Abstract

All the class systems place people into groups based on objective traits. People either own or do not
own the means of production, have similar positions in the job market, and their jobs give them a
certain amount of freedom and choice, no matter what they think about those traits. The term class
consciousness is linked to Marxism, where people often talk about how to help the proletariat
become aware of their class or why this has not happened yet. The main idea is that a set of values
and beliefs and a political organization will or should form to represent and achieve the objective
interests of a class.

Class consciousness is when workers realize they have the same interests as all other workers and
work together in groups to pursue those interests. This causes problems on the political level, as
workers who are aware of their class try to change the things they all have in common.
Marxist analysis has focused on the workers’ growing revolutionary class consciousness as they
move from the point of “class in itself” to a “class for itself.” A “class in itself” is a group of people
with the same grievances and living conditions. A “class for itself” is a group of people who are class
consciousness and work towards uplifting themselves.

Sociologists are sometimes interested in the effects of class that is above economic concerns. For
instance, there is a strong connection between class and how often some social issues happen.
Sociological interest in class assumes that people in a class have similar beliefs and values and act
similarly. People have a subjective or personal understanding of their class position and a sense of
group identity.
Marxists usually call the fact that the working class does not act together due to “false
consciousness” and say it is because the capitalist class’s ideas promote different ways of “divide and
rule.” For instance, a chauvinist upper class might stir up racial and ethnic rivalries, making white
workers think they are better than black workers.
Some of the working class’s work and life situations, like exploitation, isolation, unemployment, and
living in poverty, are seen as making them more aware of their shared situation and encouraging
them to act as a group.

Only under certain circumstances does a “class in itself” become a “class for itself.” Economic
changes help members realize they have the same interests and work together to reach the commonly
shared goals. This makes the class structure simpler, which causes society to “split up into two great
opposite and hostile groupings, into two great classes, directly facing each other: the Bourgeoisie and
the Proletariat.”
There is a growing divide between a large working class, all stuck in miserable poverty and working
together in big factories, and a small group of capitalists who run a few huge monopolistic
businesses. The “boom and bust” economy that results from fierce competition between capitalists
drives down wages and makes it difficult for the working class to make a living.
All these things make the working class a group that sticks together and knows itself. One of the
biggest problems with Marx’s model is that class polarization and pauperization have not happened
as he predicted in capitalist societies.
Max Weber had another way of looking at the question of class consciousness. He said that classes
are not communities but rather “possible and frequent bases for social action.”
Based on how economic relationships tend to go, Marx’s model says that being in a particular class
will lead to class consciousness and action. Weber said there is no logical reason why economic
classes with different life chances lead to social classes, class struggle, or revolution.

This has led to changes in the original Marxist model, such as the idea that the working class
comprises people with “false consciousness.” This is the idea that ideological beliefs act as a
smokescreen, hiding the fact that the working class is exploited and making it hard to see how they
are all the same. This keeps them from realizing their shared class interests and acting on them.
Some people have called the fact that there does not seem to be a clear link between class location
and class consciousness the “weakest link in the chain” of Marxist class theory. 
No understanding of class consciousness would be complete without reference to the notion of false
consciousness. Marxists have repeatedly argued that the emergence of class consciousness is
deliberately thwarted by the ability of the bourgeoisie to emphasise differences within the working-
class, thereby preventing the emergence of a shared view on their exploitation. False consciousness
is therefore an important instrument of control as used by the ruling class. Theorists such as George
Lukas claim that false consciousness prevents the proletariat from taking on their predicted role
within society as agents of revolutionary change, whereas the Marxist historian Ralph Miliband
(1973) argues that the media is the new “opium of the people” by acting as a hallucinatory drug to
keep the masses subsumed.

Class consciousness is a core facet of Marx's theory of class conflict, which focuses on the social,
economic, and political relationships between workers and owners within a capitalist economy. The
precept was developed in conjunction with his theory on how workers might overthrow the system of
capitalism and then go on to create a new economic, social, and political system based on equality
rather than inequality and exploitation. However, as long as a person believes the myth, he or she
will continue to live and operate with a false consciousness. Without a class consciousness, they will
fail to recognize that the stratified economic system in which they're operating was designed to
afford only the bare minimum of money to workers while funnelling huge profits to the owners,
executives, and financiers at the top.