In constant foux

Sociology cannot be satisfied with any theoretical perspective that remains static in nature and that presents the world as fixed and unchanging. We live in a world that is in constant flux, and sociology developed as a perspective on the predominant direction of change in the modern world. All of the classical sociologists presented societies as undergoing a process of social development. For Comte this was a development towards a fully 'industrial' society, and for Marx it was a development towards a fully 'capitalist' society. Each of these two theorists saw the current stage of society as a prelude to a reconstruction-revolutionary in the case of Marx - that would bring about more humane forms of social existence.

Durkheim elaborated on the Comtean view and saw the key feature of industrialism as being a growth in 'organic solidarity', and he saw thenreconstruction of society as requiring the establishment of a re-moralised, ethical regulation of the social division of labour. Weber debated with Marxist ideas and depicted the development of modern capitalism as resting on important changes in religious outlook and practical ethics. He depicted the future of capitalist industrialism as a progressively more and more dehumanised existence in a 'steel-hard' cage of bureaucratic structures.

With the development of professional sociology, these founding ideas on social change were elaborated. Parsons and his associates developed the views of Comte and Durkheim, adding to these an evolutionary account that owed a great deal to early writers such as Spencer. Writers committed to a more radical 'conflict' perspective elaborated on the growing class and ethnic conflicts that beset modern societies.