Marx and History: From Primitive Society to the Communist Future by D. Ross Gandy

Author:D. Ross Gandy [Gandy, D. Ross]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2014-05-22T16:00:00+00:00

V.

Classes

Definition of Class

In Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht, the historian A. G. Löwy tells a story about Nikolai Bukharin, the chief theoretician of world communism in the 1920s (p. 225). Bukharin once examined the original manuscript of the third volume of Marx’s Capital in the Amsterdam archives. This final volume, composed from notes left by Marx, was published by Engels after the great economist’s death. Bukharin began reading the last chapter of the manuscript, entitled “Classes.” Hardly has this crucial chapter begun when it breaks off—unfinished! Bukharin reached this point, then looked out the window and said quietly, “Oh Karl, Karl, if only you had finished this.”

All students of Marx have echoed this lament, for nowhere in the many volumes of Marx’s writings is there a systematic treatment of class, nor even a clear definition of the concept. And yet Marx’s writings abound with discussions of classes, their formation, and their role in history. What does the concept class mean to him?

The relation of a social group to the means of production, the relation of owning or not owning the means of production, is basic in Marx’s conception of class. In capitalist society the bourgeoisie owns factories; the proletariat owns no means of production and lives off wages.1 Classes are not income groups or status groups; classes are groups defined by their economic position, by how they make a living.2

A worker in Paris and a peasant in Provence may have the same income, but they belong to different classes: the worker owns no means of production, while the peasant owns land and tools. Though their education may be the same, the vineyard owner and the wine taster belong to different classes, for one has vines and the other nothing. A doctor owning a clinic and a professor drawing a salary have the same status—but they are in different classes.

On the other hand, a British lord and a Manchester upstart, if they both own factories, belong to the same class. An artist and a prostitute sharing a slum attic are in the propertyless class. A bookseller, a grocer, a cabinetmaker, a blacksmith, and a peasant belong to the class of small owners.

Functionalist sociology has criticized this conception of classes. Some sociologists deny that there are classes in capitalist society. Others accept Max Weber’s distinction between class and status and emphasize status in their studies of social stratification. Class is defined by one’s role in production, where one’s money comes from; status is defined by how one spends the money, by one’s life-style and prestige. At General Motors the welder and the clerk are both workers but each has a different status. Class and status are often different: the socialite rejects the nouveau riche, and the black millionaire cannot join the Kiwanis Club. Some sociologists stress status as the key to social stratification, and think this a great discovery, an advance over Marx’s emphasis on class.

Marx and Engels were aware of the difference between class and status; they knew that people in an upper class may have low status.

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