture so the
moment the base changes it would
automatically lead to change in the
social and cultural element so dialectic
is a term which he borrowed from hegel
and dialectical he's kind of interested in
in
dialectical means two way so it kind of
refers to him human conditions uh
history of human life being conditioned
by material economic conditions so just as
as
change is kind of a part of society if uh
uh
history when we go to history it talks
about the stages of the development of
society so when we try to understand
from a dialectical materialism then it
implies that the material conditions in
the society have undergone change which
has resulted a change in the course of
the history and therefore his own his
kind of focus or main motive was to
understand human behavior and by
understanding human behavior he's trying
to make reference to history and economy
and in this discourse of trying to
understand the evolution of
the historical stages from
say capitalism to communism
he is trying to understand the functions
of religion or what role religion plays
in different stages of history
so therefore when we look into his
economic theory for which he is more
well read and more recognized we see
that he kind of creates a structure
which in most of the textbook would be
represented as a triangle and i just
said that the base of the triangle would
be the material
sources or material conditions and this
would include division of labor class
struggle and on this on top of the base
if you move towards the
edge of the triangle is based the social institution
institution
so which kind of it is in uh
reflection that whatever change takes
place they will be reflected on the apex
and therefore economic conditions led to
change in the social conditions so
institutions which are at the superstructure
superstructure
are built upon the base of economy
totally dependent on material and
economic realities
all of these institutions which is kind
of social and cultural which is a part
of everyday life like marriage church
government art etc
can be understood when we understand the
relations to economic forces and as i've
already said the economic forces is
basically the relations to the means of production
production
and in a very common sensical world it
refers to the relations between those
who have ownership and this is the
capitalist class versus those who are
denied any kind of
and when we look into his theory of
class struggle it refers to this class
struggle between the bougie and the
proletariat so marx observed that
there's a parallel between religious and
socio-economic activity so for him it
was the change in economic conditions
that would bring about a change in the
religious conditions so the role of
religion during capitalism would be
entirely different from what it would be
during communism
in later lectures we will talk about
weber and we see how weber would turn
marx upside down for weber it would be
the social cultural uh dimension or
structure that would lead to change in
the economic conditions and for that is
the classical work of weber the
protestant ethic and spirit of
capitalism is uh is the most important
work that we refer to in
sociology opposed to karl marx weber
would suggest that it was the protestant
ethic that is religion or part of the
cultural life that led to the
development of capitalism so we will
discuss more about weber in the next
lecture but today let's try to
understand marks so for marx any kind of
change in the culture is the outcome of
the change in the relations to modes of
productions and in that context marx saw
religion as a social product
emerging out of social relations so and
the relations here is basically it was
to do with the ownership of property but
was also a social relation because it
decided the relation between the
proletariat and the boosters so the
out of this relation between the two
class religion kind of emerges religion
did not exist all by itself independent
of social and economic forces
and later on kind of he kind of looks
into from a conflict perspective and
that's what karl marx's theory is kind
of more put into
sociology books as conflict theorists is
to look into how religion becomes a
means to control the mass the mars are
the ones who do not have access to the
capitalist modes of production and it
also becomes an instrument in
legitimizing injustice whereas the
injustice the injustice is when we go
into karl marx economic theory where the
surplus value or from any kind of a
manufacturing or production is
appropriated by the upper class and therefore
therefore
those who are at the are not being
sufficiently compensated for the labor
that they have put into it so there is
an element of inequality or injustice
and religion comes in here as an
instrument of justifying or kind of
legitimizing that injustice is coming
out of the class differences so it was
during the renaissance and the
reformation the references and
reformation was a period when there was
a kind of lot of discussions or debates
discussed on kind of uh purifying
religion specifically in the western
context the christianity and this was a
time when the church and the
state got separated and there was the
idea that church and state had two
different kind of domain to function uh
prior to that it was the church which
was regulating the political
role of the
society as well so during the
reformation of post-reformation religion
started being questioned the role of
religion becoming started being
questioned and that is where we will see
that we can put in uh mark's theory of
understanding religion as an opium of
the masses
so when we look into his materialistic perspective
