Communism

Introduction

In all complex societies there were scholars who developed systematic thought about morals, social organization people and nature, the cosmos and religion. Many of these systems of thought were concerned with understanding the origin of society and offered explanations of the existing social structure.” (Ray 1999:2) This paper will examine the work of Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx. Although differences exist in the direction, vision and content within the works of Durkheim and Marx they nevertheless present illuminating, powerful, political and intellectual insights to the question our essay aims to address; we shall look at both theorists response to our question in turn. (Jones 2008)

One of the most effective sociological theories of social conflict has been produced by Karl Marx. “In the Communist Manifesto, Marx asserts that capitalism is a necessary stage prior to the establishment of communism in all modern societies (just as feudalism was a necessary forerunner to capitalism). This evolution of one form of society to another comes as a result of conflict around the system of production, and especially in the relations of production.” (Marx and Engels 1952:73) Marx’s believed that conflict of the classes in society were reflected through industrial conflicts. Built on capitalist means of production, Marx distinguishes between three major classes which make up modern industrial society; these classes are the Bourgeoisies, who own the means of production, such as machinery and factory buildings, whose income is gained in the form of profit. Then there are the landlords/Rentiers whose source of income is rent. The classes that follow are the proletariat, the working class that acquire income through selling their own labour for wages. Marx’s theory of class connotes that class interest is a force which transforms concealed class membership into a struggle. Because of parallel class circumstances individuals identify with one another and act similarly, they build communities based on mutual dependence and shared interests consistent with a common income of profit or wage. And from such common interests classes are constructed, and according to Marx, individuals form classes to the degree that their interests employ them in a struggle with the opposite class.

Modern industrial society presents class systems with unique ‘modes of production’. “For Marx, a social class was a group of people who occupied a similar position in relation to the forces of production in society. The basis of social class, then, lay in the relations of production – the relations between employers and employees, for example.” (Marx and Engels 1952:73)Marx maintained that each phase of history is constructed of class systems battling with class struggles which make up a hierarchy (Bottomore 1966) of “Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, Lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight. A fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large or in the common ruin of the contending classes.” (Marx and Engels 1952:73) “The emphasis on conflict in Marx’s theory of social revolution highlights the key role of social classes, and the struggle between classes with different and opposed interests” (Marx and Engels 1952:73)

Modern industrial society is the epoch of the bourgeoisie; this has progressively simplified the conflict of class to bourgeoisie versus proletariat. (Marx and Engels 1952) The emergence of the bourgeoisie has torn all powerful forces and reduced them to wage labours. Where the bourgeoisie have had leverage patriarchal and feudal relations come to an end. When bourgeoisie gain the upper hand, feudal bonds that tie man to his ‘natural superiors’ are striped and men is left at the mercy of ‘cash payment’ and ‘self interest’. (Marx and Engels 1952) Self centred calculation of modern industrialism has drowned the ‘heavily ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism.’(Marx and Engels 1952:75) Marx further states that true essence of family has been tainted by the bourgeoisie notion of money relation. The worth of man has been reduced to mere ‘exchange value’. The once honoured and revered callings, such as priesthood, lawyer, poet, physician, and man of science are merely looked upon as paid wage labourers under the bourgeoisie regime. Invaluable, egalitarian freedom has been exchanged for the new unconscionable freedom called Free Trade. (Marx and Engels 1952) This new unconscionable freedom breeds exploitation which leads to alienation (or loss of control over ones product, its value and the process of its production).

According to Marx the bourgeoisie have created the very class that will be at war with them – the modern working class proletarians. The proletariat, sells his labour for a wage, in order for work to be available his labour must increase capital; to his own detriment the proletariat is a commodity (living by exchange in order to obtain goods they need). Being a commodity leaves the proletariat exposed to competition and subject to the fluctuations of the market. “the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for his maintenance, and for the propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labour, is equal to its cost of production. …as the repulsiveness of work increases, the wage decreases. …as the use of machinery and division of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases.” (Marx and Engels 1952:76) There is persistent competition between the buyer (bourgeoisie) and the seller (proletariat); the wage labourer wants an increase in his wages whilst the capitalist fights to keep wages down. (Hadden 1998) In competition are buyers for the market share, they also seek for skilled labour at cheap prices (Hadden 1998). When Marx referred to the reserve army of labour, he was explaining that returns are often maximised when capital travels from one industry to another, so it is the same with labour, it must move and as a result is kept stagnant in cheap and underemployed labour. (Hadden 1998) Throughout the process, the capitalist’s aims for the exchange value of goods he possessed to increase. (Hadden 1998)

“The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old.” (Marsh P74) The growth of capitalism expands inequality of life conditions between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. As a result of the increased homogenisation within each class struggle, individuals are generalised to coalitions across factories. Increasingly class conflict becomes manifested at societal levels. Consciousness of class increases, policies and common interests are organized, and the use of and struggle for political power occurs, and classes become political forces. Power over production (example capital), is a determinant of political power according to Marx.

Capital bestows political power, which the bourgeois class readily uses to protect and legitimatize and their property and consequent social relations. In modern industrial society or a mature capitalist society, the business of the state is that of the bourgeoisie, relations among classes have become political (Jones 2008). “Finally, divisions between the classes widen, and the state of the exploited worker deteriorates to the point where social structure collapses and the class struggle is transformed into a proletarian revolution. The workers’ triumph will eliminate the basis of class division in property through public ownership of the means of production. With the basis of classes thus wiped away, a classless society will ensue (by definition), and since political power to protect the bourgeoisie against the workers is unnecessary, political authority and the state will wither away” (Rummel 1977:).

Emile Durkheim’s concerns were primarily about social solidarity which is social order, stability and integration. (Hadden 1998) His response to modernity was for a modern society that maintained harmony and order, (Jones 2008) he endeavoured to create a social science that ensured such a society existed. (Jones 2008) Social structures according to Durkheim are composed of norms and values. Socialisation makes up individuals within society; during the process of socialisation individuals believe that they are in total control of their own lives and make their own decisions, however, Durkheim stresses that it is not the case, choices are in reality made for the individual. Social practices have already been established for us and we conform to the structures already established for us, individuals learn collectively held social rules conducts and behaviours which Durkheim refers to as social facts. (Jones 2008)

In order to avoid potential conflict and breakdown and maintain solidarity in society, Durkheim believed that social order had to be achieved. During pre-modern and traditional societies solidarity was automatically achieved, for uniform or mechanical solidarity was a result of the simplified division of labour. This ensured a society that held commonly accepted rules of behaviour and saw life through the same eyes thus avoiding conflict. However, modern industrial society presents highly complex division of labour, there are many more roles to be occupied and lifestyles choices are so different that social solidarity is extremely difficult to achieve. According to Durkheim the latter is the main problem of modern industrial society. The forces that divide people are so deep that social disintegration is a real threat for society. When addressing the subject of the division of labour and social differentiation, Durkheim writes of the feared social integration found in modern industrial society. (Jones 2008)

“There is a professional ethic of the lawyer and the judge, the soldier and the priest, etc. But if one attempted to fix in a little more precise language the current ideas on what ought to be the relations of employer and employee, of worker and manager, of tradesmen in competition, to themselves or to the public, what indecisive formulas would be obtained! Some generalizations, without point, about the faithfulness and devotion workers of all sorts owe to those who employ them, about the moderation with which employers must use their economic advantages, a certain reprobation of all competition too openly dishonest, for all untempered exploitation of the consumer; that is about all the moral conscience of these trades contains. Moreover, most of these precepts are devoid of all juridical character, they are sanctioned only by opinion, not by law; and it is well known how indulgent opinion is concerning the manner in which these vague obligations are fulfilled. The most blameworthy acts are so often absolved by success that the boundary between what is permitted and what is prohibited, what is just and what is unjust, has nothing fixed about it, but seems susceptible to almost arbitrary change by individuals. An ethic so unprecise and inconsistent cannot constitute a discipline. The result is that all this sphere of collective life is, in large part, freed from the moderating action of regulation.” (Durkheim 1902:78)

Furthermore, Durkheim decried modern industrial society for encouraging individualism amongst individuals who when left to their own devices are innately anti social, self-centred, greedy, insatiable and overly competitive. “Naturally, we are not inclined to thwart and restrain ourselves; if, then, we are not invited, at each moment, to exercise this restraint without which there is no ethic, how can we learn the habitIf in the task that occupies almost all our time we follow no other rule than that of our well-understood interest, how can we learn to depend upon disinterestedness, on self-forgetfulness, on sacrificeIn this way, the absence of all economic discipline cannot fail to extend its effects beyond the economic world, and consequently weaken public morality.” (Durkheim 1902:79) We not only are naturally dangerously individualistic according to Durkheim, institutions of modernity are structured to applaud and boost individualism which results in moral deregulation, a condition Durkheim termed anomie. Unless the promotion of anomie is checked by counter-balancing social structural forces and encouraging social integration and cohesion, then social order and solidarity are under threat. (Jones 2008)

Despite the doom and gloom of modern Industrial society, Durkheim sees hope in the various roles we play through the division of labour resulting in differing lifestyles. The key to individual and societal survival hangs over the fact that these roles are interdependent. The only we manage to survive living our own lives is because others are living their lives also. The reason a particular task needs to be performed in this modern economy is because roles are interdependent, all other tasks depend on the role being fulfilled. We are all interdependent on each other for our survival. Organic solidarity needs to be achieved; however anomie sets in and creates conflicts and breakdown in society. The core of Durkheim’s theory concerns itself with this question: how can we understand that the outcome of our destinies depends on our interdependence and as a result conduct our behaviour in a fashion that promotes organic solidarity(Jones 2008)

In conclusion

Rational understanding of modern industrial society was a major issue for both Marx and Durkheim.

Animal Farm Essay

Animal Farm by George Orwell is a compelling book that represents the Russian revolution. Although sing through the eyes of animate beings may look like a infantile construct, George does good into doing certain that the book carries out the message of revolution. I believe that George showed that Animal Farm was influence of the Russian revolution by the naming of the naming of the three hogs, the status of the farm, and because of the narrative ‘s secret plan.

Many of the animate beings in Animal Farm show some kind of connexion with the Russian revolution. Most animate beings either represent a group of people, or an in/famous individual. As the narrative starts to germinate from the rebellion to the Battle for the Windmill, the reader notices how the animate beings start to alter. When Mr. Jones gets expelled for the farm, 3 smart hogs take of the farm: Squealer, Snowball, and Napoleon. These three animate beings all represent dictators the had a portion in the Russian revolution. The most important portion about the names given to the hogs is that they all symbolize the dictators absolutely. Napoleon was a tough, ferocious looking Sus scrofa but was non much of a speaker. This would typify Vladimir Lenin. , the adult male who took the topographic point as dictator after Tsar Nikolas II stepped down. Squealer ‘s name was the individuality of Joseph Stalin, the adult male who kept on “ procrastinating ” the people by giving speedy, persuasive addresss on how Lenin was bettering the state. Snowball is so given to Trotsky because like Snowball, Trotsky split up with Lenin. In Animal Farm, these three hogs fundamentally reenact what took topographic point during the Russian revolution: treachery, propaganda, and communism. Possibly the best device Orwell used here was how he portrayed the three dictators as hogs, which shows how the name and visual aspect of the characters in this book are important and related to the revolution. A ground I believe Animal Farm is about the Russian Revolution, was the pick of calling for the hogs

During the whole book, Animal Farm was in really hapless status. During the beginning, Manor farm was a horrid topographic point to populate: with small nutrient and tonss of work everyday, it portrayed what Russia looked like during the clip of revolution. Merely during the early phases of the revolution was the economic system somewhat better than one time before. Each clip that Orwell describes the farm, it is ever in a different status, one which normally matched the status of Russia. When Napoleon was governing, the farm was in great economic problem: the animate beings were ever hungry while the hogs and Canis familiariss had plenty to eat. This shows that the economic system did non really better the animate being ‘s lives, but alternatively started to profit the other, higher members of society which is precisely what the Russian revolution resulted in. The status of the house was a symbol of Russia ‘s province which shows how Animal Farm is connected with the Russian revolution.

The concluding manner that Orwell connects both Animal Farm and the Russian revolution, was by the secret plan of the narrative. During the full book, all of the events that took topographic point had at least some small significance with the Russian revolution. When Napoleon oppressed the animate beings by killing them, it was portraying what was known as Bloody Sunday. At the beginning of the novel, when Old Major is giving the address about rebellion, it was all inspired by the old adult male known as Karl Marx. Even the event in which Mollie leaves shows the connexion between the two. The easiest event to find the the two, was most likely the scene were Boxer is taking off. If you think back to the revolution and back to Boxer ‘s slogan ( I will seek harder ) , you can easy see the Boxer is stand foring Russia ‘s working category. Because Russia ‘s working category was so loyal to Napoleon, most of them ended up for worse so before, and even worse, is the fact that Napoleon tossed off these people as if they were tools. The exact same can be said for the Russian revolution. Lenin abused his people and Orwell demonstrates it really clearly and deeply.

I believe that George showed that Animal Farm was influence of the Russian revolution by the naming of the naming of the three hogs, the status of the farm, and because of the narrative ‘s secret plan. By renaming and reassigning of few characters and events, George Orwell has described the revolution into a book that can is comprehensive to both small childs and immature grownups.

Brandy Edmondson Outcomes of the Korea War In 1950, Truman administration responded quickly to the Invasion to help South Korea to expanse American foreign polices and protect It. Since Truman was trying to avoid conflict with china, because he feared it might lead to a new world war. Trauma’s response to the North Korean invasion in June 1950 wasn’t justified for he set in motion for the united States to fight against China.

For bombing the North Korea, China pushed the united States forces back to South Korea showing China was stronger with their forces and would rule under communist. Some of the long terms effect in the Korea War families were torn apart. North Korea would suffer the effect of being ruled under the communism. They were limited on their freedoms. They were controlled so by they didn’t have the freedom of press, religion, or speech. There was little food In North Korea, so many people starved.

South Korea has the freedom of press, religion, and speech. They aren’t ruled by a communist after the war so they were able to grow without Limits. The Korea War brought many negative effects to Korea. They say that the Korea was one of the most destructive of the 20th century. The Korea War boost Japan’s economy, for most of the materials used in the recover from the depression of the war, while Japan was able to have success because of The Korea War.

Regardless, that the economic wide between the two sides has also deepened with the passage of the time. The Korea War too many die or serious hurt both Korean and American. China forced South Korea to treat back to the South, after the war ended both sides built a wall to divide the country. This invasion wasn’t to me Justified for it was too destructive for both sides and helped other countries when Truman should have been helping the United States rise before the invasion.

Marx’s definition of class. Its strengths and weaknesses.

Although the concept of class has a central importance in Marxist theory, Marx does not define it in a systematic form. Marx left this problem of producing a definition of the concept of social class until much later. The manuscript of the third volume of Capital breaks off at the moment when Marx was about to answer the question: ‘What constitutes a class? ‘ Even without his definition of class, one can reconstruct how the term is to be understood in his writings.

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx presents us with a theory of world history as a succession of class struggles for economic and political power. The main classes of pre-capitalist societies are stated as: ‘freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman’1. But the dominant theme of Western society is the conflict between the exploiting bourgeoisie and the exploited proletariat. Thus it is the class structure of early capitalism, and the class struggles of this form of society, which constituted the main reference point for the Marxist theory of history.

This is asserted by the Communist Manifesto’s famous phrase, that ‘the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of all class struggles’. The history of ‘civilized’ society, for Marx, has been the history of different forms of class exploitation and domination. It is the form of class domination present which determines the general character of the whole social structure. For example, the growing of wheat using traditional, non-mechanical techniques is compatible with a wide range of social relations of production.

A Roman citizen often owned slaves who worked his land growing wheat; a feudal lord would seize the surplus wheat grown by the serf on the lands; the early capitalist farmers began to employ landless laborers to do their manual work for a wage which was less than the total value of the product which they created. In each case, wheat is grown on land by the labor of men and women, but the social arrangements are totally different. There are totally different class relationships, leading to totally different forms of society: ancient, feudal, and capitalist.

The one thing that unites these three arrangements is that in each case a minority class rules and takes the surplus away from the producers. Each society, says Marx, embodies class exploitation based on the relationships of production, or rather, the modes of production. The key to understanding – a given society is to discover which is the dominant mode of production within it. The basic pattern of social and political relationships can then be known. Since Marx concentrates his attention on the class structure of capitalist societies, it is only proper to follow him.

As stated before, the key classes in the capitalist mode of production are the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, or capitalists and landless wage laborers. While Marx recognizes that there are other classes, the fundamental class division is between this pairing of the exploiter and the exploited. The bourgeoisie derive their class position from the fact that they own productive wealth. It is not their high income that makes them capitalists, but the fact that they own the means of production.

For example, the inputs necessary for production – factories, machines, etc. The ability of workers to work (labor power) is in itself a marketable commodity bought for the least cost to be used at will by the capitalist. In addition, the capitalist owns the product and will always pocket the difference between the value of the labor and the value of the product – referred to by Marx as ‘surplus value’ – purely by virtue of his ownership. His property rights also allow the capitalist the control of the process of production and the labor he buys.

The proletariat in contrast, owns no means of production. Because of this exploitation, Marx viewed the bourgeoisie and the proletariat as locked in deep and unavoidable conflict. As capitalism expanded, the conflict would become more intense as the condition of the workers became worse. Over time, some members of the proletariat would come to understand their unfair position and would begin to communicate with each other. This would enable them to organize and overthrow the capitalist system.

The revolution would pave the way for a new socialist system that would abolish private ownership of the means of production. This forms the basis of Marx’s theory of class, and with further discussion, the complexities will present themselves. This two class model is not Marx’s only use of the word ‘class’. He uses the term of other economic groups, and particularly of the petty or petite bourgeoisie and the peasants. These groups seem to make the neat division of the Communist Manifesto inapplicable, for these two  – groups obviously merge into bourgeoisie and the proletariat according to how many workers they employ or how much land they own. Marx even foresaw, with increased use of machinery and the increase of service industries, the advent of a new middle class. This raises two main questions. The first concerns the complications of social stratification in relation to the basic classes.

In the fragment on ‘three great classes of modern society’ in Capital III, Marx observes that even England, where the economic structure is ‘most highly and classically developed… m]iddle and intermediate strata even here obliterate lines of demarcation everywhere’3 Even though this observation does not fit easily with the idea of an increasing polarization of bourgeois society between ‘two great classes’, Cole explains how Marx: regard[ed] the blurring of class divisions as a matter of secondary importance, influential in shaping the course of particular phases and incidents of the fundamental class struggle,         but incapable of altering its essential character or its ultimate outcome. And] in the long run the forces making for polarisation were bound to come into play more and more as the difficulties of Capitalism increased: so that the decisive class struggle between capitalists and proletarians could be delayed, but by no means averted or changed in its essential character by the emergence of any new class. Even so, Cole asks for a ‘critique’ of Marx in light of today’s circumstances, questioning the validity of this statement. The second question concerns the situation and development of two principal classes in capitalist society, bourgeoisie and proletariat.

In The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx gave this negative definition of a fully constituted class: In so far as millions of families live under economic conditions of existence that seperate their mode of life, their interests and their culture from those of the other classes, and put them in hostile opposition to the latter, they form a class. In so far as there is merely a local interconnection among these small-holding peasants, and the identity of their interests begets no community, no national bond and no political organisation among them, they do not form a class – In the Poverty of Philosophy, describing the emergence of the working class, Marx expressed the same idea in positive terms: Economic conditions had first transformed the mass of the people of the country into workers. The combination of capital has created for this mass a common situation, common interests. This mass is thus already a class as against capital, but not yet for itself. In the struggle, of which we have noted only a few phases, this mass becomes united, and constitutes itself as a class for itself. The interests it defends becomes class interests.

Most Marxists have recognized, that in the case of the working class, the development of a ‘socialist’ or ‘revolutionary’ consciousness poses problems which require more careful and thorough study. ‘Class interest’ itself is no longer conceived, as it was in general by Marx, as an objective and unambiguous ‘social fact’, but rather as having a sense which is constructed through interaction and discussion out of the experiences of everyday life and the interpretations of those experiences. This is further illustrated by Bottomore’s belief that an investigation into the ‘development of social classes’ would have to attend to three problems.

First, the ‘consequences for the class structure, and especially for the polarization of classes, of the rapid increase in productivity and in the size of the surplus, and the concomitant growth of the middle classes’ Bottomore states that how Marx defined the middle class, are the individuals who ‘live from’ surplus value, but also ‘assist in the realization and distribution of the surplus’. Marx foresaw the growing number of the middle class, and as a result, the declining number of working class. This would seem to strengthen the bourgeois making the transformation to a classless society more difficult.

Through Marx’s own analysis, Bottomore says that the transition might not occur at all; thus, resulting in a type of society unlike the socialist society emerging from capitalism. Or, transformation brought about differently, from what Marx predicted, resulting in the classless society. ‘The nature of the social conflict that would then bring about the breakdown of capitalism and the creation of a socialist society remains unclear, and is not discussed by Marx.

The second problem concerns the ‘various cultural and political influences which are a factor in the evolution of the revolutionary class consciousness.

Marx, in early writings, emphasizes positive influences for this development such as:

• introduction of new technology (resulting in the displacement of workers to further the revolution),
• the reserve army of labor,
• the advent of the factory (resulting in concentration of workers creating a collective situation – class consciousness)

But also negative influences such as: ‘dominant position of ruling-class ideas, the effects of social mobility, the growth of the middle classes. ’10 Bottomore then states that national or ethnic consciousness is very important; one of the powerful influences that Marx neglected.

The second influence is that of the increasing social differentiation in modern societies which breaks down the working-class consciousness to strengthen the middle class. In other words, increasing the number of middle class while decreasing the number of working class; a negative influence on revolutionary class consciousness. The last problem asks what conditions are necessary beyond the abolition of classes and private property in the means of production, in order to establish what Marx referred to as socialism.

Marx wrote about the advancement of science and how it could be used to abolish scarcity to meet human needs. As a result, man would be free from those labors in order to pursue their human potential. Beyond all of this, what Bottomore is implying is the further study of Marx’s political theory. Concentrating on the interaction between the development of production, emergence of new human needs, development of a political consciousness, and the creation of organizations to take part in a political struggle. Regrettably, this political theory, like the theory of class, can only be examined through fragments of Marx’s work.

Another way of looking at Marx’s theory of class is how Elster attempts to define class in terms of property, exploitation, market behavior, and power. Elster claims that Marx’s ‘class’ is frequently defined as ‘a group of persons who stand in the same relation of property or non- property to the factors of production, that is labor-power and means of production. ‘By using this definition, the words ‘property’ and ‘non-property’ are too restrictive or too open. There is a – need to distinguish between property owners but then the question arises, to what degree?

This is also evident when using exploitation as a basis of defining class. As Elster puts it: ‘[t]he proposal is too coarse-grained if it locates all exploiters in one class and all exploited agents in another [and] too fine grained if classes are to be distinguished in terms of the degree of exploitation…. ‘infinite fragmentation’ of classes. ‘ In terms of the third proposal, defining class in terms of market behavior, Elster states that it is not useful in the study of non-market economies. Furthermore, ‘the proposal overemphasizes actual behavior and neglects its causal grounding in the endowment structure.  Basically, he is referring to choice. In Marx’s view, the wage laborer has no choice in who to work for and for how much. The reasoning behind this is that the capitalist (though needing workers) can employ any individual he chooses. Elster says that class is defined by what one has to do, not what one actually does. So, for example, a wage laborer decides to work in a factory just for the pure joy of doing so. This individual should be put in a different class from the wage laborer who has to work in the factory.

Elster’s final proposal is the aspect of power in defining class.

To Marx, power relationships are built into the very structure of society, whose principal feature is the existence of opposed classes. Thus, class domination and subordination are central to Marxist conception of politics and the distribution and operation of power. Power to Marx, is class power. In other words, it is a resource that is concentrated in the hands of a particular class, which that class can use to maintain and enhance its dominant position in society, a position achieved by economic exploitation. Elster says: ‘[t]he definition of class in terms of domination and subordination is too behavioral and insufficiently structural.

By this I mean that the classes of the upper and lower managers are defined only by what they actually do, not – as in the case of capitalists and workers – by what they must do by virtue of what they have. ‘ – a reference back to Elster’s third proposal. What Elster reveals are some of the more obvious problems inherent in Marx’s theory of class. But all of this can still be referred to in past context. Clearly, the question that needs to be – asked is: can Marx’s analysis be applicable today? It is obvious that there are some serious problems in Marx’s account.

Revolution has occurred in nations on the verge of entry into capitalism, not in societies which are mature and ‘ripe’ for change. The working class in capitalist societies has enjoyed, in the long term, a rise in the standard of living, and labor movements have won enough welfare concessions to ease many of the poor. By no means all Western societies have strong Communist parties. In addition, the growth of the middle class of managerial and professional workers appears to contradict Marx’s view that divisions among those without wealth would disappear.

Western economies are open to crises, but the state seems able to keep them in check. Generally, then, Marx’s ideas seem to many people to have been disproved by twentieth century developments. However, this is a limited view. The real issues are firstly whether Marx’s general perspective on stratification was sound, and secondly, whether contemporary Western societies are still capitalists in the general basic character of their social relations. The first issue is important because Marx provides an account of stratification which is significantly different from that of many other social theorists.

Very often today, sociologists see classes as merely groupings of people with similar attributes such as income, type of occupation, and so on. Marx, on the other hand, saw classes as systematically linked in a particular structure of social relationships. An explanation of inequality is given through the analysis of the mode of production. Marx points out the deeper class relations and potential conflicts below the surface of society. This strength, however, is seen as a problem by many sociologists. They argue that Marx’s class analysis is too simplistic to account adequately for the complexity of social inequality.

For them, Marx’s emphasis on the ownership of productive wealth leaves us unable to explain adequately all the differences in consciousness within the mass of the population who are not capitalists. Quite clearly, the Western economies are vastly changed today in comparison with Marx’s time. There is far more economic intervention by the state in most societies of the West, and state employees of one kind or another form a large part of the work force. Nationalization and the – frequent replacement of individual owner or managers by shareholders and managerial bureaucracies have both changed the structure of industry.

However, it can still be argued that private ownership of the means of production is the basis of economic power and wealth, and that the labor market is still the prime determinant of wage levels. The worker is still in a subordinate position in the work place, and the incomes of workers are still very low in comparison with those who control them. Other interpretations are possible: it is commonly argued, for example, that the West has a mixed economy which works in everyone’s interest, but others would still consider Western economies as capitalist.

This brings us back to Marx’s Capital III. It is clear that there are many aspects of Marx’s theory of class which are not discussed in this essay; the theory is multifaceted. One still wonders what Marx would describe in his last work. Would it have been in the same terms as he had used thirty years before? Or would he have recognized, in this gap, the vitally important changes in the class structure of the modern societies of today, and that these changes were, to some extent, different from what he anticipated to occur? This question remains unanswered.