Susannah Snider and Emma Ker in the article “Where do I fall in the American Economic Class System,” dated December 16, 2021, explain ideas concerning social classes. They identify that the social class of people in America can be tied to an individual’s economic class. The article explains that most individuals, 72% of Americans belong to the middle of the working class, referring to 2020 statistics from Gallup (Giurge et al., 2020). Social classes are expressed by capitalists who are more interested in their affairs than the workers who provide the labor force. Marx addresses the social class problem more comprehensively using a number of points. Marx identifies status groups whereby people tend to be put in pre-determined categories or strata to explain their behavior. This proletariat meant that the class of modern wage-laborers who, having no means of production, are reduced to selling their labor power to live.
Marx also describes a social class following individuals’ ownership, leading to the three-class types in society today based on the capitalist mode of production. The classes include the working class, the capitalists, and the landowners who earn money through the salaries they are paid. This criterion, therefore, determines what social class one belongs to. The communist Manifesto confirms this: “Society is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.” (Marx et al., 2021). This confirms Marx’s idea of individual ownership with regard to social classes.
In expounding the psychology of capital, Marx identifies how groups of people tend to relate to capital accumulation. This is evident in the new middle class, whose roles are variegated. Social relations of production thus exist in an objective and independent way (Marx et al., 2021). This is true because commerce links the technical and social relations’ relations tend to rule and direct how the patterns of human contact and techniques are. There is a great truth when the Communist Manifesto says, “Modern bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and exchange. It’s like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.” (Trkulja,2018). This makes Communist Manifesto to be well regarded according to Marx.
Marx approaches the issue of an anti-class perspective on a class by stating that the destruction of all class groups is abolishing the classes. In this, the workers replace the old civil society with an organ that will remove the types and their hostility (Kalita,2021). Marx would emphasize that what is important to note is whether the production process masters human beings or which people are in control.
Marx criticizes the psychology of class under capitalism since it harms those of the capitalist ideology in various ways, including racism, sexism, anti-class working theories, and national chauvinism. Socialism should be held to enable a healthy environment for their development of psychology and then make them use the psychology for their benefit. Therefore, Marx advocates for real psychology. According to Karl Marx, “it is an awareness key to sparking a revolution that would “(Rikowski 9) create a dictatorship of the proletariat, from a wage-earning into the ruling class.
The psychology of capital can be traced to the contradictions in capital concerning the labor demands and the labor power. However, Marx states that individuals are constituted as capital and labor, and people must incorporate the two in-person and social activities (Hill, 2022). The contradictions arise due to the different ways work is determined in capitalist production. However, in the idea of social production, Marx explains the tensions and difficulties among individual workers concerning social production and labor-power reproduction. According to the Communist Manifesto, Marx suggests relevant perspectives that include copying through education and training, salaries forms, health, and good service labor.
Based on the social constitution, individuals as both labor and capital, Marx notes that a specific variation of the class-for-itself and old class-in-itself must arise. Class-for-itself refers to the social class which is inactive as observed from history and activities (Neilson et al., 2018). Class-in-itself refers to the active social type in which people identify their lives’ labor and capital areas. This class consciousness needs to be understood as it is encountered in everyday activities.
Education plays a crucial role in forming a class within individuals in explaining how the integration of capital-labor relates to various individuals. However, Marx notes that teaching that the capitalist is affected human capital production, the form that labor-power considered in capitalist society. Still, it leads to struggles since many people resist it (Rakowski, 2006) and this raises some concerns that must be addressed properly. Therefore, Marx approaches the social class problem in society in an enlightening manner. This makes a proper understanding of how social class can be manifested in modern society and it’s a subject that should be reviewed every time.
References
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Boyer, George R. 1998. “The historical background of the Communist Manifesto.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 12, no. 4: 151-174.
Boyer, Marcel. 2021. “Beyond ESG: Reforming Capitalism and Social-Democracy.” Available at SSRN 3786967.
Giurge, Laura M., Ashley V. Whillans, and Colin West. 2020. “Why time poverty matters for individuals, organisations and nations.” Nature Human Behaviour 4, no. 10: 993-1003.
Hill, Dave, and Alpesh Maisuria. 2022. “Social Class: Education, Social Class, and Marxist Theory.” In Encyclopaedia of Marxism and Education, pp. 624-643. Brill.
Kalita, Bhrigu, and Nalbari Namati. 2021. “MARX’S CONCEPT OF CLASS STRUGGLE: A STUDY.”
Marx, Karn, and Friedrich Engels. 2021. The Communist Manifesto by Karn Marx and Friedrich Engels. BEYOND BOOKS HUB.
Neilson, David. 2018. “In-itself for-itself: Towards second-generation neo-Marxist class theory.” Capital & Class 42, no. 2: 273-295.
Rikowski, Glenn. 2006. “Ten points on Marx, class and education.” In Renewing Dialogues Seminar IX, University of London, Institute of Education, pp. 1-13.
Trkulja, Jovica D. 2018. “Manifesto of the Communist Party: Reception and criticism.” Sociološki pregled 52, no. 2: 628-652.
Whaples, Robert. 2018. “Unequal Gains: American Growth and Inequality Since 1700 by Peter H. Lindert and Jeffrey G. Williamson.” Journal of Southern History 84, no. 1 (2018): 144-145.