Sociological Perspectives

1. Sociological Perspectives Week 3 - Capitalism and Class: Karl Marx Professor Nicholas Gane

2. Historical context: who was Marx? • Born in 1818 in Trier, Prussia • Died in London in 1883 • Lived in Dean Street, Soho • Two key works we will touch upon in this lecture: Manifesto of the Communist Party (1847/8) (with his benefactor Friedrich Engels) Capital: Volume One (1867)

3. Historical context (cont’d) • Because Marx lived in the nineteenth century you might find some of the term he uses in his work to be challenging • Plus Marx was interested in the developmental trajectories of modern societies: from early history to feudalism to capitalism and potentially beyond • Patrician = a member of the aristocracy (Rome) • Plebeian = lower class/a commoner • Burgher = members of the mercantile class • Serf = peasant who worked on the land for a lord

4. Class struggle • History is driven by the clash of interests between competing groups • The opening line of the Communist Manifesto is famous: • ‘The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles’. • This is true for capitalist society although the groups are of a different kind – as is the struggle • With industrialisation and the rise of the factory system feudal ties are shattered

5. Class: the bourgeoisie • For Marx, two main classes emerge - • The bourgeoisie: the owners of the means of production (factories etc) • The bourgeoisie ‘has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment’ (p.34). • Commodification of social relations

6. Class: the proletariat • The proletariat is made up of workers who do not own the means of production and so have to sell their own labour power in order to survive • Marx says that this class goes through ‘various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first the contest is carried on by original labourers, then by the workpeople of the factory, then by the operatives of one trade in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them’ (p.41).

7. Capitalist society • History is driven by the clash of interests between these two groups: dialectical materialism • There is a struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie over, for example, the length of the working day (see Capital) • Marx argues that capitalism is a system based on exploitation: the bourgeoisie extract value from the labour power of the workers (remember there was no welfare state, employment law and only limited trade unions)

8. Alienation • Workers become alienated in the labour-process: from the products of their labour; from themselves; and from others • Capitalism places workers in competition with each other • Marx: ‘The essential condition for the existence and sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between labourers’ (p.46).

9. Marx: A Utopian Vision? • For Marx capitalist society is ultimately unsustainable. Within it lie the seeds of social and political change • The creation of a revolutionary class which will unite in opposition to capitalist system • Marx: ‘What the bourgeoisie...produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable’ (p.46). • A crisis of over-production?

10. Ideology • Culture and religious belief systems work to conceal the underlying contradictions of capitalist society • This is something we will question when we look at the work of Weber – is culture something more than this? • The task, for Marx, is a political one: to strip away the ideologies that mask the real causes of the vast material inequalities that characterise capitalist society

11. For Marx, what is at stake here is a revolutionary project

12. Why of sociological interest? • Primarily because of Marx’s attention to social inequality and to the question of class • Class, for Marx, is fundamentally social in basis. It is born out of collective acts of production • He says: ‘By social we understand the co-operation of several individuals, no matter under what conditions, in what manner and to what end. It follows from this that a certain mode of production..is always combined with a certain mode of co-operation, or social stage’ (German Ideology, p.157).

13. Class in and for itself • For Marx, class can be in itself and for itself • In itself: a basic state in which people (for example, those working in factories) share similar a economic position but have no shared political understanding of their common situation • For itself: when workers begin to develop a common understanding of their exploitation within the workplace • Unclear how this transition is to take place

14. The Weberian critique • Max Weber (1864-1920) – who lived a generation after Marx – argues that class is primarily economic in form • He calls it a ‘market situation’ • He says that there is no necessity for class in itself to become class for itself • Just because we share a similar occupation does not mean that we share a similar political consciousness • Class is not necessarily social

15. Class: relation or stratification? • For Marx class is primarily relational in form • It is about a struggle between two main opposing groups: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat • For Weber, class is more about stratification: the positioning of different groups to their market position (work/occupation) • These are the two dominant approaches to class in sociology

16. Some questions • Who was right? Marx or Weber? Which conception of class do you find more convincing and potentially more useful for sociology today? • What is the purpose of sociology? Is it to study the world or to change it? • Is it possible to talk in any clear way of classes today? Which class do you think you belong to? Is class a subjective or objective classification? • Is there any such thing as class consciousness?

17. Crisis? • Why did history not turn out the way that Marx predicted or at least hoped? • We have just passed (or a still passing, depending on your view) through a major crisis in the capitalist system (from late-2007 onwards). Have these events vindicated Marx’s understanding of capitalism or have they proved it to be wrong? • Aside from Marx’s revolutionary beliefs, does his work still offer anything to sociology? • In sum: how relevant is it today?