Page 60 - DSOC401_SOCIOLOGICAL_THOUGHT_ENGLISH

Sociological Thought

notes person fulfilled his requirement by the nature gifted things. In other words, because of the equal
distribution of sources from the nature for living alive, at that time, class was not born. But soon,
difference in distribution came in and along with it society was divided in classes. According to
marx, society itself divided it into classes- this division happens in rich and poor, exploiter and the
victimized and ruler and the ruled classes. In the modern society, on the basis of income three majors
classes may be mentioned about. Of these, first is the one who are just the officers of labour power,
second are those who are the officers of capital and third are those who are land owners. The sources
of income of these three classes are labour, profit and tax respectively. There are three main classes of
the society that earning wages. In the modern world, according to marx, on a large scale these three
classes were born as a result of thriving of capitalistic industrial businesses. This is the direct effect
and foremost result of capitalistic revolution. As a result of industrialisation and division of labour
in a nation, first and foremost, industrial and business labour gets discreet from agricultural labour
and village gets discreet from the city. As a result of it different self-interest groups are also born. On
application of division of labour in a more extensive manner, industrial labour also gets discreet from
business labour. Along with it, on the basis of division of labour various divisions take place among
the above mentioned various classes among the people supporting the labour. Level condition of all
these groups, present level of agriculture, industry and commerce determines the mutual relations of
the people. In this way it is clear that those people, who are active in production work, establish some
definite social and political relation. In this manner, classes are born according to economic resources
of livelihood earning. Hence we may say that people engaged in various types of production works
are divided in groups. But the only capital of all these is ‘labour’ and they earn their bread by selling
their labour only; that is why they are known as labour class. As opposed to this, there is one more
class in the society which owns the capital and from it only he buys the labour of other people. This
is the capitalist class.

theory of class – struggle

marx has presented this theory of class struggle in a very clear form; but first and foremost, it is
his theory only- this marx does not accept. In his letter dated march 5, 1982, to bedemer, marx had
emphasised on this fact itself. He has written…. As far as I am concerned, it is not correct to give any
credit of finding out about the existence of classes in the modern society or the struggle taking place
among them. Before myself, many capitalistic historians had described the historical development of
this class struggle and capitalistic economists had described the economic formation of classes. The
few new things that I have added to it prove that—
1. Existence of various groups is associated with any specific historical chain only.
2. Extreme of class struggle is necessarily the dictatorship (adhinayakatva) of the proletariat.
3. This phase of dictatorship in itself is the phase for eradication of all classes and transit
towards a classless society.
As has been said above, marx’s saying is that since always in each society there are two opposing
classes- one exploiter class and other the victimised class .When the exploitation policy of the exploiter
class becomes unbearable, till then at a level, struggle between these two classes become clear. In
communist manifesto marx and angels have written, “Till now history of all societies is the history
of class struggle only. Free person or a slave, aristocratic class or general public, lord or quasi-slave
farmer, owner of a guild or an worker working there, in short, exploiter and the victimised always by
being each other’s opponent keep fighting persistently, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly.
Each time this struggle ends either in revolutionary rebuilding of the entire society or in general
destruction of the struggling classes. … modern capitalistic society, which has been developed from
the remains of feudalistic society, is not free of class struggle. It has only given birth to new classes
in place of old, new phases of exploitation and new types of struggles. Still one specific attribute of

54 LoVeLY professionaL uniVersitY