According to conflict theorist Carl Marx, inequality is a functional part of America’s capitalist society. In this society, inequality is passed on generationally and enforces social stratification. Domination in this society comes from those who have economic control and power. Based off of his theory, Marx suggests that there are two fundamental classes of people, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
According to Marx, all societies are in some way class-based. A Marxist defines class as a “(social) relationship rather than a position or rank in society”. A Marxist perspective suggests that even though these classes are formed by means of production, they are an essential aspect of it (University of Regina, 1999). Essentially, classes are
…show more content…
The Marxist view is that this inequality is inherent. The capitalist society natural stratifies people and will continue to do so until capitalism changes (Peet, 1975). The social stratification resulting from these two types of people has fueled oppression of the lower class. Upper class citizens have more wealth, and more opportunity before them, while those in the lower class may suffer from poverty, health problems and a lack of commodities. The suffering of a lower class citizen may be passed on to their children in a variety of ways. First, the child in poverty experiences stresses that may negatively impact them that a child of a high-class family would not have to worry about, such as ______. Education is also a key factor within social stratification. Those with less wealth that are in the proletariat class are less likely to become educated, or do well in school (Jensen, 2009). Many poverty stricken families cannot afford to send their children to college, due to increase prices in college tuition. A lack of education increases someone’s likelihood of being in poverty because they become less likely to attend college. Due to financial struggles, children often are given no opportunity to rise out of the poverty in which they were raised in. Unfortunately, this enforces the cycle of inequality between the lower and upper classes.
The Marxist view of inequality is able to explain the causes and effects of inequality due to social stratification. The capitalist society enforces the two fundamental social classes that divide society and oppose each other. Inequality continues to be a very apparent factor in modern society, showing little possibility of diminishing in the near
The inequity of this system is what results in the powerlessness of those in poverty, who find themselves unable to challenge those in power. Marx perhaps best envisioned this in his concept of a class struggle between the proletariat (working class) and bourgeoisie (owners of the means of production), and proposed socialism as an alternative economic system. As the wage gap increases, those in poverty have less “money”, the negotiation tool in capitalist systems, to fight for themselves. Capitalism has also always been entwined with democracy, yet this is not a symbiotic relationship.
Clark and Lipset (1991) explain that looking at class theories that has been a lot of change in class and it has altered the concept of class toward the fragmentation of stratification. Clark and Lipset (1991) further explains that changes have occurred since Marx and Weber write their view on social stratification and it went into high gear since 1970s. Clark and Lipset (1991) acknowledge a change for the theories of stratification is that traditional hierarchies is declining and economic and family hierarchies is less than generation or two ago. Clark and Lipset (1991) explains that class conflict declines, there would be less conflict or organized lines, for instance gender. However, not all hierarchies are generating counter-reactions and there is an acceptance of democratic process to allow the opposition to surface. According Clark and Lipset (1991), “the key trends could be described as one of fragmentation of stratification: the weakening of class stratification, especially as shown in distinct class-differentiated lifestyle, the decline of economic determinism, and the increased importance of social and cultural factors, politics is less organized by class and more by other loyalties, the slimming of the family and social mobility is less family-determined, more ability and education
Karl Marx, a German philosopher, saw this inequality growing between what he called "the bourgeoisie" and "the proletariat" classes. The bourgeoisie was the middle/upper class which was growing in due to the industrial revolution, and the proletariats were the working class, the poor. These two classes set themselves apart by many different factors. Marx saw five big problems that set the proletariat and the bourgeoisie apart from each other. These five problems were: The dominance of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat, the ownership of private property, the set-up of the family, the level of education, and their influence in government.
Karl Marx noted that society was highly stratified in that most of the individuals in society, those who worked the hardest, were also the ones who received the least from the benefits of their labor. In reaction to this observation, Karl Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto where he described a new society, a more perfect society, a communist society. Marx envisioned a society, in which all property is held in common, that is a society in which one individual did not receive more than another, but in which all individuals shared in the benefits of collective labor (Marx #11, p. 262). In order to accomplish such a task Marx needed to find a relationship between the individual and society that accounted for social change. For Marx such relationship was from the historical mode of production, through the exploits of wage labor, and thus the individual’s relationship to the mode of production (Marx #11, p. 256).
Karl Marx (1818 - 1883) and Max Weber (1864 - 1920) both recognised that economic categories played a large part in social class structure. Nineteenth Century history plays an important part in understanding how class influenced identities. The Industrial revolution was changing the structure of the communities, the rich or landowners having a far better standard of living with better education, health care, property ownership and power than the poor. The working class would have a daily struggle to survive. The change in Trade Unions meant that the working class had a voice, helping to push their needs forward, looking for better standards of living and working conditions. Marx's concept of class was based around the production of goods. The emerging owners of these goods, or capital, were known as the ruling class. Marxism would define only two classes, the ruling class and the working class. The influence on identity of these two class structures would be very relevant in those days. The working class would earn a wage from the production of the goods but the ruling class would sell these for a profit and exploit the workers. The two classes were on two different levels of wealth, property ownership and social standing and they would struggle to mix, they were dependent on each other but the rewards would be unevenly matched.
What is wealth inequality? “It is the difference between individuals or populations in the distribution of assets, wealth or income.” [1] In sociology, the term is social stratification and refers to “a system of structured social inequality” [2] where the inequality might be in power, resources, social standing/class or perceived worth. In the US, where a class system exists (as opposed to a caste or estate system), your place in the class system can be determined by your personal achievements. However, the economic and social class that an individual is born into is a big indicator of the class they will end up in as an adult.
Marxism is based on the political, economic and social theories of Karl Marx. His belief that the social class struggle had a major impact in history and that society should move towards a system where there are no classes. Marx believed that people are free, creative beings who have the potential to transform the world. He criticized the free market as being unregulated. Marx maintained that the market economy is coordinated through spontaneous purchase dictated by supply and demand. This blocked society’s ability to take control over both individual and collective destinies. He condemned capitalism as a system that alienates the masses. He reasoned that the market forces, not workers, control things. People are required to work for bosses (capitalists) who have full control over all decisions. The workplace, he said, becomes monotonous, humiliating, and suitable for machines rather than for free, creative people. In the end, the workers themselves become objects and make decisions based on profit-and-loss considerations with no concern for human worth and need. Marx concluded that capitalism blocks our capacity to create a humane society. In order to move society forward workers must reject and advance a market-based society and replace it with a democratic planned society. This is inevitable to advance society through history. Class consciousness is the awareness that a social class possesses and its capacity to rationally act for their best interest. Class consciousness is required before they can effect a successful revolution.
Karl Marx is responsible for one of the earliest explanations on the role that social stratification plays in a society. Using the social-conflict approach, Marx attempted to explain, “How in a society so rich, so many could be so poor” (Macionis, 2015). The major component of Marx’s view of social stratification is that there are two class systems within a capitalist society, the few bourgeoisie and the masses of proletarians. The bourgeoisie are those who own and operate businesses and factories in order to make profit. The proletarians are those who work in these businesses and factories to bring in income for living. Both these class systems have opposing realities and interests making conflict inevitable. In wanting to make more profit, the bourgeoisie ends up exploiting the workers causing them to be alienated from the products of their labor. Marx concluded that capitalism will bring its own downfall when the proletarians overthrow this type of system for a more socialist way of life that will meet the needs of
Many people who have spent their whole lives in America, have a knee-jerk reaction to a few words: ‘capitalism’ is good, ‘Marxism’ is communism and is thus evil, and the ‘American Dream’ is a realistic goal. However, the simplistic differentiation of these ideas causes the reality of each to slip through the cracks: the ‘American Dream’ of working hard to get rich is nearly impossible to achieve; when placed with capitalism, the ‘American Dream’ causes gross inequality; and “evil” Marx saw the inequality problems in the US over 100 years before they began. There is no doubt that the division between the rich and the poor in the US today is a problem, and by looking at Marx’s writings, as well as Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality,
According to Marx class is determined by property associations not by revenue or status. It is determined by allocation and utilization, which represent the production and power relations of class. Marx’s differentiate one class from another rooted on two criteria: possession of the means of production and control of the labor power of others. The major class groups are the capitalist also known as bourgeoisie and the workers or proletariat. The capitalist own the means of production and purchase the labor power of others. Proletariat is the laboring lower class. They are the ones who sell their own labor power. Class conflict to possess power over the means of production is the powerful force behind social growth.
Kerbo, H. R. (2012). Social stratification and inequality: class conflict in historical, comparative, and global perspective (8th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Generally speaking, class can be perceived as “social groupings that differ mainly in their command of economic or material resources, such as money, wealth, or property” (Coleman and Rainwater, 1978; Bell and Robinson, 1980; Grabb and Lambet, 1982; Lambet et al., 1986, see also Rothman, 1993: 106; Kelley and Evans, 1993, cited in Grabb. E.G, 2007, pp.3). Karl Marx (1818-1883) aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of transformation of capitalist society (Crompton R. 1993). His class theory lies on the premise “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” (Marx and Engel...
Marxism believes that the current society is the byproduct of the history of all class struggles. From the complex classification of feudal lords, clerics, merchants, artisans, and slaves, it has become simplified into two rival groups, the bourgeoisie or the oppressors, and the proletariat or the oppressed. The bourgeoisie cannot continually exist without revolutionizing its mode of production. This includes expanding the market, establishing connections all over the world, thus “creating a world after its own image”, making the societies dependent on the bourgeoisie. Since they now monopolize production, it also implies that they wield certain power over the economy. This power enables them to gain political sway over the State. This further implies that they can make the State responsive to their interests and needs, which is in direct conflict with the interests of the proletariat. It is due to the power that the bourgeoisie posses and the State's bias that perpetuate the oppression of workers (Marx & Engels, 1898).
Marx believed that capitalism was unfair because the rich middle and upper class people manipulated the system and used it for their own benefit while we got the short end of the stick. We, being average Americans— like myself— who go to college full-time, juggle a job, and yet are constantly struggling just to make ends meet: the unappreciated, exploited and underpaid every day heroes.... ... middle of paper ... ... 6.
Inequality is the result of private property, as well as many other factors but let’s just focus on this one. Private property, as said by Ferguson and Millar, represents a huge improvement in society because private property leads to higher degrees of social organization and efficiency. This means that the ownership of private property creates an incisive to work and will create a more efficient way to work, only to acquire more private property. Social stratification is the noticeable, or sometimes unnoticeable, inequality between people, or better yet classes. People that have large amount of private property, or tangible items, generally are ranked higher than other people in regard to class. Class structure is usually defined by three classes, but I will define it by five classes. To begin I will start with the most elite class, the upper class. The upper class in mainly consisted of CEOs and distinct politicians that usually make $200,000 or more. The next class is the middle class which can be broken down further in two more defined class, the upper-middle class and the lower-middle class. The upper-middle class is generally consisted of professionals with a graduate degree making an average of $72,000 to $100,000. The lower-middle class is mainly consisted of professional support and sales with a bachelors degree making $32,000 to $50,000. The next