Carl Marx believed in a universal dialectical process, that played itself out in the human realm as conflict between classes.  He suggested an implicit disposition of human nature that would eventually realize its destiny in a transformed human society, referred to as Communism.  Well know political scientist Douglas North, conversely, asserted that humanity/human society existed on a sliding scale of organization, from fragile natural states to open access societies.  North asserted that there was no implicit destiny that human society would eventually arrive at. North, furthermore, asserted that the “natural state” (i.e. power dominance and elite-class rulership) was more akin to human disposition, but that it was possible to move toward (not forward) a more open access environment…and just as possible to move toward destabilized fragile states as well.

In this “Natural State”, elite players have created a situation where they command resources from average, controlled, agents.  As long as the elites observe that it is more beneficial for them to get rents in a peaceful situation, and less advantageous in a conflict situation, this “keeps the peace”.  In the various stages of natural states, the ever-constant agenda of controlling society to have unequal access to resources by the elites (rent creation) is the underpinning of social stability, and, the road-block to equality and impersonality, the foundation of open access societies.  Natural states rely on rent creation as the building block of social control, and the degree to which it is present is also an indicator of the degree to which a society is distanced from an open access environment.  Rent creation is important to Natural States b/c there can be no Natural State without rent control (according to North).  Rent creation and Natural states are to North, synonymous.

According to North there are strong and very specific delineations between Natural and Open Access orders.  He asserted that the Natural state was the most common, most used, and thus the default model that humans have been using since the beginning of the agricultural revolution 8-10 thousand years ago.  He believed (unlike Marx) that the Natural state was the default organizational model, not an inevitable Communist or Open Access state.  According to North, the issue of controlling and regulating violence is a key necessity of all social organization, and humans are most naturally disposed to have an elite community that imposed rent-control conditions on the group and who use this as the mechanism to enact social order.  It is important because it offers no utopian eventuality, does not decree that the Universe, or innate human disposition, or anything else will ensure or direct human social order.  It is also a reminder that societies can slide into violence and instability as well as move “forward”.  Those committed to open access societies must realize that open access is created, must be worked for, and must be maintained.  Equality, impersonality, fair and equal legal governance; these are the building blocks of open access and must be defended and maintained in order to ensure that open access societies survive.

Regarding Capitalism:  Max Weber asserted that the Protestant Reformation marked the beginning of a New Capitalism.  He differed from Marx in his assertion that capitalism (the pursuits of wealth and gain) was endemic to human society, and nothing new.  What Weber observed was a fundamental difference in this “new” form: a twofold difference.

(1) Wealth for the first time pursued not as a means to gain access to luxury or power.

(2)  The pursuit of wealth holding a special place in human inner world as never before.

According to Weber, the Protestant sects, having trimmed the lazy fat from common catholic practices, declared that an individual’s efforts, and her efforts alone, determined her spirituality, her commitment to God, and her character as a religious person.  The Protestant ethic was akin to the monastic orders of the church; self denial; minimal living; hard work; frugality.  For the first time-  self-denying, non-luxury-seeking, work as meritorious in and of itself- people, were pursuing worldly success in order to display, to testify, their faith and purity.  At no time in the past had there been people for whom work and success had internal value akin to religious commandments, to core religious ethical values, who at the same time refused to immerse themselves in the traditional use of wealth. Protestants possessed an inner worldly asceticism, inner worldly referring to having a spiritual process as in internal while one “lived in the world”, as opposed to former religious ascetics (priest/monks) who performed their religious process upon the world (good works, charity, priest/monk), as outer worldly.

Marx and Weber differ strongly regarding their theories of causation in regards to human society.  Putting aside the teleological differences, Marx understands observed human society as a direct result of, as a predictable outcome determined by, the particular manner in which said society sustains itself.  i.e. its “mode of production”, which can be defined best by example:  Hunter/Gatherer, agriculturalism, feudalism, capitalism.  A mode of production is the big-picture “how” that defines the manner in which a society produces its material existence.

For Marx, everything else – religion, philosophy, architecture, status, class, law, gender relations, etc – make sense in, and make sense of, this material process of existence.  This is the “Base” determining the rest of society which is built on top of and comes from it.  This is a very important distinction as it places material conditions as prime causation.  For Weber, this is an insufficient assessment of causality.  Weber observed causal conditions like beliefs and religious movements that were not easily explained away by Marx’s insistence on the primacy of material conditions.  A Marxist would this observe and analyze only certain aspects of a society, and interpret social phenomena from the Marx-model. Anyone investigating Marxist ideology would want to be aware of this foundational assumption, and be aware of the immensity this filter this has on Marxist social interpretation.