Marx: Theory of Social Class and Social Conflict

The consequence. The interests of the two classes are not merely different but inversely related: what raises wages reduces surplus value, and what raises surplus value reduces wages. The conflict is therefore structural, and no amount of goodwill removes it, which is the proposition on which everything else in the theory rests.

Class in itself and class for itself

The distinction that examiners ask for directly.

A class in itself is a group of people who objectively share the same relation to the means of production, whether or not they are aware of it. It is a fact about the structure.

A class for itself is a class which has become conscious of its shared position and of the opposition of its interests to those of another class, and has organised to act upon that consciousness. It is a fact about the group.

Class consciousness is the transition from the first to the second, and it is what makes a class a historical actor rather than a statistical category.

False consciousness is its opposite: a state in which members of a class hold beliefs that serve the interests of another class. Marx attributed it to the fact that the ruling ideas of any age are the ideas of its ruling class, propagated through religion, education, law and the press.

The conditions that produce class consciousness

Marx and later writers identify: concentration of workers in large workplaces, which makes their common position visible; communication between them; the homogenisation of their conditions, so that differences within the class diminish; the experience of collective action; organisation, above all the trade union, which he regarded as the school of class consciousness; and the appearance of a political party.

The theory of social conflict

Conflict is structural, not accidental

The central claim. Conflict does not arise from misunderstanding, from bad character or from the failure of institutions. It arises from the structure of production itself, because the positions people occupy in it have opposed interests. It follows that conflict cannot be removed by better communication or by reform of attitudes, but only by changing the structure.

The course of the conflict

The sequence Marx describes: the development of the forces of production; the growth of the proletariat and its concentration; the intensification of exploitation and the fall of the intermediate strata into the proletariat, which is polarisation; the growth of class consciousness through struggle; organisation into unions and a party; and finally the transformation of the relations of production, after which, the means of production being socially owned, classes and therefore class conflict would cease.

The functions of the conflict

In Marx's system conflict is not a pathology. It is the mechanism of historical change, and every transition between modes of production is produced by it. This is the point of contrast with Durkheim in [Durkheim: Division of Labour and Social Solidarity], for whom the normal state is solidarity and conflict is a symptom of abnormal forms.

The criticisms

1. Polarisation did not occur. The intermediate strata grew rather than disappearing, and the growth of professional, managerial and service occupations is the most serious empirical failure of the theory.
2. Class consciousness did not develop as predicted, and explanations of why, false consciousness, embourgeoisement, the effect of welfare provision, have the character of accommodations to a failed prediction.
3. Ownership and control separated. Where shareholders own and managers control, the two-class model does not fit, which is Dahrendorf's starting point in [The Conflict Perspective] for redefining conflict as conflict over authority.
4. Weber's correction. Stratification has three separable dimensions, class, status and party, which vary independently, and this fits India far better, since ritual status and economic class do not coincide, as [Caste] shows.
5. Non-class divisions organise action more effectively, and in India caste, religion, region and language have mobilised people far more than class has. This is the most important criticism for an Indian answer, and the sociological explanation offered is that caste supplies a ready-made group with existing solidarity, where class must be constructed.
6. Where revolutions occurred, they occurred in agrarian societies rather than the advanced industrial ones the theory implied.
7. Reformist gains were real. Wages, hours, safety and security improved substantially within capitalism through legislation and organisation, which the theory of immiseration did not anticipate.

What survives

The concept of class itself, and the insistence that economic position shapes life chances, which no serious sociology now denies.

Exploitation as an analytical category, and the attention to who appropriates the surplus, which remains a real question about any economy.

The idea that conflict is structural, and that a society's arrangements produce it rather than merely permitting it.

Ideology, the insight that ideas can serve interests without those who hold them being aware of it, which is now common property across sociology.

And, for a lawyer, the questions: whose interests does this rule serve; who was able to be heard when it was made; and who can afford to use it. Those questions do not require accepting Marx's system, and asking them is his most durable contribution to legal study.

A worked example

A factory of six hundred workers in an industrial estate.

Where the theory fits. The owners and the workers do stand in different relations to the means of production; the interests over wages are inversely related; the workers' concentration in one place makes common action possible; and the union, where one exists, is exactly the organisation Marx described.

Where it does not. The workforce is divided between permanent employees with statutory protections and contract workers with none, whose interests differ sharply from each other, which is the informal sector division identified in [Class]. Supervisors and technical staff are employees who do not identify with the workers. Recruitment runs through caste and regional networks, so the workforce is segmented along lines the theory treats as secondary. And the state is present throughout, through labour legislation, conciliation machinery and industrial adjudication, which convert conflict into a regulated process rather than allowing it to accumulate, which is Dahrendorf's institutionalisation and not Marx's polarisation.

The conclusion for an answer: Marx identifies the structural opposition correctly and predicts neither the internal divisions of the working class nor the state's capacity to institutionalise the conflict, and in India the divisions of caste, region and employment status have proved more effective at organising collective action than class position has.

Quick revision

1. Class is defined by the relation to the means of production, and by nothing else. Bourgeoisie, proletariat, petty bourgeoisie, lumpenproletariat, landowners.
2. Exploitation: the worker sells labour power; it creates more value than its cost; the difference, surplus value, is appropriated. Interests are therefore inversely related.
3. Class in itself: objectively shares a relation to production. Class for itself: conscious of it and organised. Class consciousness is the transition; false consciousness its opposite, produced because the ruling ideas of an age are the ruling class's ideas.
4. Consciousness is produced by concentration, communication, homogenisation of conditions, collective action, unions and a party.
5. Conflict is structural, arising from the positions themselves, so it cannot be removed by better communication; it is the mechanism of historical change.
6. The Communist Manifesto, 1848: the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
7. Criticisms: polarisation failed; class consciousness did not develop; ownership and control separated (Dahrendorf); Weber's class, status and party fit India better; caste, religion and region mobilise more effectively than class; revolutions occurred in agrarian societies; reformist gains were real.
8. Survives: class as a determinant of life chances, exploitation as a category, conflict as structural, ideology, and the questions whose interests a rule serves and who can use it.

Test yourself

1. How does Marx define class, and what follows from the definition? By a single criterion, the relation to the means of production, excluding income, occupation, status and education. It follows that a highly paid employee and a poorly paid one belong to the same class, since neither owns the means of production, and that a small proprietor of modest income belongs to a different class from a well-paid employee. The definition's sharpness is both the theory's distinctive strength and the source of the objection that it cannot accommodate the differentiation actually observed among the propertyless.

2. Explain exploitation and surplus value. The worker sells not labour but labour power, the capacity to work, for a wage corresponding to what is required to maintain and reproduce that capacity. Applied in production, labour power creates more value than it costs, and the difference, surplus value, is appropriated by the owner as the source of profit. It follows that the interests of the two classes are inversely related, since whatever raises wages reduces surplus value and the reverse, so the antagonism is structural and cannot be removed by goodwill.

3. Distinguish class in itself from class for itself, and explain false consciousness. A class in itself is a set of people objectively sharing the same relation to the means of production, whether or not they know it; a class for itself has become conscious of that shared position and of the opposition of its interests, and has organised to act on it, class consciousness being the transition between the two. False consciousness is the contrary condition, in which members of a class hold beliefs serving the interests of another class, which Marx attributed to the ruling ideas of any age being those of its ruling class, transmitted through religion, education, law and the press.

4. Why is conflict said to be structural rather than accidental? Because it arises from the positions people occupy in production rather than from misunderstanding, ill will or defective institutions. Those who own the means of production and those who must sell their labour power have interests that are inversely related, so the opposition persists whoever occupies the positions and however they behave towards one another. It follows that the conflict cannot be dissolved by improved communication or changed attitudes, but only by altering the structure that generates it.

5. How well does the theory fit an Indian industrial setting? It identifies the structural opposition correctly and predicts the concentration that makes collective action possible. It fails to predict the internal divisions of the workforce between permanent and contract workers, whose interests differ sharply; the position of supervisory and technical employees who do not identify with the workers; the segmentation of recruitment along caste and regional lines, which the theory treats as secondary; and the state's capacity to institutionalise conflict through labour legislation, conciliation and adjudication. In India caste, religion and region have organised collective action far more effectively than class.