Marxism

• Engel - inheritance of property reproduces class inequalities as land and private properties stay within the family
• ideological functions - parental authority and power over the children allow them to accept orders from their capitalist workers. Zaretsky - the home offers a safe haven away from the world of work
• Inequality are inevitable?
• Capitalism


  Exploits the labour of the workers, making a profit by selling the products of their labour for more than it pays them to produce these commodities
• Family

  Plays a major role in generating profits for capitalists, since it is an important market for the sale of consumer goods
• Functions of the family that maintain capitalist society

  • Inheritance of private property
  • Socialisation into acceptance of inequality
  • Source of profits
• These functions may benefit capitalism, but they do not benefit the members of the family
• Marxists tend to assume that the nuclear family is dominant in capitalist society, ignoring the wide variety of family structures found in society today
• Feminists argue that the Marxist emphasis on class and capitalism underestimates the importance of gender inequalities within the family, which are more fundamental than class inequalities
• Functionalists argue that Marxists ignore the very real benefits that the family provides for its members
• Unit of consumption

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