What is the Marxist View of Religion?
This A-Level Sociology video explores the Marxist perspective on religion.
Snippet from video:
By contrast to Functionalists, Marxists view societies as parts of two classes.
The first consists of those that exploits the labour of others, particularly within a capitalist society where the capitalist class exploits the working class through the ownership of production means.
Within this type of society there is always potential for class conflict where Marx predicted that at some point in the future the working class would become aware of their exploitation and unite to overthrow capitalism.
This would result in a classless society with no exploitation.
Marx’s view of religion is similar to his view of society. While functionalism views religion as a unifying force strengthening value consensus as a feature of all societies; Marxists view religion as a feature that exists in class-divided societies only. Therefore, religion would not be needed in classless societies.