Social Classes In Early Modern Europe

Medieval Europe was “once regarded as a time of uninterrupted ignorance, superstition, and social oppression.” [a.] The social classes existed simply because of the Feudal System, a system which where all of the land belonged to the king. These social classes can simply be categorised into the nobles and the peasants.

Marx and Engel focused on class conflict as the driving force for their argument. Throughout history, there is a common theme of a caste society lasting for so long until the mistreated lower class attempt to break the cycle; but that system is only replaced with a new

The stasis within the social classes after the revolution was beneficial to society. “One class did not overthrow another; the poor did not supplant the rich. But social relationships-- the way people were connected to one another-- were changed, and decisively so” (Wood 132). There was a solid relationship between higher and lower classes, and that helped maintain balance within communities, which made the new country a “giant, almost continent wide republic of nearly ten million egalitarian-minded bustling citizens who not only had thrust themselves into the vanguard of history but had fundamentally altered their society and their social relationships” (132-133).

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

During the Middle Ages, the prevailing system of government was feudalism. Under feudalism, there was the use of a definite social structure. People were born into a social class and usually stayed in that class for the rest of their life. The three social classes were the nobility, clergy, and peasantry and each of these classes had different roles to perform in the society.

The class system that defined Europe during the Middle ages was very similar to the caste system implemented in India. These systems both had a single leader atop the order followed by wealthy landowners and intellectuals. In the Middle ages like India the lowest level of society was subjected to manual labor and harsh living conditions. Also, in both of these systems the gap between wealthy and peasant was extremely large. The people that gained from these conditions were the upper classes because they were able to make a lot of money off the back of these lower-class individuals. These divisions were in place to keep the wealthy at the top of the social order and dominant over society. I believe that these systems were created by people

Class conflict, Marx believed, was what encouraged the evolution of society. To quote Marx himself, The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one

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. The development of a society from the old and from the new is the result of the conflict of classes in the society.

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.

It is argued that social inequality occurs because of the conflict between the upper-class and the working-class, or as Marx defines it, the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat. Based on the Manifesto of the Communist Party (Marx and Engels, 1848), the divergence emerges because the aim of the Bourgeoisie is to obtain a surplus-value that is produced by the work of the Proletariat. On the other side, the Bourgeoisie provides the Proletariat with the minimum required, such as a place to live and a minimum wage, in order to keep the society under control and avoid a rebellion. However, Marx did predict a revolt of the working-class that would eventually lead to a communist regime. When it comes to applying this theoretical approach to reality, it is evident to notice that no global revolt in regards to capitalism has occurred.

Similarly, since the birth of society, there has been contradiction in values between different classes. For example, in France during the late 1780’s, the first estate and the second estate were the minority however they had more power and influence when it came to voting. In addition, the first and second estate payed little to no taxes yet taxed the third estate, 96% of the population, very heavily. The classes each had contradicting beliefs on how France should be governed, similarly to the boys in Lord of the Flies. Both the historical example and the literary example solidify Marx’s theory that society cannot exist without contradicting beliefs among its members.

According to Marx society was divided into two classes that were in eternal conflict in the battle for resources, or as Marx coined; “the means of production”. The first class were the bourgeoisie, which Marx described as the sole owners of the means of production as well as the media. The bourgeoisie used their power and influence to exploit the second class, which Marx called the proletariat which consisted of all the workers of the world. Marx rejected the idea that the wealthy pulled themselves from their own bootstraps, which he called “false consciousness” and in return coined the term “class consciousness”, which referred to a persons awareness of their own social status, especially in terms of class conflict. Overall, Marx concluded that social order is created maintained by domination and power.

His ambition for universal equality, collective justice, and classless society transfixed me. I never thought that a classless society could be possible; however, my understanding of his work leads me to envisage the possibilities of a classless society. Marx’ work demonstrates a man who genuinely wants societal change. “The goal of sociology would not simply be to scientifically analyze or objectively describe society, but to use a rigorous scientific analysis as a basis to change it” (Little & McGivern, 2013,

This is an important task from a sociological point of view as being well read in various sociological and political ideologies aids one in forming one’s own opinions. 1. Class struggles are a fundamental part of human history:

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.