Marx's & Weber’s Theory of Social Class and Class Structure

Class refers to a group of people who share same status with reference to their economic position

in society. Karl Marx defined class as a group of people who have same relationship with

respect to means of production. Max Weber defined class as a group of people who share same

position in market economy , and by virtue of this position, they receive similar rewards.

Karl Marx:

In Marxist theory, the capitalist stage of production consists of two main classes: the bourgeoisie,

the capitalists who own the means of production, and the much larger proletariat (or

'working class') who must sell their own labour power.

For Marx, the analysis of social class, class structures and changes in those structures are key to

understanding capitalism and other social systems or modes of production. In the Communist

Manifesto Marx and Engels comment that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of
class struggles.

Analysis of class divisions and struggles is especially important in developing an understanding

of the nature of capitalism. For Marx, classes are defined and structured by the relations

concerning (i) work and labour and (ii) ownership or possession of property and the means of

production. These economic factors more fully govern social relationships in capitalism than

they did in earlier societies. While earlier societies contained various strata or groupings which

might be considered classes, these may have been strata or elites that were not based solely on

economic factors – e.g. priesthood, knights, or military elite.

Marx did not complete the manuscript that would have presented his overall view of social class.

Many of his writings concern the class structures of capitalism, the relationship among classes

the dynamics of class struggle, political power and classes, and the development of a classless

society, and from these a Marxian approach to class can be developed. Note that Hadden does

not discuss class in any detail, although the class structure of capitalism is implicit in the labour

theory of value and can be derived from this theory.

1. Classes in Capitalism

The main classes in capitalism are the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. However, other classes

such as landlords, petty bourgeoisie, peasants, and lumpenproletariat also exist, but are not

primary in terms of the dynamics of capitalism.

a. Bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie or capitalists are the owners of capital, purchasing and

exploiting labour power, using the surplus value from employment of this labour power to

accumulate or expand their capital. It is the ownership of capital and its use to exploit labour and

expand capital are key here. Being wealthy is, in itself, not sufficient to make one a capitalist

(e.g. managers in the state sector or landlords). What is necessary is the active role of using this

wealth to make it self-expansive through employment and exploitation of labour.

Historically, the bourgeoisie began cities of medieval Europe, with the development of traders,

merchants, crafts persons, industrialists, manufacturers and others whose economic survival and

ability to increase wealth came from trade, commerce, or industry. In order for each of these to

expand their operations, they needed greater freedom to market products and expand economic

activities. In the struggle against the feudal authorities (church and secular political authorities)

this class formed and took on a progressive role. That is, they helped undermine the old

hierarchical and feudal order and create historical progress. For a segment of this class, wealth

came by employing labour (industrial capital), for others it came through trade (merchant capital),
banking and finance (finance capital), or using land in a capitalist manner (landed

capital). It was the industrial capitalists who employed labour to create capital that became the

leading sector of the bourgeoisie, whose economic activities ultimately changed society. In

Britain, this class became dominant politically and ideologically by the mid-nineteenth century.

By employing workers, industrial capital created the surplus value that could take on the various

forms such as profit, interest and rent.

b. Proletariat. The proletariat are owners of labour power (the ability to work), and mere owners

of labour power, with no other resources than the ability to work with their hands, bodies, and

minds. Since these workers have no property, in order to survive and obtain an income for

themselves and their families, they must find employment work for an employer. This means

working for a capitalist-employer in an exploitative social relationship.

This exploitative work relationship recreates or reproduces itself continually. If the capitalist-

employer is to make profits and accumulate capital, wages must be kept low. This means that the

proletariat is exploited, with the surplus time (above that required for creating subsistence)

worked by the worker creating surplus products. While the worker produces, the products
created by this labour are taken by the capitalist and sold – thus producing surplus value or profit

for the capitalist but poverty for workers. This occurs each day of labour process, preventing

workers from gaining ownership of property and recreating the conditions for further

exploitation.

The antagonistic and contradictory nature of this system is evident as capitalists attempting to

reduce wages and make workers work more intensively, while workers have exactly the opposite

set of interests. Work and the labour process in the capitalist mode of production are organized

so that workers remain property less members of the proletariat. 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."

Using enclosures, changing the conditions of production in agriculture, and denying peasants

access to common lands and resources, landowners transformed land into pasture land for raising

sheep, or sold land to farmers who began to develop grain and livestock production. People who

had subsisted on the land were denied the possibility of making a living on the land, and they

become property less. 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.

c. Landlords. 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.g. the Royal Family),

they were considered by Marx to be a marginal class, once powerful and dominant but having

lost their central role in production and the organization of society. 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.

d. 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" . 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 1920s and 1930s. 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).