The surplus products and value created by workers turns into capital, which is accumulated. Historically, the proletariat emerged as the aristocracy began to suffer financial difficulties in the later middle ages.
Many of those who were supported by working for the aristocracy lost their livelihood — the "disbanding of the feudal retainers and the dissolution of the monasteries.
People who had subsisted on the land were denied the possibility of making a living on the land, and they become propertyless. Population growth was also considerable, and in some areas forced labour slavery, indentured servants, poor, prison was used. While some people subsisted in rural industry and craft production, factory production began to undermine these as well in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Together these changes created a large class of landless and propertyless people who had no choice but to become members of the proletariat — many working in factories. These people became free wage labourers, free from feudal ties and free from a source of livelihood. Today we still talk of free labour markets and the dual meaning is much the same. While the relationship between workers and capitalists, or between labour and capital may appear to be no more than an economic relationship of equals meeting equals in the labour market, Marx shows how it is an exploitative social relationship.
Not only is it exploitative, it is contradictory, with the interests of the two partners in the relationship being directly opposed to each other. Although at the same time, the two opposed interests are also partners in the sense that both capital and labour are required in production and an exploitative relationship means an exploiter and someone being exploited.
This relationship is further contradictory in that it is not just two sets of interests, but there is no resolution of the capital-labour contradiction within the organization of capitalism as a system. The contradictory relationship has class conflict built into it, and leads to periodic bursts of strikes, crises, political struggles, and ultimately to the overthrow of bourgeois rule by the proletariat.
Class conflict of this sort results in historical change and is the motive force in the history of capitalism. In addition to the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, Marx discussed a number of other classes. First, Marx mentions landowners or landlords as a class in Britain.
While these were historically important, and many still retain their wealth even today e. In order to retain their wealth, some of these landowners were able to transform their wealth in land into landed capital.
While this constituted a somewhat different form than industrial capital, this meant that the land was also used as capital, to accumulate. Labour may not be directly employed by landowners, but the land is used as a means by which capital can be expanded.
Petty Bourgeoisie and Middle Class. The lower middle class or the petty petite bourgeoisie the bourgeoisie was sometimes called the middle class in this era , constitutes "the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant" Giddens and Held, p.
The characteristic of this class is that it does own some property, but not sufficient to have all work done by employees or workers. Members of this class must also work in order to survive, so they have a dual existence — as small scale property owners and as workers. Because of this dual role, members of this class have divided interests, usually wishing to preserve private property and property rights, but with interests often opposed to those of the capitalist class.
This class is split internally as well, being geographically, industrially, and politically dispersed, so that it is difficult for it to act as a class. Marx expected that this class would disappear as capitalism developed, with members moving into the bourgeoisie or into the working class, depending on whether or not they were successful. Many in this class have done this, but at the same time, this class seems to keep recreating itself in different forms.
Marx considers the petite bourgeoisie to be politically conservative or reactionary, preferring to return to an older order. This class has been considered by some Marxists to have been the base of fascism in the s and s.
At other times, when it is acting in opposition to the interests of large capital, it may have a more radical or reformist bent to it anti-monopoly.
Note on the Middle Class. The issue of the middle class or classes appears to be a major issue within Marxian theory, one often addressed by later Marxists. Many Marxists attempt to show that the middle class is declining, and polarization of society into two classes is a strong tendency within capitalism. Marx's view was that the successful members of the middle class would become members of the bourgeoisie, while the unsuccessful would be forced into the proletariat.
In the last few years, many have argued that in North America, and perhaps on a world scale, there is an increasing gap between rich and poor and there is a declining middle. While there have been tendencies in this direction, especially among the farmers and peasantry, there has been no clear long run trend toward decline of the middle class.
At the same time as there has been polarization of classes, there have been new middle groupings created. Some of these are small business people, shopkeepers, and small producers while others are professional and managerial personnel, and some intellectual personnel.
Well paid working class members and independent trades people might consider themselves to be members of the middle class.
Some segments of this grouping have expanded in number in recent years. While it is not clear that these groups hold together and constitute a class in any Marxian sense of being combined in opposition to other classes, they do form a middle grouping. Since Marx's prediction has not come true, sociologists and other writers have devoted much attention to explaining this middle grouping — what is its basis, what are the causes of its stability or growth, how it fits into the class structure, and what are the effects of its existence on proletariat and bourgeoisie.
Marx also mentions the "dangerous class" or the social scum. Among the members of this group are "ruined and adventurous offshoots of the bourgeoisie, vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds.. This is the lumpenproletariat. He does not consider this group to be of any importance in terms of potential for creating socialism, if anything they may be considered to have a conservative influence.
Other writers and analysts have considered them to have some revolutionary potential. One of the main reasons for mentioning them is to emphasize how capitalism uses, misuses and discards people, not treating them as humans. Today's representative of this class of lumpenproletariat are the homeless and the underclass.
Peasantry and Farmers. Introduction and Summary 2. Aggression and the Conflict Helix 3. Frustration, Deprivation, Aggression, and the Conflict Helix 4. Misperception, Cognitive Dissonance, Righteousness, and Conflict 6.
They are driven, he posited, by vast impersonal forces of history that play out through the behavior and conflict among social classes.
According to Marx, every society is divided into social classes, whose members have more in common with one another than with members of other social classes.
Thus Marx thought that the capitalist system inherently contained the seeds of its own destruction. The alienation and exploitation of the proletariat that are fundamental to capitalist relations would inevitably drive the working class to rebel against the bourgeoisie and seize control of the means of production. As a result of the revolution, Marx predicted that private ownership of the means of production would be replaced by collective ownership, first under socialism and then under communism.
In the final stage of human development, social classes and class struggle would no longer exist. Marx and Engels' ideas laid the groundwork for the theory and practice of communism, which advocates for a classless system in which all property and wealth are communally rather than privately owned.
Socialism predates communism by several decades. Its early adherents called for a more egalitarian distribution of wealth, solidarity among workers, better working conditions, and common ownership of land and manufacturing equipment. Socialism is based on the idea of public ownership of the means of production , but individuals may still own property.
Rather than arising out of a class revolution, socialist reform takes place within the existing social and political structures, whether they're democratic, technocratic, oligarchic, or totalitarian. Both communism and socialism oppose capitalism, an economic system characterized by private ownership and a system of laws that protect the right to own or transfer private property. In a capitalist economy, private individuals and enterprises own the means of production and the right to profit from them.
These include worker exploitation and inequities between rich and poor. Although Marx inspired multitudes of followers, many of his predictions have not come to pass. Marx believed that increasing competition would not produce better goods for consumers; instead, it would lead to bankruptcy among capitalists and the rise of monopolies as fewer and fewer were left to control production.
Bankrupt former capitalists would join the proletariat, eventually creating an army of the unemployed. In addition, the market economy , which by its nature is unplanned, would experience huge supply-and-demand problems and cause severe depressions. Yet over the years, capitalism has not collapsed as a result of fierce competition. Wages have risen and profits have not declined, although economic inequality has increased in many capitalist societies.
And though there have been recessions and depressions, they are not thought to be an inherent feature of free markets. Indeed, a society without competition, money, and private property has never materialized, and the history of the 20th century suggests it is likely an unworkable concept. Marxism is a philosophy developed by Karl Marx in the second half of the 19th century that unifies social, political, and economic theory. It is mainly concerned with the battle between the working class and the ownership class and favors communism and socialism over capitalism.
Marx thought that the capitalistic system would inevitably destroy itself. The oppressed workers would become alienated and ultimately overthrow the owners to take control of the means of production themselves, ushering in a classless society. Not so far. Some countries, such as the former Soviet Union, China, and Cuba, have attempted to create a communist society, but they were or have been unable to entirely eliminate personal property, money, and class systems.
In , capitalism, in its various forms, remains the dominant economic system. American Journal of Public Health. Marxists Internet Archive.
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