Marx on Contemporary Class Systems
An Analysis of the Communist Manifesto (Opinion piece, 2008)
Sociologists revere Karl Marx as not only a sociologist, but a well-respected philosopher, political economist and communist icon of the 19th Century. One of the main social theories that Marx argued was that capitalism, like previous socioeconomic systems, would produce internal divisions that will ultimately lead to its destruction. This is highlighted in his discussion of two distinct classes, the Bourgeois and the Proletariat, the former referencing the class of modern Capitalists and the owners of the means of social production as well as employers of wage labor. The latter considers the class of modern wage labor workers who are ‘reduced to selling their labor-power in order to live’ (Marx 97). His opinion on political action as an ideology is called to attention in the intro to his work Manifesto of the Communist Party, in which he outright states, ‘the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle’, referring to the way that various socioeconomic systems in due course will overrule each other, destroying their society in the process (97).
In lieu of this conviction, Marx believed that class identity was comprised of a collective of individuals who had a similar relationship with the means of production, in opposed to the belief of wealth, as people were clearly separated into one of the two groups, those who employed, and those who sold their labor in order to live. In this instance, Marx saw the Proletariat and the Bourgeoisie as being on two sides of the same spectrum. This considers, for example, that factory workers automatically would wish wages to be as high as possible, while owners and employers would wish for wages to be as low as possible to gain more profit (123).
This led to his views on capitalism, believing that the class which had ‘the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production’, meaning that those who were not creating the ideas being carried out were obliviously falling victim to them (84). In capitalism, the main objective was based on profit, which shaped various aspects of the lives of citizens. This was proven when there was no profit made in business ventures, employers were more compelled to fine workers and downsize to stay afloat, leading more to Marx’s belief that the Bourgeoisie only cared about workers only to the extent that they were useful to their business and profit margins.
The lower strata of the middle class, such as shopkeepers, and landowners, all slowly fazed into the same category as the Proletariat. This was partly due to the idea that their business’s capital was inadequate for the scale on which Modern Industry was rated, leaving them swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their skill set is rendered worthless by new methods of production (101). According to sociologist Bertell Ollman in his article “Marx’s Use of ‘Class’”, he distinguishes Marx’s point being that due to his gratitude for many different capitalists, his property mortgage, etc., the peasant as he calls them ‘does not really own his plot of land, and is actually working for someone else. Bringing the peasantry into the proletariat may help account for Marx’s division of advanced capitalist society into two main classes; the landowners and the petty bourgeoisie’ (Ollman 574).
A great example to apply this to in modern society is the economic crisis we are facing now, where there is a proposed $700 billion dollar bailout plan for many business and homeowners looked at as contemporary citizens of the bourgeoisie. The maximum cost of a $700 billion bailout would be $2,295 estimated cost per American (based on an estimate of 305 million Americans), or $4,635 per working American (based on an estimate of 151 million in the work force), which ultimately was set to keep the rich richer and the poor even poorer. Marx would identify this as being a smack in the face to the political economy structure itself. This, in its own words, shows that the worker ‘sinks to the level of a commodity and becomes indeed the most wretched of commodities; that the wretchedness of the worker is in inverse proportion to the power and magnitude of his production; that the necessary result of competition is the accumulation of capital in a few hands, and thus the restoration of monopoly in a more terrible form’ (97). In other words, those in consideration will undoubtedly fall into two classes- the property owners and the labor wageworkers, with those with property benefiting the most, considering it will kill jobs and make business less productive outside of the places attached to the affected area.
In Marx’s Communist Manifesto, he states a number of solutions to implement in case, the Proletariat takes command, one being Proposal Number Five, which was the ‘Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly’ (110). Based on the economic crisis the United States currently finds itself in, it appears Marx would have already had a solution in regards to how to handle it. I do not agree with Marx’s idea, and believe that the market should simply run its course. However, this comes with Marx’s assumption that there will someday be an utopian society free of external views, which is highly unlikely in today’s society where the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat classes are more separated by parties, the main ones being the Republican and Democratic affiliations.
