Theories of CLass
CLASS
The reading for this week is Theories of Class. Karl Marx’s essays on alienation and capitalism are powerful and explanatory at the same time. “It’s the Economy, Stupid� (Slogan to help remember Marx). Marx divided people into two social groups: bourgeoisie and proletariat. The bourgeoisie are the people who control the capital and are in the more powerful position in the society; while proletariat are the wage-workers, simply put they are the “alien object�-staying fit to produce an act as an dependent variable to the bourgeoisie.
The wage-worker is an object to capitalist, the object that can and will be replaced if the result of the replacement will result in greater profit for the capitalist. While proletariat society is pushing them selves to the maximum in hope to accomplish better wages, capitalist, on the other hand, is looking for a solution to decrease the wages and increase the profit. The capitalist is looking for the surplus-value in every worker; the money that is left after the labor and the machines are paid off.
When capitalist finds a solution on how to maximize his exploitation of wage-workers, he minimizes the wages, while increasing the work which results in larger profits. The workers who are in need of daily-necessaries, (food, water, etc.) are unwillingly force to work for these low wages in order to survive; workers are giving away their humanity to the capitalist who controls the means of the production.
Marx Weber determines the power by the: party, class and status. Party is the status of the person, by where they stand in the society. And thirdly, by the status, which is the social standings and occupation of the person. Status can, but does not have to be related to the class or economic standings, money. Unlike Marx, Weber was a pessimistic person and was considered to be more concerned with the traditional way of how things work in the society.
For Marx society was controlled by the upper class, the capitalist; while on the other hand Weber’s theory was that society was controlled by the people who were in power and had these three strong characteristics: class, party and status in the society.
Discussion Questions:
1. If a capitalist wants to create a surplus-value is it necessary to abuse the worker’s wages? Or, is the capitalist just ignoring the wage-workers who are, in this case, independent variable to the surplus-value, knowing that the worker is forced to work by human nature (struggle to survive; food water, etc.).
2. Higher class in the society, bourgeoisie, are the ones who are controlling the means of the production, while the lover class, proletariat, are characterized as the production. So, is it possible for wage-worker to somehow jump from lower class into the higher class of the society? Or is the capitalist making sure that this situation does not happen, by giving low, minimum, wages to the workers.
Comments
In response to question number 2 under the heading "Theories of Class," I believe that the so called lower class is essentially trapped in their present social stature. In general people do not jump social class for several reasons. First, they become used to their way of life, ie. the way they spend their money, and thus forth they cannot change their yearly net savings. Furthermore, people who are born in a social and economic class generally stay in that class because that is all they know. If someone is say lower class, their family and friends are likely to be of the lower class too, and thus they cannot help financially support them to help them get ahead, say with further education. Thus, I believe that it is possible but very rare for people to jump from the lower class to the upper class.
Posted by: Anna | February 1, 2007 1:13 PM