Marx: Theory of Social Class and Social Conflict

In one line

For Marx a class is defined by its relation to the means of production, the interests of the two main classes are irreconcilable, and the conflict between them is the motor of history.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: for Marx a social class is a group of persons standing in the same relation to the means of production. In every society beyond the most primitive there are those who own them and those who do not, and the relation between the two is one of exploitation, since the surplus produced by those who work is appropriated by those who own. Because their interests are structurally opposed, class conflict is inherent in the mode of production rather than accidental to it, and it is the mechanism by which one mode of production is transformed into another. The Communist Manifesto of 1848 opens with the proposition that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

The theory of social class

The definition, and what it excludes

Class is defined by one criterion only: the relation to the means of production. Not income, not occupation, not status, not education. This is what makes Marx's account distinctive and also what makes it vulnerable, and stating the criterion sharply is the first mark of a good answer.

Two consequences follow. A highly paid employee and a poorly paid one are in the same class, because neither owns the means of production. And a small proprietor with a low income is in a different class from a well-paid employee, because their relation to production differs.

The classes under capitalism

The bourgeoisie, who own the means of production and purchase labour power.

The proletariat, who own no means of production and must sell their labour power in order to live.

The petty bourgeoisie, small proprietors who own their means of production and work them themselves: artisans, shopkeepers, small farmers. Marx expected them to be squeezed out by competition and driven into the proletariat.

The lumpenproletariat, the destitute and unorganised, whom he regarded as unreliable as a political force.

The landowners, a survival from the feudal mode, declining in importance.

Exploitation and surplus value

The mechanism, and it must be given because it is what makes the relation antagonistic rather than merely unequal.

The worker sells labour power, the capacity to work, for a wage. The wage corresponds to what is required to maintain and reproduce that capacity. But labour power applied to production creates more value than it costs, and the difference, surplus value, is appropriated by the owner as the source of profit.