Marx Essay, Research Paper
As stated before, the key classes in the capitalist mode of production
are the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, or capitalists and landless wage
laborers. While Marx
recognizes that there are other classes, the fundamental class division is
between this pairing of
the exploiter and the exploited. The bourgeoisie derive their class position
from the fact that they
own productive wealth. It is not their high income that makes them
capitalists, but the fact that
they own the means of production. For example, the inputs necessary for
production – factories,
machines, etc. The ability of workers to work (labor power) is in itself a
marketable commodity
bought for the least cost to be used at will by the capitalist. In addition,
the capitalist owns the
product and will always pocket the difference between the value of the labor
and the value of the
product – referred to by Marx as ’surplus value’ – purely by virtue of his
ownership. His property
rights also allow the capitalist the control of the process of production and
the labor he buys. The
proletariat in contrast, owns no means of production.
Because of this exploitation, Marx viewed the bourgeoisie and the proletariat
as locked in
deep and unavoidable conflict. As capitalism expanded, the conflict would
become more intense
as the condition of the workers became worse. Over time, some members of the
proletariat
would come to understand their unfair position and would begin to communicate
with each other.
This would enable them to organize and overthrow the capitalist system. The
revolution would
pave the way for a new socialist system that would abolish private ownership
of the means of
production. This forms the basis of Marx’s theory of class, and with further
discussion, the
complexities will present themselves.
This two class model is not Marx’s only use of the word ‘class’. He uses the
term of other
economic groups, and particularly of the petty or petite bourgeoisie and the
peasants. These
groups seem to make the neat division of the Communist Manifesto
inapplicable, for these two
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groups obviously merge into bourgeoisie and the proletariat according to how
many workers they
employ or how much land they own. Marx even foresaw, with increased use of
machinery and
the increase of service industries, the advent of a new middle class. This
raises two main
questions.
The first concerns the complications of social stratification in relation to
the basic classes.
In the fragment on ‘three great classes of modern society’ in Capital III,
Marx observes that even
England, where the economic structure is "most highly and classically
developed…[m]iddle and
intermediate strata even here obliterate lines of demarcation
everywhere"3 Even though this
observation does not fit easily with the idea of an increasing polarization
of bourgeois society
between ‘two great classes’, Cole explains how Marx:
regard[ed] the blurring of class divisions as a matter of secondary
importance, influential
in shaping the course of particular phases and incidents of the fundamental
class struggle,
but incapable of altering its essential character or its ultimate outcome.
[And] in the long
run the forces making for polarisation were bound to come into play more and
more as the
difficulties of Capitalism increased: so that the decisive class-struggle
between capitalists
and proletarians could be delayed, but by no means averted or changed in its
essential
character by the emergence of any new class.4
Even so, Cole asks for a ‘critique’ of Marx in light of todays circumstances,
questioning the
validity of this statement.
The second question concerns the situation and development of two principal
classes in
capitalist society, bourgeoisie and proletariat. In The 18th Brumaire of
Louis Bonaparte, Marx
gave this negative definition of a fully constituted class:
In so far as millions of families live under economic conditions of existence
that seperate
their mode of life, their interests and their culture from those of the other
classes, and put
them in hostile opposition to the latter, they form a class. In so far as
there is merely a
local interconnection among these small-holding peasants, and the identity of
their
interests begets no community, no national bond and no political organisation
among
them, they do not form a class5
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In the Poverty of Philosophy, describing the emergence of the working class,
Marx expressed the
same idea in positive terms:
Economic conditions had first transformed the mass of the people of the
country into
workers. The combination of capital has created for this mass a common
situation,
common interests. This mass is thus already a class as against capital, but
not yet for
itself. In the struggle, of which we have noted only a few phases, this mass
becomes
united, and constitutes itself as a class for itself. The interests it
defends becomes class
interests.6
Most Marxists have recognized, that in the case of the working class, the
development of a
’socialist’ or ‘revolutionary’ consciousness poses problems which require
more careful and
thorough study. ‘Class interest’ itself is no longer conceived, as it was in
general by Marx, as an
objective and unambiguous ’social fact’, but rather as having a sense which
is constructed through
interaction and discussion out of the experiences of everyday life and the
interpretations of those
experiences.
This is further illustrated by Bottomore’s belief that an investigation into
the ‘development
of social classes’ would have to attend to three problems. First, the
"consequences for the class
structure, and especially for the polarization of classes, of the rapid
increase in productivity and in
the size of the surplus, and the concomitant growth of the middle
classes"7 Bottomore states that
how Marx defined the middle class, are the individuals who ‘live from’
surplus value, but also
‘assist in the realization and distribution of the surplus’. Marx foresaw the
growing number of the
middle class, and as a result, the declining number of working class. This
would seem to
strengthen the bourgeois making the transformation to a classless society
more difficult. Through
Marx’s own analysis, Bottomore says that the transition might not occur at
all; thus, resulting in a
type of society unlike the socialist society emerging from capitalism. Or,
transformation brought
about differently, from what Marx predicted, resulting in the classless
society. "The nature of the
social conflict that would then bring about the breakdown of capitalism and
the creation of a
socialist society remains unclear, and is not discussed by Marx."8
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The second problem concerns the ‘various cultural and political influences’
which are a
factor in the evolution of the revolutionary class consciousness. Marx, in
early writings,
emphasizes positive influences for this development such as: introduction of
new technology
(resulting in the displacement of workers to further the revolution), the
reserve army of labor, the
advent of the factory (resulting in concentration of workers creating a
collective situation – class
consciousness)9 But also negative influences such as: "dominant position
of ruling-class ideas,
the effects of social mobility, the growth of the middle classes."10
Bottomore then states that
national or ethnic consciousness is very important; one of the powerful
influences that Marx
neglected. The second influence is that of the increasing social
differentiation in modern societies
which breaks do
class. In other
words, increasing the number of middle class while decreasing the number of
working class; a
negative influence on revolutionary class consciousness.
The last problem asks what conditions are necessary beyond the abolition of
classes and
private property in the means of production, in order to establish what Marx
referred to as
socialism. Marx wrote about the advancement of science and how it could be
used to abolish
scarcity to meet human needs. As a result, man would be free from those
labors in order to
pursue their human potential. Beyond all of this, what Bottomore is implying
is the further study
of Marx’s political theory. Concentrating on the interaction between the
development of
production, emergence of new human needs, development of a political
consciousness, and the
creation of organizations to take part in a political struggle. Regrettably,
this political theory, like
the theory of class, can only be examined through fragments of Marx’s work.
Another way of looking at Marx’s theory of class is how Elster attempts to
define class in
terms of property, exploitation, market behavior, and power. Elster claims
that Marx’s ‘class’ is
frequently defined as "a group of persons who stand in the same relation
of property or non-
property to the factors of production, that is labor-power and means of
production."11 By using
this definition, the words ‘property’ and ‘non-property’ are too restrictive
or too open. There is a
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need to distinguish between property owners but then the question arises, to
what degree? This is
also evident when using exploitation as a basis of defining class. As Elster
puts it: "[t]he proposal
is too coarse-grained if it locates all exploiters in one class and all
exploited agents in another
[and] too fine grained if classes are to be distinguished in terms of the
degree of
exploitation….’infinite fragmentation’ of classes."12
In terms of the third proposal, defining class in terms of market behavior,
Elster states that
it is not useful in the study of non-market economies. Furthermore, "the
proposal overemphasizes
actual behavior and neglects its causal grounding in the endowment
structure."13 Basically, he is
referring to choice. In Marx’s view, the wage laborer has no choice in who to
work for and for
how much. The reasoning behind this is that the capitalist (though needing
workers) can employ
any individual he chooses. Elster says that class is defined by what one has
to do, not what one
actually does. So, for example, a wage laborer decides to work in a factory
just for the pure joy
of doing so. This individual should be put in a different class from the wage
laborer who has to
work in the factory.14
Elster’s final proposal is the aspect of power in defining class. To Marx,
power
relationships are built into the very structure of society, whose principal
feature is the existence of
opposed classes. Thus, class domination and subordination are central to
Marxist conception of
politics and the distribution and operation of power. Power to Marx, is class
power. In other
words, it is a resource that is concentrated in the hands of a particular
class, which that class can
use to maintain and enhance its dominant position in society, a position
achieved by economic
exploitation. Elster says: "[t]he definition of class in terms of
domination and subordination is too
behavioral and insufficiently structural. By this I mean that the classes of
the upper and lower
managers are defined only by what they actually do, not – as in the case of
capitalists and workers
- by what they must do by virtue of what they have." – a reference back
to Elster’s third proposal.
What Elster reveals are some of the more obvious problems inherent in Marx’s
theory of class.
But all of this can still be referred to in past context. Clearly, the
question that needs to be
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asked is: can Marx’s analysis be applicable today?
It is obvious that there are some serious problems in Marx’s account.
Revolution has
occurred in nations on the verge of entry into capitalism, not in societies
which are mature and
‘ripe’ for change. The working class in capitalist societies has enjoyed, in
the long term, a rise in
the standard of living, and labor movements have won enough welfare
concessions to ease many
of the poor. By no means all Western societies have strong Communist parties.
In addition, the
growth of the middle class of managerial and professional workers appears to
contradict Marx’s
view that divisions among those without wealth would disappear. Western
economies are open to
crises, but the state seems able to keep them in check.
Generally, then, Marx’s ideas seem to many people to have been disproved by
twentieth
century developments. However, this is a limited view. The real issues are
firstly whether Marx’s
general perspective on stratification was sound, and secondly, whether
contemporary Western
societies are still capitalists in the general basic character of their
social relations. The first issue is
important because Marx provides an account of stratification which is
significantly different from
that of many other social theorists. Very often today, sociologists see
classes as merely groupings
of people with similar attributes such as income, type of occupation, and so
on. Marx, on the
other hand, saw classes as systematically linked in a particular structure of
social relationships.
An explanation of inequality is given through the analysis of the mode of
production. Marx points
out the deeper class relations and potential conflicts below the surface of
society. This strength,
however, is seen as a problem by many sociologists. They argue that Marx’s
class analysis is too
simplistic to account adequately for the complexity of social inequality. For
them, Marx’s
emphasis on the ownership of productive wealth leaves us unable to explain
adequately all the
differences in consciousness within the mass of the population who are not
capitalists.
Quite clearly, the Western economies are vastly changed today in comparison
with Marx’s
time. There is far more economic intervention by the state in most societies
of the West, and state
employees of one kind or another form a large part of the work force.
Nationalization and the
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frequent replacement of individual owner or managers by shareholders and
managerial
bureaucracies have both changed the structure of industry. However, it can
still be argued that
private ownership of the means of production is the basis of economic power
and wealth, and that
the labor market is still the prime determinant of wage levels. The worker is
still in a subordinate
position in the work place, and the incomes of workers are still very low in
comparison with those
who control them. Other interpretations are possible: it is commonly argued,
for example, that
the West has a mixed economy which works in everyone’s interest, but others
would still consider
Western economies as capitalist.
This brings us back to Marx’s Capital III. It is clear that there are many
aspects of Marx’s
theory of class which are not discussed in this essay; the theory is
multifaceted. One still wonders
what Marx would describe in his last work. Would it have been in the same
terms as he had used
thirty years before? Or would he have recognized, in this gap, the vitally
important changes in the
class structure of the modern societies of today, and that these changes
were, to some extent,
different from what he anticipated to occur? This question remains
unanswered.