Marxian class theory
Marxian class theory asserts that an individual's position within a class hierarchy is determined by their role in the production process, and argues that political and ideological consciousness is determined by class position. A class is a group of people who share a common position in the economy, e.g. the working class. Within Marxian class theory, the structure of the production process forms the basis of class construction.
To Marx, a class is a group with intrinsic tendencies and interests that differ from those of other groups within society, the basis of a fundamental antagonism between such groups. For example, it is in the laborer's best interest to maximize wages and benefits and in the capitalist's best interest to maximize profit at the expense of such, leading to a contradiction within the capitalist system, even if the laborers and capitalists themselves are unaware of the clash of interests.
Marxian class theory has been open to a range of alternate positions, most notably from scholars such as E. P. Thompson and Mario Tronti. Both Thompson and Tronti suggest class consciousness within the production process precedes the formation of productive relationships. In this sense, Marxian class theory often relates to discussion over pre-existing class struggles.
Origins of Karl Marx's theory
's class theory derives from a range of philosophical schools of thought including left Hegelianism, Scottish Empiricism, and Anglo-French political-economics. Marx's view of class originated from a series of personal interests relating to social alienation and human struggle, whereby the formation of class structure relates to acute historical consciousness. Political-economics also contributed to Marx's theories, centering on the concept of "origin of income" where society is divided into three sub-groups: Rentiers, Capitalist, and Worker. This construction is based on David Ricardo's theory of capitalism. Marx strengthened this with a discussion over verifiable class relationships.Marx sought to define class as embedded in productive relations rather than social status. His political and economic thought developed towards an interest in production as opposed to distribution, and this henceforth became a central theme in his concept of class.
Class structure
Marx distinguishes one class from another on the basis of two criteria: ownership of the means of production and control of the labor power of others. From this, Marx states "Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other":I. Capitalists, or bourgeoisie, own the means of production and purchase the labor power of others
II. Workers, or proletariat, do not own any means of production or the ability to purchase the labor power of others. Rather, they sell their own labor power.
Class is thus determined by property relations, not by income or status. These factors are determined by distribution and consumption, which mirror the production and power relations of classes.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party describes two additional classes that “decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry”:
III. A small, transitional class known as the petite bourgeoisie own sufficient means of production but do not purchase labor power. Marx's Communist Manifesto fails to properly define the petite bourgeoisie beyond “smaller capitalists”.
IV. The “dangerous class”, or Lumpenproletariat, “the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society.”
Conflict as the nature of class relations
"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 another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstruction of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.... The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.” – Communist ManifestoMarx established conflict as the key driving force of history and the main determinant of social trajectories. However, in order to understand the nature of “class conflict,” we must first understand that such conflict arises from a unified class interest, also known as class consciousness. Class consciousness is an aspect of Marxist theory, referring to the self-awareness of social classes, the capacity to act in its own rational interests, or measuring the extent to which an individual is conscious of the historical tasks their class sets for them.
Moreover, by definition, the objective interests of classes are fundamentally in opposition; consequently, these opposing interests and consciousnesses eventually lead to class conflict.
Marx first saw the development of class conflict confined to individual factories and capitalists. However, given the maturation of capitalism, the life conditions of bourgeoisie and proletariat began to grow more disparate. This increased polarization and homogenization within classes fostered an environment for individual struggles to become more generalized. When increasing class conflict is manifested at the societal level, class consciousness and common interests are also increased. Consequently, when class consciousness is augmented, policies are organized to ensure the duration of such interest for the ruling class. Here begins the use of the struggle for political power and classes become political forces.
Since the distribution of political power is determined by power over production, or power over capital, it is no surprise that the bourgeois class uses their wealth to legitimatize and protect their property and consequent social relations. Thus the ruling class is those who hold the economic power and make the decisions.
Class structure of capitalism
In Marxist theory, the capitalist stage of production consists of two main classes: the bourgeoisie, the capitalists who own the means of production, and the much larger proletariat who must sell their own labour power. This is the fundamental economic structure of work and property, a state of inequality that is normalised and reproduced through cultural ideology. Thus the proletariat, in itself, is forced into a subservient position by the power of capital, which has stripped the means of production from them. As the proletariat becomes conscious of its situation and power, it organizes itself, and takes collective political action. It becomes a class for itself which has the revolutionary potential to become the ruling class.Max Weber critiqued historical materialism, positing that stratification is not based purely on economic inequalities but on other status and power differentials. Social class pertaining broadly to material wealth may be distinguished from status class based on honour, prestige, religious affiliation, and so on. The conditions of capitalism and its class system came together due to a variety of "elective affinities".
Marxists explain the history of "civilized" societies in terms of a war of classes between those who control production and those who produce the goods or services in society. In the Marxist view of capitalism, this is a conflict between capitalists and wage-workers. For Marxists, class antagonism is rooted in the situation that control over social production necessarily entails control over the class which produces goods—in capitalism this is the exploitation of workers by the bourgeoisie.
Marx himself argued that it was the goal of the proletariat itself to displace the capitalist system with socialism, changing the social relationships underpinning the class system and then developing into a future communist society in which: "..the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all." This would mark the beginning of a classless society in which human needs rather than profit would be motive for production. In a society with democratic control and production for use, there would be no class, no state and no need for money.
For Marx, class has three primary facts:
;Objective factors: A class shares a common relationship to the means of production. That is, all people in one class make their living in a common way in terms of ownership of the things that produce social goods. A class may own things, own land, own people, be owned, own nothing but their labor. A class will extract tax, produce agriculture, enslave and work others, be enslaved and work, or work for a wage.
;Subjective factors: The members will necessarily have some perception of their similarity and common interest. Marx termed this Class consciousness. Class consciousness is not simply an awareness of one's own class interest, class consciousness also embodies deeply shared views of how society should be organized legally, culturally, socially and politically.
;Reproduction of class relations: Class as a set of social relationships that is reproduced from one generation to the next.
The first criterion divides a society into the owners and non-owners of means of production. In capitalism, these are capitalist and proletariat. Finer divisions can be made, however: the most important subgroup in capitalism being petite bourgeoisie, people who possess their own means of production but utilize it primarily by working on it themselves rather than hiring others to work on it. They include self-employed artisans, small shopkeepers, and many professionals. Jon Elster has found mention in Marx of 15 classes from various historical periods.
Vladimir Lenin has defined classes as "large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation to the means of production, by their role in the social organization of labor, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it."