Page 55 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Social Stratification

Notes The two classes clash with each other because of their conflicting interests. In other words, the
whole society remains divided into two classes, as two great hostile camps. The two classes clash
and also unite to defend their respective interests. There is also a certain degree of cooperation
between the two classes, which Marx mentions as “unity of opposites”. Such a unity between the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat is required for functioning of the system of production on which
survival of the two depends upon. However, Marx gave a call to the workers to unite as a political
organization to fight against the bourgeoisie. According to Marx, the ideas of the ruling classes
have been the “ruling ideas” in every epoch of history and society. Marx believes that the conception
of political power is an adjunct to class power and political struggle as a special form of class
struggle. The state functions for the bourgeoisie. Thus, the material existence of men determines
their life situation and consciousness. Class is, therefore, a social reality which mirrors the entire
social structure.

For Marx, class is “social”, a social reality, an existing fact of life. It is not a statistical
or an aggregated or a constructed phenomenon.

The Marxist Method of Study
Marx describes history in terms of three periods, namely, ancient, feudalism, and capitalism. Each
period is characterized by a predominant mode of production, and based upon it, a class structure,
consisting of a ruling class and an oppressed class, emerges. As we have mentioned earlier that the
struggle between these classes determines the social relations between men. The social relations
become the base of all other relations. These relations determine control over the means of
production, and thereby control the whole moral and intellectual life of the people. Law and
government, art and literature, science and philosophy – all serve more or less directly interests of
the ruling class, hence, these aspects are superstructures of society.
In the period of its revolutionary ascendance each class is “progressive” in two ways : (1) its
economic interests are identical with technical progress and hence with increased human welfare;
and (2) its efforts to pursue these interests align this class on the side of liberating ideas and
institutions against all who retard technical progress and human welfare. An ascending class can
also become a ruling class. But then it may play a different role. The same path of revolution
against such a class would follow. Thus, it is an ongoing process leading to revolutionary
reorganization of society. Thus, in Marxian theory, a social class is an aggregate of persons who
perform the same function in the organization of production. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx
begins with characterization that in different periods of history there are freeman and slave,
patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, or in a word, oppressor and
oppressed, as classes.
Tom Bottomore and others observe that the concept of class has a central importance in Marxist
theory, though Marx did not expound it in a systematic form. The class structure of early capitalism,
and the class struggles in this form of society, constituted the main reference point for the Marxist
theory. The other two ideas crucial in Marx’s theory were that of class conflict and class
consciousness. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx mentions that “the history of all hitherto existing
society is the history of class struggles”. But class was more pronounced in the capitalist societies.
In the German Ideology, Marx observes that “class itself is a product of the bourgeoisie”. Though
Marx has studied extensively capitalism, he wanted to assert the existence of a major class division
in all forms of society. He writes : “It is always the direct relation between the owners of the
conditions of production and the direct producers which reveals the innermost secret, the hidden
foundation, of the entire social edifice.”

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