explain Karl Marx class theory
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Karl Marx. Karl Marxbased his conflict theoryon the idea that modern society has only twoclasses of people: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie are the owners of the means ofproduction: the factories, businesses, and equipment needed to produce wealth. The proletariat are the workers.
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here is explained Karl Marx 'class theory' in very brief.....
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A Simple Guide to Marx’s Class theory and Other Key Marxist Concepts
We present a simple guide to Marx, Marxian class theory, Marx’s theory of history, and Marx’s economic theories to help Westerners understand what Marx was all about.
Keep in mind this page is about Marxian class theory and what Marx and Engels thought, this page is not about me-as-a-person calling for Communism, or a workers’ revolution, or whatever conclusion one might jump to without reading the page carefully (just in case that isn’t obvious).
TIP: Marx’s class theory is partly a reaction to thinkers like Hegel, Mill, Locke, Smith, and Ricardo, but more-so a direct reaction to advents of the times like the “Condition of the Working Class in England.”
“A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism.” The Communist Manifesto
FACT: The above quote is explaining that the Communist Manifesto was giving a movement already well underway a platform. Here we should note that Marxism is the philosophy of Marx as a whole, the Communist Manifesto is Marx and Engels giving workers’ movements a philosophical backbone, and Communism in practice is meanwhile its own spectre (existing outside of Marx, but influenced by him without a doubt). Interestingly, the famous Marx quote above is playing off Edmund Burke’s own spectre quote pertaining to the French Revolution which reads “. . . out of the tomb of the murdered monarchy in France has arisen a vast, tremendous, unformed spectre, in a far more terrific guise than any which ever yet have overpowered the imagination, and subdued the fortitude of man. Going straight forward to its end, unappalled by peril, unchecked by remorse, despising all common maxims and all common means, that hideous phantom overpowered those who could not believe it was possible she could at all exist.” Burke and Rousseau are no more responsible for the French revolution than Marx was for the Russian revolution… that is to say, a little bit, but indirectly to be fair. Anyway, the concept is the same in all cases, it is philosophers noticing a spectre arising out of the ashes of a monarchical force and writing about it.
An Introduction to Marx, the Bourgeoisie, and the Proletariat
Before getting started, here is the basic “Marxian Class Fork” in the terms of the Communist Manifesto itself:
By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labour. CAPITAL.
By proletariat, the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live. LABOR.
In other words, Marx’s class theory is about the dynamics between labor and capital in the capitalist mode of production of the 1840’s – 1860’s (when he wrote his early work The Communist Manifesto and later work The Capital), and how the dynamics would lead to a revolution.
The problem, to not make you wait, is twofold: 1. that Communism never took off in industrialized societies and instead became favored by developing pre-industrial (at the time) countries like Russia and China, and 2. Marx forget to finish the part where he explained what exactly the angry workers were supposed to do after the revolution. Inevitably, this led to despots like Stalin (who used Communism as an excuse for tyranny).
This is to say, Marx’s theory had holes in it and unfortunate effects. Holes aside, Marx got a ton right. Below we look at the good and bad of Marx by focusing on his class theory (and its related economics). In doing this, we will cover the basics of everything Marx.
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