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Unit 4: Theories of Social Stratification-II

• Karl Marx is the principal architech of the historical dialectical approach to the study of Notes
society, class and social stratification. Marxian theory is not a simple explanation of
technological or economic determinism. Marx propounded a grand theory of society.
According to him, stratification is determined by the system of relations of production, and
“status” of a man is determined by his position in this very system in terms of ownership
and non-ownership of the means of production. Marx’s theory of class could be understood
as a system of social stratification in terms of “domination” and “subjection” of “effective
superiority-inferiority relationships”.
• “The owners merely of labour power, owners of capital and landowners, whose respective
sources of income are wages, profit and ground-rent, in other words, wage labourers,
capitalists and landowners constitute the three big classes of modern society based on the
capitalist mode of production”. Marx further observes in support of his two classes theory
that middle and intermediate strata obliterate lines of demarcation everywhere. The tendency
is toward more and more in the development of the capitalist mode of production,
transforming labour into. wage labour and the means of production into capital. Landed
property tends to transform into the capitalist mode of production as well.
• The bourgeoisie get more than their due share, which Marx names as the “theory of surplus
value”. Such a situation accelerates class struggle, which finally leads to revolution and
radical transformation of the stratification system of society.
• 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”. 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 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.
• 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.
• The distinction drawn by Marx between a “class in itself” and a “class for itself” is also
significant to know the basis of class formation and class consciousness. In his well-known
work, The Poverty of Philosophy, Marx observes : “Economic conditions had in the first place
transformed the mass of the people into workers. The domination of capital created the
common situation and common interests of this class. Thus, this mass is already a class in
relation to capital, but not yet a class for itself. In the struggle, of which we have only indicated
a few phases, this mass unites and forms itself into a class for itself. The interests which it
defends become class interests.”
• Marxists realized the “complications” of social ranking or stratification in relation to the
basic classes. Both Marx and Engels felt that in England intermediate and transitional strata

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