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Karl Marx's theory of social class
Karl Marx's theory of social class
Karl Marx's theory of social class
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“Where some possess much, and the others nothing, there may arise an extreme- either out of the most rampant democracy, or out of an oligarchy.'; This was once said by Aristotle who was probably the first to recognize the importance of a middle class. A powerful debate whether the middle class is essentially defined by cultural or economic factors still remains an issue. A rich tradition is devoted to disentangling economic from cultural components of a class. According to Karl Marx, the middle class is an outgrowth of economic factors, primarily capitalism. Many people tend to disagree with Marx that capitalism is the only important factor in the outgrowth of the middle class. Judith R. Blau argues that her understanding of the middle class has much to do with inclusive cultural values. Blau demonstrates her opinion though her ethnography, Social Contract and Economic Markets. I believe that Karl Marx’s economic factors and Judith Blau’s cultural factors together define the middle class. Karl Marx believed class was a matter of economics, that is, how the individual fits into the pattern of modern capitalist society. Marx argued that the whole of capitalist society was constructed in order to support this idea including the society’s infrastructure. Marx believed that social classes arise when a group gains control of the means of production. This group also has the power to maintain or increase its wealth by taking advantage of the surplus value of labor. Many people question why a worker would labor under such conditions. The reason is quite simple according to Marx. The reason is political and social representation. Members of this class elect representatives who pass laws that serve their interests. Landlords and factory owners were able to use their control of resources to exploit the unlanded laborers in the newly emerging factories. Karl Marx looks at human societies as a whole, and asks how they reproduce themselves, and as a result, change. For Marx a fundamental question about any society is whether it can produce more than it needs to reproduce itself, that is, a surplus product. Karl Marx believed that the middle class is based upon economic factors and rooted in solely that perspective. Many people have examined his work closely arguing that economic factors could not possibly be the only definition o... ... middle of paper ... ...tablish neighborhoods based more on life style by creating their own community. The middle class created it’s own social institutions, such as public University’s, newspapers, department stores, libraries and business clubs. This was a way that essentially defines a class. Using economic and institutional affiliations that of which requires cultural edgework defines the middle class system. The controversial debate as to whether the middle class is defined by cultural or economic factors has been supported successfully by both sides. Karl Marx states his opinion clearly that economic factors are the basis of a class system. Marx explains that through a capitalist society where the means of production and social and political representation are the structure of the society. Judith Blau agrees with Marx that economic factors create a society however, cultural reasons define it. Blau explains how ‘having roots’ and cultural heritage shape’s a social class. I believe that the middle class was established by economic factors however, the diversity of people through their culture is what defines a society.
America is divided into two main groups, rich or poor. There is some grey area among these groups which is referred to as the middle class. The problem with the middle class is that most people think they belong in the middle class because they do not want to associate themselves with neither rich nor poor; there are stigmas attached to each side of the spectrum.
The working class stays working and the middle class stays being middle. Author Nick Tingle, wrote “The vexation of class”, he argues that the working class and the middle class are separated educationally based on culture and the commonplace. Tingle uses his own personal experiences and Ethos, to effectively prove his point about the difference in class based on culture ; although, Tingle also falls short by adding unnecessary information throughout the article that weakens his belief entirely.
...we turn to the middle class, which is a mean between the two extremes, to be a buffer between the upper and the lower classes. The middle class suffers least from ambition and is the most willing to listen to reason. Therefore, in order for the state to be good and stable, it is necessary to adhere to the mean and make the middle class as large as possible relative to the lower and the upper classes.
The working class stay working and the middle class stay being middle. Author Nick Tingle, wrote “The vexation of class”, he argues that the working class and the middle class are separated based on culture and the commonplace. Tingle uses his own personal experiences and Ethos, to effectively prove his point about the difference in class; although, Tingle also falls short by adding unnecessary information throughout the article that weakens his belief entirely.
He distinguishes between the masses called the 'proletariat', which produce goods for the benefit of a dominant class of owners of capital the ‘bourgeoisie' and receive a wage in exchange for their labour. Marx explains that the bourgeoisie however exploit the labour of their employees by paying them wages of less than the market value of the goods they produce in order to make a profit themselves and allow future investment. Marx claims that the forces of production result in a set of social relationships which result in conflict between the proletariat and the capitalists is at the nature of capitalism. Profits and investment allow the bourgeoisie to continually accumulate capital and become more and more powerful. Furthermore competition between the capitalists makes the bourgeoisie group smaller and smaller, and more of society will become part of the proletariat group. Consequently society would then be categorised by a very small number of capitalists exploiting and oppressing a large number of poor proletarians. He also believes that as a r...
The middle class itself is part of an idea originally proposed by Max Weber. Max Weber was a Philosopher from the 19th century, who is today considered one of the founders of sociology. His key proposal was that class divisions were the most important source of social conflict, and that
What comes into my mind when thinking on how to categorize those people that belong in the middle class, I look at such things as education, race, family, income, gender and how many people are in your household. I look at it as those people who are making between $40,000 and about $85,000 to be in the middle class while the next step would be the upper middle class and then to the upper class. Maybe I am wrong here, but like I said before, everyone wants to have that “I am middle class” attitude. The most recent Census Bureau survey data shows that the share of households with incomes of $75,000 or more has doubled in the past 24 years. Other studies, however, discover that more people who depart the middle class move down than up, at least temporarily.
In his essay “Land of Opportunity” James W. Loewen details the ignorance that most American students have towards class structure. He bemoans the fact that most textbooks completely ignore the issue of class, and when it does it is usually only mentions middle class in order to make the point that America is a “middle class country. This is particularly grievous to Loewen because he believes, “Social class is probably the single most important variable in society. From womb to tomb, it correlates with almost all other social characteristics of people that we can measure.” Loewen simply believes that social class usually determine the paths that a person will take in life. (Loewen 203)
There are generally three classes in the society: upper class, middle class and lower class. The working class usually refers to lower class. These social classes are generally divided according to people’s wages and educational level. It is a normal phenomenon that social classes exist in the society. However, the wealth gap between the rich and poor is getting wider in America. According to Dee Dee Myers’ ‘What class warfare really looks like’, “The top 1 percent
... values as the middle class does. The working class has to first follow the same cultural values as the middle class if they hope to one day become part of the middle class. This thinking is not entirely flawed but unfortunately it is not enough to raise ones ranking in society.
In his Manifesto of the Communist Party Karl Marx created a radical theory revolving not around the man made institution of government itself, but around the ever present guiding vice of man that is materialism and the economic classes that stemmed from it. By unfolding the relat...
In the Communist Manifesto it is very clear that Marx is concerned with the organization of society. He sees that the majority individuals in society, the proletariat, live in sub-standard living conditions while the minority of society, the bourgeoisie, have all that life has to offer. However, his most acute observation was that the bourgeoisie control the means of production that separate the two classes (Marx #11 p. 250). Marx notes that this is not just a recent development rather a historical process between the two classes and the individuals that compose it. “It [the bourgeois] has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, and 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 the 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 ...
The middle class is generally considered the greatest guarantee for the balance of societies, which are built upon the foundation of the United States, but several recent studies have pointed to the deterioration of the situation of this important American society slide in recent years. “There are many ways to define "middle class," but if you limit it to households between the 20th and 80th income percentiles, it would include families earning somewhere between $ 20,000 and $ 102,000 per year. That would be about 65% of all U.S. households, or roughly 205 million Americans. Polls show that the percentage of Americans who consider themselves middle or working class is between 80% and 90%.
In traditional media and culture, class is a relationship based off of income where the majority of people fall in a middle zone with a small number falling below and an even smaller number resting above. The majority has been termed the middle class, and in recent years has become the target of advertising, politics, and entertainment. In American culture, the middle class represents the average, with the extremes of poverty and elitist flanking either end. When class is defined by income, the middle class would technically encapsulate a majority of people. However, the identities of the people in this bracket are not cohesive and are impossible to define as a whole. American culture has tried by representing middle class as cozy existence and insisting that this
Class, what is it really? Class is defined by your relationship to the means of production. The means of production is anything that can be used to produce labor. Marx gives some examples of different classes in which he says that the Capitalist class also known as the (Bourgeoisie) owns their own means of production. Meaning they have the ability to produce products. The also employ workers in order to get surplus-value. And finally they have ultimate command of the labor process itself. The Other class Marx refers to is the working class also known as the (Proletariat) class. This particular class does not own their own means of production, so basically there are not owners of anything they are employees. This class makes a living by selling their labor power. In exchange for labor the can gain a small profit to pay bills and buy food and return back to selling labor again. They do not have any control over the labor process. This differs greatly from liberal view of what class should be. Liberals believed that individuals should be free to obtain work from the highest-paying employers, while the profit motive would ensure that products