Breaking down the question
The command word is comment on, which invites an analytical appraisal rather than a plain summary. The subject is precise: the responses of the functionalist school to Marx's views on social change. Two bodies of thought are being set against each other, and the axis of the question is change — how each theory explains why societies transform, in what direction, and by what mechanism.
To respond well you must first state Marx's position with fidelity, because a caricature of Marx makes the functionalist reply look stronger than it is. Marx sees social change as driven by contradiction between the forces and relations of production, unfolding dialectically through class struggle towards revolutionary rupture. The functionalist school — Parsons above all, with Davis, Moore and later Smelser — replies with a rival account in which change is gradual, adaptive and integrative, arising from within the system rather than from its violent overthrow.
A strong answer therefore proceeds along three lines:
- An accurate compression of Marx on change — materialist, dialectical, conflictual, revolutionary.
- The functionalist counter-model — evolutionary, equilibrium-seeking, consensus-based.
- An evaluation that neither dismisses Marx nor accepts functionalism uncritically, noting how the conflict theorists mediated between them.
For the underlying Marxian framework, see the note on Marx, historical materialism and class.
How to approach it
Begin by laying out Marx cleanly, because the whole answer is a dialogue with him. Compress historical materialism into its engine of change: the tension between developing productive forces and static production relations, expressed as class conflict, resolved through revolution and the succession of modes of production.
Then turn to the functionalist responses, and treat them as responses — not a self-standing lecture on Parsons. Organise the reply around the points of disagreement: the source of change (internal adaptation versus contradiction), its pace (evolutionary versus revolutionary), its agent (the differentiating system versus the mobilised class), and its outcome (restored equilibrium versus transformed order). Bring in Parsons's ideas of structural differentiation and moving equilibrium, and Smelser's account of differentiation in the Industrial Revolution.
Close by widening the lens. Note the internal critics — Dahrendorf and Coser — who accused functionalism of neglecting conflict and, in effect, conceded ground to Marx. This shows the examiner that you grasp the debate as a living argument, not two frozen positions.
Model answer
For Karl Marx, social change is the master fact of history and it has a material engine. Societies rest on a mode of production; within it the forces of production — technology, skill, organisation — develop steadily, while the relations of production — the property and class arrangements — remain fixed. The growing contradiction between them generates class antagonism, and change comes not by smooth adjustment but by dialectical rupture: the exploited class, once conscious of itself, overthrows the old order, ushering in a new mode of production. Change is thus conflictual, revolutionary and directional, moving from primitive communism through slavery, feudalism and capitalism towards socialism.
The functionalist school answers with a fundamentally different picture, and its responses can be gathered under four heads.
First, on the source of change. Where Marx locates it in contradiction, functionalists locate it in adaptation. Talcott Parsons treats society as a system of interdependent parts tending towards equilibrium; change arises as the system responds to strains and to its environment, restoring balance at a new level. Change is endogenous adjustment, not the working-out of an internal antagonism.
Second, on the pace and form of change. Marx expects revolutionary rupture; functionalists expect evolutionary gradualism. Parsons's concept of structural differentiation holds that societies advance as functions once fused in a single institution separate into specialised structures — as production moved from the household to the factory. Neil Smelser applied this to the Industrial Revolution, reading it as orderly differentiation rather than class war. Change is cumulative and integrative.
Third, on the basis of social order. Marx sees order as the imposed dominance of a ruling class, inherently unstable; functionalists see it as resting on value consensus. Shared norms integrate society, and change is absorbed so long as the central value system adapts. Conflict is treated as a symptom of temporary maladjustment, not the motor of history.
Fourth, on the outcome. For Marx change is transformative, abolishing the old order; for functionalists it is homeostatic, a moving equilibrium in which the system evolves while preserving its integration and identity.
Taken together these responses amount to a systematic reversal of Marx: consensus for conflict, evolution for revolution, adaptation for contradiction, equilibrium for transformation. Yet the functionalist account drew powerful criticism, some of it from within sociology's mainstream. Ralf Dahrendorf argued that functionalism, by privileging order and consensus, could not explain change from within and had to treat conflict as an intrusion; he sought to rehabilitate the Marxian insight that authority relations generate conflict, while detaching it from Marx's exclusive focus on property. Lewis Coser likewise insisted, against a purely integrative reading, that conflict itself performs functions — clarifying group boundaries, releasing tension and stimulating adaptive change. In conceding that conflict is endemic and even useful, these theorists partly vindicated Marx even as they revised him.
The verdict is balanced. The functionalist responses rightly corrected Marx's tendency to reduce all change to class struggle and to underrate gradual, adaptive and technologically driven transformation. But by naturalising order and treating conflict as pathology, classical functionalism struggled to explain revolutionary change and the deep inequalities that provoke it. The most durable position is the conflict-functionalist middle ground, which retains the systemic insight of functionalism while restoring the Marxian recognition that contradiction and struggle are ordinary sources of social change.
Examiner's perspective
This question rewards candidates who keep the two thinkers in dialogue. A common failing is to write two disconnected essays — a paragraph summarising Marx, then an unrelated exposition of Parsons — without ever staging the response. The examiner wants the disagreement organised around explicit axes: source, pace, basis and outcome of change.
Fidelity to Marx is decisive. Scripts that flatten him into a crude economic determinist make the functionalist reply seem more compelling than it is and forfeit analytical credit. Equally, the strongest answers do not present functionalism as the final word; they bring in Dahrendorf and Coser to show how the conflict tradition mediated the debate and partly restored Marx.
Top scripts end with a reasoned verdict rather than a bland summary — acknowledging what functionalism corrected in Marx and what it could not explain, and locating the mature position in the conflict-functionalist synthesis. Precise attribution of concepts such as structural differentiation and moving equilibrium to Parsons, and of the functional uses of conflict to Coser, is what separates a first-class answer from a competent one.