Relevance: Sociology paper I: Thinkers: Karl Marx
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Karl Marx developed his theory of class-struggle in his analysis and critique of the capitalist society. The class struggles of history have been between minorities. Major changes in history have involved the replacement of one form of private property by another. Marx believed that the class struggle that would transform capitalist society would involve none of these processes. The protagonists would be the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, a minority versus a majority. Private property would be replaced by communally owned property.
Capitalist society is by its very nature unstable. It is based on contradictions and antagonisms which can only be resolved by its transformation. The basic conflict of interest involves the exploitation of workers by the capitalists. Capitalists by exploiting labour accumulate profit. This profit is generated through surplus value which means; “The labour time necessary for the worker to produce a value equal to the one he receives in the form of necessary labour time wages is less than the actual duration of his work”. Since the employers have monopolized the instruments of production, they can force the workers to work for extra hours, and thus, profits tend to accumulate with increasing exploitation of labour. ‘The economic exploitation’, Marx says, ‘and inhuman working condition leads to increasing alienation of man.
This first contradiction would be highlighted by a second: the contradiction between social production and individual ownership. Social production in large factories juxtaposed with individual ownership illuminates the exploitation of the proletariat. Social production also makes it easier for workers to organize themselves against the capitalists. It encourages a recognition of common circumstances and interests.
These two factors transform a class-in-itself to a class-for-itself through the development of class consciousness and class solidarity.
Apart from these factors certain factors in the natural development of a capitalist economy would result in the polarization of the two main classes i.e.
a) The increasing use of machinery will result in a homogeneous working class,
b) Second, the difference in wealth between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat will increase as the accumulation of capital proceeds. Even though the real wages and living standards of the proletariat may rise, its members will become poorer in relation to the bourgeoisie. This process is known as
c) Third, the competitive nature of capitalism means that only the largest and most wealthy companies will survive and prosper. Thus the petty bourgeoisie, the owners of small businesses, will sink into the proletariat.
The final stage of class consciousness and class solidarity is reached when members realize that only through collective action can they overthrow the ruling class and they take positive steps to do so. A violent revolution breaks out and destroys the capitalistic structure of society. The bloody revolution terminates the capitalist society and leads to the social dictatorship of the proletariat. Marx’s theory being very old, has a series of defects. It is evidently fallacious to say that “the history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class-struggle”. Since it means that there has not been a co-operation of classes. It is also fallacious that class co-operation has been an even more universal phenomenon than class antagonism.
Marxian concept of class theory meaning the existence of only an antagonism of economic classes and the importance of it are wrong. Other than class-struggle there have been many other forms of antagonism-as the struggle of racial, national, religious and state groups; such antagonisms being quite different from the antagonism of economic classes, have been more important than the Marxian class-struggle.
It has also been emphasized that class struggle alone has been the dynamic factor to which the progress of mankind is contingent, which and such contention is wrong. Kropotuin’s “Mutual Aid”, has shown that the progress of mankind has been due to co-operation and solidarity rather than due to class antagonism, class-struggle and hatred.
Antonio Gramsci differed from Marx in his conception of class and class-struggle, in placing greater emphasis on the importance of divisions within classes as well as between classes. Thus, for example, agricultural and industrial workers might to some extent have different interests, and the state might exploit the existent of these divisions in order to maintain’ ruling-class hegemony’.
Ralf Dahrendorf argued that important changes have taken place in countries such as Britain and the
U.S.A. They were now post-capitalist societies. Dahrendorf claimed that for from the two main classes becoming polarized as Marx has predicted, the opposite had happened. The proportion of skilled and semi-skilled workers had grown, as had the size of new middle class of white-collar workers.
Also inequalities of wealth and income had been reduced, partly because of changes in the social structure and partly because of measures taken by the state. Social mobility had become more common, thereby affecting class-solidarity.
Further the link between ownership and control in industry had been broken. Managers, rather than owners exercised day-to-day control over the means of production. In these circumstances, Marx’s claim that conflict was based upon ownership or non-ownership of wealth was no longer valid. There was no longer a close association between wealth and power.
Dahrendorf, further asserted that conflicts are no longer based upon the existence of the two classes
identified by Marx, nor are they based upon economic divisions. Instead the source of conflict in society
was more to be located in authority.
Max Weber also saw no evidence to support the idea of the polarization of classes. Although he saw some decline in the numbers of the petty bourgeoisie (the small property owners) due to competition from large companies, he argued that they enter white collar or skilled manual trades rather than being depressed into the ranks of unskilled manual workers. He maintained that capitalist enterprises and the modern nation state require a ‘rational’ bureaucratic administration which involves large numbers of administrators and clerical staff. Thus Weber saw a diversification of classes and an expansion of the white-collar middle class, rather than polarization.
Weber rejected the view, held by some Marxists, of the inevitability of the proletarian revolution. He saw no reason why those sharing a similar ‘class situation’ should necessarily develop a common identity, recognize shared interests and take collective action to further those interests. For example, Weber suggested that individual manual workers who are dissatisfied with their class situation may respond in a variety of ways. They may grumble, sabotage industrial machinery, or take strike action. Weber, admitted that a ‘common market situation’ might provide a basis for collective class action but he saw this only as a possibility.
Many of his critics have argued that history has failed to substantiate Marx’s views on the direction of social change. Turning to communist society, critics have argued that history has not borne out the promise of communism contained in Marx’s writings. Significant social inequalities are present in communist regimes, and there are few signs of a movement towards equality. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s suggests that the promise of communism has been replaced by the desire for Western-style democracies.
Although the Marxian prophecy of the downfall of capitalism has not come true, Marx’s concept of revolution may be still relevant. In the first place, the national liberation movements in the developing countries are seen as expressions of the internal contradictions of the global capitalist system” the colonialism and economic exploitation perpetrated by the corporate capitalism. This position is actively endorsed by Andre Gunder Frank who argues that the underdevelopment of the Third World countries is initiated and aggravated by the capitalist system of the developed countries which have satellized and exploited developing countries.
Also Marx’s contention of growing inequalities in capitalist societies, has been supported by J. Westergrad in his study of British society.
Therefore Marx’s theory of class struggle has little empirical support, however in terms of it’s heuristic impact, it has been very influential.
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