Marxist Theory of Class

December the 6th, 1865 marks the end of slavery and white supremacy. A glance at the 21st century America manifests otherwise. Racism is an ongoing issue that contributes largely to class boundaries within significant aspects such as economy, education and society of the United States, making people of color inferior to white people. The key components that construct a country into greatness are economy, education and society. The inequality and injustice present in these interlinked components, bound by social class hierarchy, can lead to desisting the full potential to be a globally respectable nation.

In his play The Importance of Being Earnest (1895, London St. James’ theater), Oscar Wilde portrays the attitudes and society of Victorian upper class through character interactions within the ‘Bunburyist’ adventures of Algernon Moncrieff and Jack Worthing. The play’s comedic elements, in addition to the portrayal of power structures, are used as an effective medium to challenge the viewer to reflect upon Wilde’s criticism on institutions and values of the aristocracy. In conjunction to this, deeper analysis can be conducteds about marriage in Victorian aristocracy and their attitudes to members of other social groups.

All teens are separated into categories and stereotypes, or so you think so. The breakfast club is fit for the Marxist lens because of how the movie represents socio-economics issues, class issues and wealth issues. The principal said to Bender that he should not mess with the principal, how Claire is considered “ rich”, and the stereotype class of each student.

In making an analysis of the rhetorical resources of a work, the great majority of literature teachers use the classics. However, there are other texts that can be analyzed with the same relevance as the texts of Shakespeare. In this case, I mean the speech "I Have a Dream," which has different resources and techniques that can be considered in the literature program of schools.

Society began to change as the ideas of classical liberalism took hold. Social classes began to die away while a class structure based on wealth began to emerge. Classical liberalism valued the individual as unique and encouraged more economic opportunities. It valued private property and economic freedom. Under classical liberalism, people had greater opportunities to become wealthy and join a higher economic

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

For example, before the existence of civil society, there were no class struggles. Humans worked together for their collective good. Marx refers to this mode of production as ‘’primitive communism’’. The reason there were no class struggles during this mode of production was there were no surplus goods or labour

Karl Marx’s class theory lies upon the premise that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." He meant by this that ever since the inception of modern human society, people have been always divided into classes which are in conflict with each other due to class interests. An argument against class interests is that they are not given ab initio, they arise out of exposure of people occupying different social positions in varying social contexts. Karl Marx and Engels divided the masses into three broad classes, the proletariats, the petty bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie.

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

Karl Marx was a German philosopher who became the head of the sociological discipline of Marxism. Marxism is defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary as ‘’the political, economic, and social theories of Karl Marx including the belief that the struggle between social classes

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.

Class struggle is a conflict in a particular society or between a society which is caused by the lack of unity in one society and different perspective of a different group in a society. It is also called class conflict or class warfare. One social issue of a class struggle is the social inequality.

Karl Marx was a great influence for many, including renowned leaders such as the former leader of Russia, Joseph Stalin. Karl Marx first pointed out his ideas about a classless society in the famous pamphlet Communist Manifesto in 1848. Marx believed that the current capitalist society is separated into two classes, the Proletariat society, and Bourgeois society. The Proletarians, as perceived by Marx, are part of the working class that only possess one significant material value, that is the ability to work, or labour power. The Bourgeoise, on the other hand, is the societal class that owns the means of production and hence rule over the Proletarians. As I quote from Marx’s book, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” (Marx and Engels, 1988, p. 473) Marx believes that by having such two classes where one class exerts dominance over the other, it will lead to disastrous outcomes, where income

Social class contains a lot of significance in social sciences because it sets the basis for social stratification in which people are grouped into a set of hierarchical social categories. These categories further lead up to class conflicts and social problems which we see in society today. Since the main aim of social sciences is to explain the cause and effect of any social issue, sociologists tend to first explain the definition of class and their interpretation of the term followed by its effects in a society. Among these sociologists there were two very influential personalities who developed their work to explain the definition and the formation of the social class. Karl Marx, being an economist, believes that these social classes are a direct result of economic factors. Pierre Bourdieu, on the other hand, extended his work beyond economics and touches upon other aspects of life to provide comprehensive explanation of class phenomena in the society.

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.