Topic: Discuss what you think is the definition of wealth with Marx's theory and discuss class inequalities. I am the one who has experienced the class inequality. I plan to talk about my inequalities
Social Inequality – Week 3 – Reading 1
By V. Smerglia
Theories of Social Inequality: Marx’ Explanation
In this course, we are considering that society is layered/stratified on many different characteristics, resulting in inequality. That is: class, race/ethnicity, gender, age, sexual identity, religion, socially defined physical attractiveness.
One very important point: Theories are explanations. THEY DO NOT DIRECT SOCIETY OR CHANGE SOCIETY OR CAUSE EVENTS IN SOCIETY. THEY ARE IDEAS/EXPLANATIONS OF HOW SOCIETY WORKS. You may have a theory about why your friend failed a class or started dating a certain person or got a great job, but YOU DID NOT CAUSE THE FAILED CLASS OR THE DECISION TO DATE OR GETTING THE JOB! In the same way, theories are explanations based on observations.
As we begin to study theories of why social inequalities exist, the basic explanations probably first were applied to class. Certainly, Karl Marx was thinking of class.
He lived in early industrialization (1818-1883) and believed one thing determined a person’s position in society: wealth! (Remember, we already said wealth is not income necessarily). He was born in Germany but lived most of his life in London. He believed that material wealth was what lead to social inequality and that those who had it made the important decisions (had the power) in a society.
When he was alive, those who owned what he called “the means of production,” were the wealthy industrialists. Since those who worked in their factories were exploited and paid very little, he mostly thought of society in two classes: the haves and the have-nots. There were no labor unions at that time and very few people were what we would now think of as middle class.
Marx and his co-author in The Communist Manifesto, (1848) Friedrich Engels labeled the two “classes” they viewed in society as the Proletariat (those who were the workers and had only their labor to sell) and the Bourgeoisie (the owners). The owners you may have learned in history classes were often called the Robber Barons in the U.S. We think of names like Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, and Hearst. The name was applied since they built great fortunes before there were income or corporate taxes of any size, and before there were protections for workers from unions and government.
Marx believed the only true equality was found in hunting and gathering societies because there are no “surplus resources,” everyone was equal. Then, as society evolved, in horticultural and pastoral societies, there began to be some small surplus. Because in these societies, there was a stable supply of vegetables and fruit (horticultural) or meat (pastoral/herding), individuals didn’t have to spend all their time finding food. There was now some extra time and maybe through simple arts such as weaving or pottery, there was some surplus “stuff.” To be clear, people no longer had to work constantly to survive. Thus, the first social inequality is found in horticultural and pastoral societies. Can you think of who would get those surpluses? In the classroom, students usually guess people like the chiefs or elders or medicine men of the villages. And, that is probably correct.
So, now if we move forward to the industrial times in which Marx lived, we can see how he developed the ideas that those with the most surplus resources have the most social power. He also looked at agricultural societies and saw that those who owned the land had the power while most people were peasants living lives of bare survival.
So, we learn that Marx’ explanation of social inequalities is based on wealth, the idea that those who have it have the power. He hated exploitation of workers but he also did have some respect for capitalists because they utilized science for mass production and it was science that led to the development of technologies and also the development of new forms of economics. These were attributes that were used globally even before people could fly around the world. He believed that ultimately, the workers of the world would unite and rise up against the capitalists and make world communism. (Marx and Engels, 1848; Rothman, 2005).
It is interesting to guess what Marx would say of capitalism now. He did not foresee the development of the middle classes such as: the working class, the lower middle class, the upper middle class. Most Americans, when asked, identify themselves as being middle class.
“A solid majority (62%) of American adults identify as either upper-middle or middle-class, with a healthy plurality (44%) saying they belong to the middle class, according to new survey results from Gallup.” (2017)
Reference: www.marketingcharts.com/demographics-and-audiences-78219
Business Channel CBNC says 70% of Americans identify as middle class.
Marx would undoubtedly be surprised to find that the most prosperous society in the world has so many people “in the middle.” He also did not foresee the growth of Labor Unions which were in their infancy during his life. He would not have guessed that professionals like teachers, nurses, and engineers would be in unions. He could not have imagined that the majority of people in 2020 would earn a living with their minds. Beginning in 1959, more Americans worked in services than in manual labor jobs.
Of course, Marx did not envision totalitarian rule such as exists in Russia, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela (most of the countries that have communism and socialism).
On the other hand, most of the capitalistic societies of the world (U.S., U.K., Germany, France, Spain ,Italy, most of Europe, Japan, Australia, Canada, Mexico, etc.) have some elements of socialism. For example, in the U.S., we have Welfare, Food Stamps, Medicaid, Workers Compensation, Unemployment Compensation, etc. all of which are “entitlements” certain needy persons can get from the government, paid for by tax payers. It is worth noting that Social Security and Medicare are not entitlements but contributory, meaning the recipients contributed to the benefits all during their working lives. So, a person who did not work and donate enough to Social Security cannot get it upon reaching the age of 67. The fact that these funds are being depleted is more because government/Congress spent the money that was taken from people’s earnings for those purposes on other things.
The conclusion of this first explanation of social inequality would be that wealth determines who has the power in a society and the wealthy in any society make the decisions and their ideas prevail. Looking at his own times and analyzing accordingly, Marx believed that the rich would continue to get richer and most people (workers in the factories of the rich) would be “alienated” from society. He viewed religion as a tool that was used by the powerful to give hope to the masses of workers.
Marx & Engels. The Communist Manifesto, originally the Manifesto of the Communist Party, is an 1848 political document by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Communist League and originally published in London
The Communist Manifesto 2018
In-text: (The Communist Manifesto, 2018)
Your Bibliography: Bl.uk. 2018. The Communist Manifesto. [online] Available at: <http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item106572.html> [Accessed 13 September 2018].
Rothman, Robert A. Inequality and Stratification: Race, Class, and Gender. (5th ed.) 2005. Pearson. ISBN 0-13-184968-9