Karl Marx, a ground breaking sociologist, economist, and philosopher, lived from 1818 to 1883. During his lifetime he propounded this epic sociologic perspective, the conflict theory. (McClelland) The conflict theory discusses how the rich and the poor have been fighting ongoing battle for power. The group in control actively defends their advantages.
Karl Marx developed his theories about socialism in the 1800’s. Although Marx’ had written so much about capitalism so long ago he foresaw the increasing gap between the rich and poor. Even in the United States the worlds richest country, the capitalist system continually exploits the working class which causes the gap to become greater and greater which causes an increase in social inequality. Marx is seen as one of the three founders of the social sciences along with Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. His contributions to sociology include the framework of dialectical materialism and separation between social classes of people or a conflict perspective.
As the philosopher Karl Marx once said “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Briefly, this means that all of the conflicts in the world revolve around the struggle between the two social classes. The Bourgeoisie, known as the rich, are able to sit back and employ struggling Proletarians, the working class. Today the Bourgeoisie have money to go around. Yet they can’t support the working class.
One of the most if not the most compelling pieces of literature on communism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ political plead The Communist Manifesto presents innumerable facts and ideas surrounding communism and its role in the mid-nineteenth century. Written during a time of great tension, The Communist Manifesto discusses two very interdependent social classes that could not be any less alike. On one hand, the bourgeoisie social class luxuriously thrives on the principle of capitalism, using property accumulation and the growth of industry to remain at the top of society. However, falling under the rule of the bourgeoisie are the countless proletariats, or labor workers.
The universal break between class structures was seen as the industrial revolution continued in society. The Communist Manifesto highlighted the dissimilarities between the bourgeoisie and the proletariats. Marx explained how the bourgeois people were only concerned with creating a capitalist society by ways of production. These people were capitalist who owned factories, monitored the trade and the products being created in factories. This idea shows how capitalism solely promotes excess and greed.
We can broadly classify people into four major classes: Warrior class, intellectual class, Acquisitor class and Labor class. As name suggests, Warrior class perform their duty to protect the state with their physical capabilities, intellectual class supply philosophy and religion, Acquisitor class helps in managing the economy, and there is Labor class, who do unskilled jobs. These unskilled labors inherit physical labor from their ancestors just like other three classes acquire their skills from their predecessor. Unlike, philosophers like Aristotle who believed slavery to be enshrined in the nature and ruler-ruled concepts, Karl Marx along with Fredrick Engels, propounded the concept of Communism and wrote Communist Manifesto. Karl Marx was not
Karl Marx, one could go so far as to say, was the prophet of his own age. However, notwithstanding with the other prophets, he was mostly concerned with material aspects of human life. He accompanied by his life-long friend Friedrich Engels analyzed capitalist society in terms of social structure, economy and culture. In Marxian theory of classes, society is torn into two, between proletariat and bourgeoisie, and it is the scene of perpetual exploitation of the working class by bourgeoisie and a permanent struggle between them. The former is “a class of laborers, who live so long as they find work and who work only so long as their labor increases capital”, and the latter is “the class which has means of material production at its disposal” (qtd.
Reading Question 1: Marx view history in terms of class struggle explain what this means and the various classes Marx refers to. Class struggle means that throughout history the names of the different social classes had changed, but one constant remained (Rader, n.d.). The names of these social classes are the rich and the poor. During this time, if you were born poor you were going to die poor. Due to this, Marx stated that “history is a history of class struggle” (Rader, n.d.).
Karl Marx’s believed that human beings desire equality, a statement that is not proven but upon which Marxism depends for what that possibility might still exist. The great class struggle
Criticisms of Karl Marx One of the criticisms of Karl Marx is that he assumes that inequalities are due to class but ignores other inequalities such as gender. Feminists would argue that gender inequality is just as important as that of class. Black feminists have often commented about the lack of interest in poverty, particularly affecting the poorer women, mainly in the third world. Weber adds that status and power may be independent of the class of the individual.
According to Edwards et al. (2006) Marx thought that within capitalism there would be an increased divide between the bourgeoisie class and the proletariat class in the future. The proletariats are lower of the two classes, the people who have to work for wages in order to survive. The bourgeoisie are the people in society who controlled and owned the means of production in a capitalist system.
Karl Marx was a German philosopher and economist in the 18th century. He is known for his book the Communist Manifesto that was published in 1848. Marx believed that a revolution of the working classes would over throw the capitalist order and creates a classless society. The Industrial Revolutions led to the proletarianization; his partner Friedrich Engels explained why the changes created by the proletarianization of the worker would develop into a huge problem for industrial societies. I do believe that Karl Marx’s vision of communism in the Communist Manifesto could re-emerge as a popular and workable philosophy of social, economic, and political organization.
Marxism and feminism are two sides of a coin. Encarta reference library defines Marxism as “a theory in which class struggle is a central element in the analysis of social change in western societies”. Feminism is defined as a recognition and critique of male supremacy combined with efforts to change it. Marxism is an economic and social system.
Marxist Politics – Introduction Frederick Engels painted a clear picture of Marxist politics and the ultimate reason for revolution, “the State is nothing more than a machine for the oppression of one class by another. ”1 In Marxism, the struggle to control the forces of production is the dynamic force behind human development. The economic system determines other features of a society, including its political structure. To Karl Marx, the “economic structure of society [is] the real foundation on which rise moral, legal and political superstructures and to which definite forms of social consciousness correspond.”
Marx believed that the class struggle forced social change. Marx’s theory is based on a class system
