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“The ignorant classes are the dangerous classes” (Galbarith). Though it may
appear remote, the quote signifies the proletarian revolution predicted by Marx once they
are no longer ‘ignorant’ of their interests. Karl Marx, the famous sociologist, has used the
concept of class to account for the evolution of society through history till present time.
To evaluate the claim if class indeed exists as the ultimate determining factor for the
dynamics of any society and thus acts as its independent variable, one needs to examine
how far Marx’s theories are still relevant today in contrast to other equally important
theories such as those of Max Weber concerning status and parties, and of Feminists.
Before proceeding further it is important to establish what Marx really meant by
class. For Marx classes are defined in terms of relationship to means of production. One
class, which has access to means of production, is called “bourgeoisie” where as other,
which does not have access to it is called the “proletariat”. Both of them have opposing
interests, as bourgeoisie tries to exploit proletariat by paying them low wages and the
latter tries to get the maximum pay for their work from the former. Although the two
classes can exist in further subgroups such as petty bourgeoisie and lumen proletariat,
these will eventually merge with one or another when a revolution is imminent. For
Marx, the main difference between two is that the bourgeoisie are aware of its goals in
terms of profitability, however this is not the case for the other (Lee and Newby).
Having established the meaning of class, it is now important to ascertain how
relevant is class in present society. The capital structure of the corporate world has
changed significantly since the era of Marx due to the formation of management teams,
which has resulted in devolution of control from the real owners. This is in stark contrast
to bourgeoisie of the Marx’s time, which held both ownership and control. However it is
important to note that this is just a camouflaged perception as the real owners still
eventually have the control because the decision to select the management team lies with
them. Another aspect of the corporate world is that there has been a distribution of
ownership of companies, as it has now become a kind of public property with issue of
shares (Lee and Newby). Despite new form of ownership in forms of shares, family
businesses representing bourgeoisie class, accounts for about 64 percent of US GDP
(“Family business statistics and Family Business Facts”). Also, although there is minority
ownership in business enterprises, it accounts only for 15 % of US businesses and 99
percent of these businesses falls in small category (“Minorities in Business, 2001”).
These statistics indicate that major amount of control still lies with a certain class. This
shows one of the situations where working of society reduces down to concept of class
Relevance of Marx can also be justified by analyzing his theory of immiseration
in present day and Marxist’s view on the new middle class. Marx predicted that before
proletarian revolution, the working class would be earning a living that will not even be
even sufficient for their basic needs (Lee and Newby). Though this immiseration is
clouded by the general embourgeoisement in form of middle class, the official statistics
present a different picture. According to a recent United Nations study, 1 % of the
world’s population owns 40 % of the global wealth (Roberts).This statistic shows how a
huge proportion of the world’s population is deprived of wealth and is concentrated in
extremely limited hands. A further statistic makes immiseration theory even more clear.
A report by Internal Service Revenue, American’s tax collectors, found out that the
earning of bottom 50 percent population fell down to 12.8% in 2005 from 13.4% in 2004
(Roberts). As far as the issue of evolution of new middle class is concerned, which
signifies social mobility from proletariat to bourgeoisie, Marxists claim it is only a
consequence of new service jobs in the industry and therefore can not be seen as moving
up on a social ladder itself (Lee and Newby). Based on these arguments class can once
again be seen as the ultimate determinant at the core for society.
The above arguments showed how far class stays as constant and how functioning of
society depends on it, however for sociologist like Max Weber there are factor such as
status and parties, which exist in independence. Class constituted as power for Marx, but
Weber argues that Marx has missed the main determinant of power, which is status. For
Weber, status, which is honor in society, is unevenly distributed in society and people
with similar form of honor form a specific status group. One consequence of this is social
closure where entry to further people is stopped. This is observed in case of marriages,
where marriage outside a certain group is restricted. A utopian example in this case is that
of Hindu caste system. Special status groups justify their uniqueness due to specific
worldly characteristics such as beauty or association with noble past where as low level
status groups justify their uniqueness by a reward in the world hereafter (Fekete). In
contrast to status groups, parties are organizations built in order to pursue a certain form
of organized social action. The only difference between classes along with groups and
parties is that of organization and groups can rise to parties by organizing themselves.
Examples of parties include trade unions, professional associations, religious institutions
etc (Adams et al). The above discussion shows the importance of status and parties apart
from class to understand the structure of society.
Feminists also find Marx’s theory as inadequate when explaining the disparity
that exists between man and woman in terms of social recognition and work. Marxists
argue that the woman job is to take care of house related chores, give birth and bring up
children. They argue that this segregation in duties of women was brought about by
patriarchy. Patriarchy is the superiority of male as head of family and originated on bases
of ownership to the property. Feminists nevertheless, argue that property alone can not
define inequality between men and women. Other crucial areas must also be looked into
to account for such inequality. Another argument put forward by Feminists is that the
vocabulary of Marxist theory and literature consists mainly of economic factors such as
commodities, means of production, exploitation and misses other key areas such as race,
sex, gender etc. Also Marx fails to account for groups based on common identities such
as those based on culture, nationality, region, religion etc. Apart from this, Feminists
have also disagreed with Marx because he failed to capture the invisible labor power of
women at home. According to him, rate of exploitation depends upon value of labor
power to manufacture commodities. However Feminists holds that this idea fails to
capture the labor that is put in by women during reproduction process, which eventually
in form human resource goes on in making a specific commodity. This indirect labor also
includes the work that woman performs in taking care of home and cooking for family.
Furthermore based on the concept of labor power, Marxian model does not account why
women get low wage rates when compared to that for men for same kind of professions
(Wright). Such statements signify how shallow the model of Marx really is and testify
Feminist’s independence in its own way in society.
Time has changed and so has the society itself and it appears that, the trail of
Marx’s theory has some what withered and one might not be able to pull back the present
society to that of Marx. Although the concept of class might be applicable in
functionality of social structure to some extent, often in inconspicuous manner, but other
areas however needs to be uncovered by shedding different lights with other theories
such as those of Weber and Feminists. Despite this the future rolls on in ways, unforeseen
by anyone and perhaps the realization of Marx’s theory of revolution of proletariat
against bourgeoisie has yet to come true.
