The Neo-marxist Synthesis of Marx and Weber on Class

IT HAS OFTEN BEEN COMMENTED that the bulk of Weber's sociology represents a prolonged " dialogue with the ghost of Marx " (Giddens, 1971, p. 185). Today it could equally be said that the bulk of contemporary Marxist writing represents a prolonged dialogue with the ghost of Weber. Without always acknowledging the fact (or even necessarily being aware of it), contemporary Marxists have drawn heavily upon Weberian concepts in their effort to adapt classical Marxism to the conditions of late twentieth-century capitalism. This tendency is particularly characteristic of recent Marxist writings on the state, bureaucracy, legitimation, and the class structure. Theoretical viewpoints that were once " external " to Marxism and that commonly served as the basis for criticizing or rejecting Marxism, have thus been incorporated (albeit in an altered form) within Marxist theory itself. At the same time, there has been a parallel, if less pervasive, trend among Weberian theorists to reinterpret Weber's sociology in a manner that renders it more compatible with the premises of Marxism. This " de-Parsonizing " of Weber, as it is sometimes called, has entailed a deemphasis of the subjectivist themes in Weber's methodological writings and an elaboration of the social-structural dimension implicit in his later substantive works (Collins, 1980; Turner, 1981). As a result of these twin developments, it has now become necessary to reassess the relationship between contemporary Marxist and Weberian theory so as to clarify both the tendencies toward convergence as well as the remaining areas of disagreement.