Marxist Theory Of Class Conflict

Social inequalities can be described as the differences in “income, resources, power and status” (Naidoo and Wills 2008, in Warwick-Booth 2013, 2) that advantage a social class, a group or an individual over another, and thereby establish social hierarchies. It also affects inequalities in regards to gender, race, access to health and education, and general living conditions. In sociology, the dichotomy between the conflict theory approach and the functionalist approach has led to a discordant opinion in regards to social inequalities. The conflict theory seems to admit that social inequalities needs to disappear in order to install a common and equal base for all individuals, whereas the functionalist approach believes that social inequalities

In the Communist manifesto, a well known quote of Marx, “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” This is introductory to the first part of the pamphlet and a conclusion to Marx’s theory about class struggle. Marx’s highly structured on how the class struggle emerges and affects the development of a society.

Capitalism, according to Karl Marx is divided into two major social classes: the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat. The Bourgeoisie, which is the minority of the class system, own the means of production such as land, machinery, factories and raw materials whereas the Proletariat, which is the majority of the class system, having no means of their own production and have to work to earn wage for a living. Karl Marx has his own theory that history is made up by class struggle which he mentioned in his book – Manifesto of the Communist Party: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” (Marx and Engels, 1848) and had predicted that the Proletariat would lead a revolution to overthrow the Bourgeoisie. Karl Marx believed that there will be intrinsic conflict like exploitation, alienation of labour and commodity fetishism between both of the classes.

CHAPTER 3 CLASS STRUGGLE Generally class struggle means conflict between the upper class and lower class the idea of Class struggle is long-used mostly by socialists and communists, who define a class by its relationship to the means of production such as factories, land, and machinery. From this point of view, the social control of production and labour is a fight between classes, and the division of these resources basically involves conflict and causes damage. Societies are socially divided based on status, wealth, or control of social production and distribution, and in this division of class conflict arises. It is important to know Karl Marx theory on class struggle; he viewed the structure of society in relation to

Third, Marx demonstrated that, as productive powers of a human society – its ‘productive forces’ - inevitably keep growing, they necessarily come into conflict with the prevalent way of organizing social production and reproduction, which he called ‘the social relations of production’. Fourth, he made the point that as productive forces developed, there would emerge a surplus of production over and above the needs of social reproduction, which would then enable a section of society to live off the labor of the rest of society. In other words, the emergence of a surplus would make logically possible the coming into being of class society, based on a division of society between the majority who work – the exploited - and a minority who live off the labor of the majority – the exploiters. Such a class division would of course be possible only on the basis of the minority of exploiters being in control of social production, primarily through their monopoly of ownership of

Marx argued that there are two classes of people that exist in society, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie refer to the upper class that own the means of production and whose central concern is the value of property. On the other hand, the proletariat describes the working class wageworkers in a capitalist society. Marx argued that the bourgeoisie simply exploited the proletariat, and the physical labor produced by the proletariat generated more wealth for the capitalist, leaving laborers under payed and machine-like. During this process, Marx believed that through this system of mass production, laborers were stripped of individual imagination and as a result, left individuals feeling alienated to their own emotions and erotic feelings in order to maximize production and wealth.

Sociological theories on inequality For many years, sociological theorists have severally examined the issue of social inequality, particularly its roots and effects on society. Karl Marx, for instance in his conflict theory argues that society is mainly made up of two classes: the proletariat and bourgeoisie (Weeden & Grusky, 1723). He further explains that the bourgeoisie are mainly individuals who own the means of production, for example vital equipment, businesses and factories. He refers to the workers who work or in these firms as the proletariat.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) considered himself not to be a sociologist but a political activist. However, many would disagree and in the view of Hughes (1986), he was ‘both – and a philosopher, historian, economist, and a political scientist as well.’ Much of the work of Marx was political and economic but his main focus was on class conflict and how this led to the rise of capitalism. While nowadays, when people hear the word “communism”, they think of the dictatorial rule of Stalin and the horrific stories of life in a communist state such as the Soviet Union, it is important not to accuse Marx of the deeds carried out in his name.

Karl Marx talks about the role of communism and his conjecture of underlying this type of revolution. He speaks of two different class struggles, the "Bourgeoisie and Proletarians". Bourgeoisie are the people with authority, the ones who own production and are bosses of wage labor while the proletariat are the individuals with no authority, no ownership and are giving up their own power to the Bourgeoisie in order to survive. Societies began to separate and became hostile and aggressive classes. It all became about social ranking because of the increase and need of production. The bourgeoisie society has created new classes and ranks, new conditions of domination and new struggles. It was not about family relationships anymore but about money relations. Bourgeoisie cannot exist without it constantly

The key concepts that I will discuss in this assignment are the theories and ideas of Karl Marx on Alienation, Exploitation, Materialism and Class struggle. The objective of this assignment is to examine the literature written about Karl Marx in order to clearly present his main ideas and theories in relation to work and capital. In the second part of my assignment I will discuss what relevance these theories and ideas have in today’s world. Karl Heinrich Marx the philosopher and revolutionary socialist was born on the 5th of May 1818 and died on the 14th of March 1883. He was born in the city of Trier in Germany and studied law in Bonn University.

Bourgeoisie, which gains the power, defines superstructure “including all social and legal institution, all political and educational systems, all religions and all art” (Bressler, 162), and articulate the ideology which is based on profits of bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie ideology leads to alienation of individuals, especially proletariats. This bourgeoisie ideology creates the clash between the two classes. Marx supported the working class and their victory over dominant class. Marxism believes in providing equal opportunity to the working class as that are available to the

“We wanted to make up Bourgeoisie a class wrongly. It is nothing more than the content portion of the population”. By saying that, Victor Hugo estimates that Bourgeoisie is not from Aristocracy class, but as a part of the Proletarian one. Therefore it does not really exist in its current form. This quotation states as a link between the Marxist’s doctrine from the Industrial Revolution, and the actual perception we have of classes. Indeed, the notion of social classes appears during the Industrial Revolution in the middle of the XIXth century. In this latest industrialized society, a certain amount of theoreticians amongst which, Karl Marx or Engels, have observed that people could be classified into different and hierarchical classes: Proletarians,

The idea behind this according to Marx is that history is a series of stages, defined by their mode of production and the struggle between classes: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. " According to Marx, the current historical stage is the capitalist historical stage. This is the conflict between the bourgeoisie (middle class) and the proletariat (working class). This theory is supported by the historical stages preceding the capitalist historical stage which can easily be defined by their modes of production and class struggle, or lack thereof.

“The reason we have classes is due to a group sharing a common interest and economic position” (McIntosh, 1997:133). Class is determined on possession of wealth; together with the occupation are the principal bases for class difference. The main classes in Western societies are the upper class who was the wealthy, employers and factory owner, the middle class who were white collar workers and professionals and the lower class who were the ones in the blue-collar or manual jobs. In the developed countries there was also a fourth class, the peasants who were occupied in traditional types of agricultural production. The most well-known and important theories of class are those developed by Karl Marx and Max Weber.

A central tenet is that the means of production is the economic base that influences or determiners the political life. Under the theory of Marxism, outdated class structure were supposed to be overthrown with the force revolution instead of being replaced through patient modification. It is held that as Capitalism has succeeded feudalism, it will be deleted by a dictator of his workers proletariat called socialism, followed quickly and inevitably by a classes society which governs itself without a governing class or