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The extremely dramatic social transformation - called 'the great transformation' by Polanyi (1985) - that the full emergence of capitalism and industrialism meant in Europe led to the birth of modern social theory. The attention of the classics of the studies was taken up by trying to describe, understand, and explain this social change: What is actually going on? What does it mean to people and society? What does the development depend on? And what can be done about all social problems that this new society creates? Changes in working life are at the center of the analyses of social science from the start. Even when the analyses concern religion, culture, music, and the family, the emergence of a labor market, capitalist wage labor, and the concentration of production in large industries provide the reference point. Working life is the central arena of the classics of social theory. There is, however, no common definition of the key concept 'work' or 'labor' among the classical social scientists - as little as among current ones. Why is that?
We discuss the differences between Marx, Durkheim, and Weber, although we concentrate on the development of Marx's conceptualization of work, as he is the one among them to elaborate the analysis the most. We regard the differences in the light of the entity that their respective theory specifies (Elder-Vass, 2010, p. 16). We define a social theory as interrelated statements that tell us that a certain entity (thing, object, or process) exists in the world and often what this entity can do, that is which mechanisms it possesses (Karlsson & Bergman, 2017, Ch. 1). Social theories are, then, arguments or series of interrelated arguments about something existing in the social world and commonly what social mechanisms are parts of the entity. The latter characteristic is especially important as mechanisms are what social scientists refer to in explanations. Theories are explanatory, although sometimes in the form of hypotheses, and what social science ultimately aims at is explaining the social world. Our analytical point of departure is that the defined entity of a theory also functions as a mechanism influencing its other concepts. We illustrate this claim by analyzing Marx's, Durkheim's, and Weber's differing ways of conceptualizing 'work' as an aspect...