Question

Marxian theory of class and class struggle

Answer 1

Marxists explain the history of "civilized" societies in terms of a war of classes between those who control production and those who produce the goods or services in society. In the Marxist view of capitalism, this is a conflict between capitalists (bourgeoisie) and wage-workers (the proletariat).

This is the essence of dialectical materialism in Marx's work. For the working class to become a class 'for itself' requires not simply the absorption of the experience of capitalist society, but the critical struggle against this experience by a party armed with the whole theory of Marxism.