Social Class And Marxism

First published in 1984. This study critically examines the conceptions of social class employed by Marx and by modern Marxist writers, to probe their problematic areas and to propose certain modifications to those conception. The author also tests the conclusions deriving from this theoretical reflection against the task of analysing some aspects of the development of class relations in a particular social formation in Britain. This title will be of interest to students of philosophy and politics.

Has Marxism ceased to be part of our political present and future? Has its theory or doctrine anything to contribute to our understanding of the new millennium? In these original, commissioned essays, the contributors argue that Marxism continues as a living tradition. They show how it still engages with other theoretical positions, how it has evolved in response to both these engagements and contemporary world changes, and they assess its relevance and contribution to modern social science.

Scientific Essay from the year 2016 in the subject Sociology - Social System and Social Structure, , language: English, abstract: Social class issues have taken a crucial role in the social sciences (Martti, 2000). The term ‘social class’ was developed in the 18th and 19th centuries and has been used widely, particularly by sociologists and political-economic theorists such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Ralf Dahrendorf and so on (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2012). It is clear that societies have been stratified into various classes (Roberts, 2001). Social inequality and the differences between people are two such obvious characteristics in every society that it has become necessary to classify society into the different classes (Crompton and Gubbay, 1980). Furthermore, Steenberge (2012) states that "normally, individuals are grouped into classes based on their economic positions and similar political and economic interests within their culture". Inequalities can be seen as being stratified on the basis of social class and this has been a main area of Marx’s theory. Social class is a key to comprehending the different social opportunities available to different social groups and individuals in societies (Marsh et al, 2000). In the Communist Manifesto, Marx saw the whole of society as likely to have just two huge classes; Bourgeoisie and Proletariat, which come into direct conflict with one another, especially in capitalist societies (Crompton, 1993). Whilst, Weber’s viewpoint about social class is analogous with Marx perspective, he supposed that having private property could have a role in the formation of social classes in societies (Reid, 1981). He also assumed that the variances between social classes in society might be a source of social conflict between them but viewed the conflict in a different way to Marx, as Weber had seen that the social struggle between the classes over making goods as a normal conflict in all societies. A further divergence in Dahrendorf and Marx perspectives is that the former focuses on the amount of power to explain the structure of social class in society.

In this third volume of his definitive study of Karl Marx's political thought, Hal Draper examines how Marx, and Marxism, have dealt with the issue of dictatorship in relation to the revolutionary use of force and repression, particularly as this debate has centered on the use of the term "dictatorship of the proletariat." Writing with his usual wit and perception, Draper strips away the layers of misinterpretation and misinformation that have accumulated over the years to show what Marx and Engels themselves really meant by the term.

Professor Wesolowski presents a detailed study of Marx's theory of class structure and compares it with non-Marxist theories of social stratification, in particular the functionalist theory of stratification and the theory of power elite. He is also concerned to develop and extend the Marxist approach to the study of class structure and social stratification in a socialist society. The book begins with a thorough and original reconstruction of Marx's theory of class domination in a capitalist society, and goes on to show that contemporary non-Marxist theories of power elites complement rather than contradict Marx's concept of class domination. The author examines in detail the functionalist theory of stratification, but rejects it, preferring the Marxist approach. Finally, though, he demonstrates the complementary nature of the two approaches to the study of class structure by expounding a comprehensive paradigm for empirical research based on Marxist theory but including some elements of contemporary stratification theories as well.

Marxist Theory of Class for a Skeptical World is a critique of Analytical Marxist and Post-structuralist Marxist theories of class, and offers an alternative approach rooted in the ideas of Marx and Engels, as well as Lenin and Trotsky.

In Classes: A Marxist Critique, Paul Kamolnick has produced what may prove to be the most fundamental critique of Erik Olin Wright's class structure analysis to date. The recent publication of Wright's Classes has raised a number of central questions regarding his continuing project on the class structures of advanced capitalist societies. Has Wright now totally abandoned Marxism in favor of orthodox neo-classical economics, social psychology, and Weberian stratification theory? How does Wright's latest argument relate to his earlier work, especially his critique of Paulantzas? What is the meaning of Wright's dependence on Jon Elster, John Roemer, and the 'rational actor' subject grounded in the doctrine self-proclaimed methodological individualism? Following an extended critical Preface, Kamolnick first situates Wright within the social formation of a sociological and Althusserian Marxism while arguing the basic continuity between Wright's earlier and later work on class. Though Marxism must itself always remain a social formation, Kamolnick argues that Wright rejects Marxism in favor of bourgeois academic sociology. In chapters two and three kamolnick reveals how Wright's new theory of class consciousness is incapable of producing a knowledge of class structure and how Wright is led to rely ultimately on non-Marxist, bourgeois practices of science and knowledge production in order to overcome this. Classes: A Marxist Critique ends by considering the implications for Wright's new transnational data set of his failure to ground a knowledge of class structure, and finally, by arguing for the new directions Marxist class analysis should take in the 1980s and beyond. The thrust of Kamolnick's argument is the challenge for Marxists to revolutionize present sociologized practices of the labor process, objectivity, knowledge production, and Marxism itself. Class analysis must completely break with abstract sociologism and ground itself thoroughly within the concrete process of self-object