THE BOUGEOISIE, THE PROLETARIATS AND CLASS STRUGGLE:
MARXIAN SOCIOLOGY
Sociology of Class conflict
Marxian sociology is also called “The sociology of class conflict.”
The main idea of Marxian Class Theory is to be found in the opening of his “Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848” which reads as follows:
“The history of the hitherto existing society is the history of the class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journey man, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on uninterrupted, now hidden and now open fight, a fight that each time ended in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in common ruin of the contending classes. ”1
It is clear that at every stage in history, there is war between the classes. The landowner exploits the landless, and the factory owner exploits the workers. Between classes, there is endless antagonism and hatred. Class conflict is the severest form of class antagonism. War of the classes Marx says that a particular class owns and controls the means of production, and exploits the rest of the people. He says that capitalists make use of the state as an instrument of oppression and exploitation. Exploiting classes give rise to opposite classes. Hence, thesis and anti-thesis. Capitalists here form the thesis and the serf or the proletariat form the anti-thesis. The Bourgeoisie or the Capitalists and The Proletariats or the Working Class The most distinguishing feature of any society is its form of property. An individual’s behavior is determined by his relations to property. Classes are determined on the basis of individual’s relation to the means of production. Means of production represent a type of property, which in the capitalist society is owned by the capitalists. Here, an individual’s occupation is not important but his relations to the means of production are important. According to Marx, capital is gained from the exploitation of the masses of population, the working class, by the owners of means of production- the bourgeoisie. The capitalist system transformed masses of people into workers. Through the development of class consciousness, the economic conditions of capitalism united the masses and constituted them into a class of itself, the proletariats. Exploitation of the working class Exploitation of the workers can only add to their misery and poverty. …show more content…
But the same exploitation helps the rich to become richer.
In every mode of production which involves the exploitation of man by man, majority of people, the people who labor, are condemned to toil for no more than the barest necessities of life. With this, society gets divided into rich and poor. To Marx, poverty is the result of exploitation and not of scarcity.
Alienation
The process of alienation is central to Marxian theory of class conflict. The economic exploitation and inhuman working conditions lead to increasing alienation of man. Alienation results from a lack of sense of control over the social world. The social world confronts people as a hostile thing, leaving them alien in the environment.
The workers caught in the vicious circle of exploitation find no way to get out of it. Hence they lose interest in work. Work becomes an enforced activity, not a satisfying one.
The responsibility of the worker gets diminished because he does not own the tools with which he works and he does not own the final product too. This situation of alienation heightens the mood of the worker for a conflict.
Class struggle Due to alienation, the working class internally becomes more homogenous and this helps to intensify the class struggle. Because of this, the workers form unions against the bourgeoisie. They come up together to demand higher wages, better living conditions etc. Conflicts break out and riots happen here and there. This is what class struggle basically is, in Marxist ideology. Marx’s prediction Marx predicted that the capitalists would grow fewer and stronger as a result of their endless competition, that the middle class would disappear into the working class, and that the growing poverty of the workers would spark a great revolution. He felt that the revolution would be a bloody one. This revolution would bring to end the capitalist society and lead to the social dictatorship of the proletariat. Since the revolution would result in the liquidation of the bourgeoisie, they
MARXIAN SOCIOLOGY
Sociology of Class conflict
Marxian sociology is also called “The sociology of class conflict.”
The main idea of Marxian Class Theory is to be found in the opening of his “Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848” which reads as follows:
“The history of the hitherto existing society is the history of the class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journey man, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on uninterrupted, now hidden and now open fight, a fight that each time ended in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in common ruin of the contending classes. ”1
It is clear that at every stage in history, there is war between the classes. The landowner exploits the landless, and the factory owner exploits the workers. Between classes, there is endless antagonism and hatred. Class conflict is the severest form of class antagonism. War of the classes Marx says that a particular class owns and controls the means of production, and exploits the rest of the people. He says that capitalists make use of the state as an instrument of oppression and exploitation. Exploiting classes give rise to opposite classes. Hence, thesis and anti-thesis. Capitalists here form the thesis and the serf or the proletariat form the anti-thesis. The Bourgeoisie or the Capitalists and The Proletariats or the Working Class The most distinguishing feature of any society is its form of property. An individual’s behavior is determined by his relations to property. Classes are determined on the basis of individual’s relation to the means of production. Means of production represent a type of property, which in the capitalist society is owned by the capitalists. Here, an individual’s occupation is not important but his relations to the means of production are important. According to Marx, capital is gained from the exploitation of the masses of population, the working class, by the owners of means of production- the bourgeoisie. The capitalist system transformed masses of people into workers. Through the development of class consciousness, the economic conditions of capitalism united the masses and constituted them into a class of itself, the proletariats. Exploitation of the working class Exploitation of the workers can only add to their misery and poverty. …show more content…
But the same exploitation helps the rich to become richer.
In every mode of production which involves the exploitation of man by man, majority of people, the people who labor, are condemned to toil for no more than the barest necessities of life. With this, society gets divided into rich and poor. To Marx, poverty is the result of exploitation and not of scarcity.
Alienation
The process of alienation is central to Marxian theory of class conflict. The economic exploitation and inhuman working conditions lead to increasing alienation of man. Alienation results from a lack of sense of control over the social world. The social world confronts people as a hostile thing, leaving them alien in the environment.
The workers caught in the vicious circle of exploitation find no way to get out of it. Hence they lose interest in work. Work becomes an enforced activity, not a satisfying one.
The responsibility of the worker gets diminished because he does not own the tools with which he works and he does not own the final product too. This situation of alienation heightens the mood of the worker for a conflict.
Class struggle Due to alienation, the working class internally becomes more homogenous and this helps to intensify the class struggle. Because of this, the workers form unions against the bourgeoisie. They come up together to demand higher wages, better living conditions etc. Conflicts break out and riots happen here and there. This is what class struggle basically is, in Marxist ideology. Marx’s prediction Marx predicted that the capitalists would grow fewer and stronger as a result of their endless competition, that the middle class would disappear into the working class, and that the growing poverty of the workers would spark a great revolution. He felt that the revolution would be a bloody one. This revolution would bring to end the capitalist society and lead to the social dictatorship of the proletariat. Since the revolution would result in the liquidation of the bourgeoisie, they