Marxist Class Analysis: A Critical Review

The legacy of Marx.

Author: Eric Olin Wright

Marx never systematically defined the concept of class. Most of his theory presents problems: structural mapping of abstract class relations, and analysis of specific short-term maps of classes as agents. The analysis of abstract structural classes typically shows a polarized map of class relations through much of the Marxian analysis of the capitalist mode of production.

The pressing political analyses of Marx are characterized by an abundance of classes, sections, factions, social classes, strata, and others who populate the political scene.

What concerned him was understanding the relationship between the struggles of these agents and the state.

We find in Marx’s work an abstract concept of polarized “holes” generated by class relations, and a map of specific agents of class struggle, but no systematic link between them.

Society as a whole is increasingly split into two hostile camps, into the great classes directly facing each other: the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat.

With Marx and Engels

We have seen that the trend continued and the law of development of the capitalist mode of production is more and more separate from work, the means of production, as well as concentrating more and more in large groups the means of production, dispersed, that is, transforming work into wage labor and the means of production into capital.

Marx

Marx always refers to the petty bourgeoisie (self-employed who use little or no paid employment) as a kind of “transition” while stressing the dissolution of the peasantry.

The real movement of capitalist development would produce effective correspondence between abstract and concrete categories of class analysis.

The program of the Contemporary Marxist class analysis.

Erick Olin Wright

The historic course of the last 100 years has persuaded many Marxists that this image of a general tendency in capitalist societies to the radical polarization of class relations is incorrect.

The historic course of the last 100 years has persuaded many Marxists that this image of a general tendency in capitalist societies to the radical polarization of class relations is incorrect.

Since we already accepted that the class structure of capitalism is subject to a growing polarization, the theoretical problem of the gap between the abstract concept of polarized class relations and the complex specific guidelines applied to the formation and class struggle has become more difficult to ignore. It is no longer assumed to be a phased-out or conceptual problem. Towards a solution has been a central concern in the revival of Marxist analysis of classes over the past 20 years.

Since we already accepted that the class structure of capitalism is subject to a growing polarization, the theoretical problem of the gap between the abstract concept of polarized class relations and the complex specific guidelines applied to the formation and class struggle has become more difficult to ignore. It is no longer assumed to be a phased-out or conceptual problem. Towards a solution has been a central concern in the revival of Marxist analysis of classes over the past 20 years.

The distinction between class structure and class formation: class structure refers to the structure of social relations in which individuals are immersed and end their class interests. The class structure is a set of holes or positions that are occupied by individuals or families.

The distinction between class structure and class formation: class structure refers to the structure of social relations in which individuals are immersed and end their class interests. The class structure is a set of holes or positions that are occupied by individuals or families.

Class formation refers to the formation of communities organized within that structure on the basis of interests prefigured by the same class structure.

Class formation refers to the formation of communities organized within that structure on the basis of interests prefigured by the same class structure.

Eric Olin Wright

The class-based communities can be organized, disorganized, and reorganized within a given class structure without the occurrence of any fundamental transformation of the class structure itself.

When Marx spoke about the pure form of the classes of capitalist society, he was referring to the analysis of class at this highest level of abstraction.

Marxist discourse on class is typically characterized by three levels of abstraction: the mode of production, social formation, and the business cycle.

We cannot allow any variation in the same mode of production: when it comes to mode of production, all capitalisms are the same.

In my opinion, this is a mistake.

The term “social education” comes from the analysis of societies and concrete combinations of different modes of production or different types of relations of production.

The situational analysis is to investigate the societies with specific institutional details and contingent historical factors that come into play. This circumstantial level of analysis is usually also the level of abstraction at which more substantiated research is located on the linkages between the practices and class relations and those that do not depend on it (e.g., class and race or sex class).

Nicos Pulantzas argues that the relationship between the form of state and social classes can be made from the level of abstraction of mode of production, which leads to trying to build a general concept of “capitalist state.”

Marx said something somewhere on each of the boxes of four, but never offers a systematic theoretical exposition on the two levels lower portion of the class structure. Nor did he ever develop a solid task on the causal link between class structure and class formation.

The recent development of theory and research can be seen largely as an attempt to bridge the gap between the abstract analysis of class structure and the analysis of class formation.

The concern for the middle class, or, which is the same, a clear conceptual demarcation line between the working class and salaried employees who do not belong to it, is more than a defensive response to the attacks of bourgeois sociology.

In the case of capitalist societies in the Third World, the parallel problem in the structural analysis of the classes would be the “hassle and the peasantry,” which, at least according to many former Marxist analyses, is a class in rapid decline.

The other objective in the focus of recent efforts to bridge the gap between the abstract analysis of class structures and the analysis of class formation is the process of class formation.

Part of the research has focused primarily on the political mediation of this process, showing that it is shaped by the form of the state, party strategies, and other factors.

Through greater attention to the theoretical dimensions of the variability of “actually existing capitalism.” While it is still producing more abstract discussions of nature, it is coming to the conclusion that it is not enough to have the abstract concepts of the capitalist state, bourgeois ideology, the work process of capitalism, and the capitalist class structure. We need a repertoire of concepts capable of collecting the variations in each one of them from more concrete levels of analysis.

Biography of a concept

Contradictory class positions

Manufacturing concepts are categories that we use to define social classes. These categories can be relatively simple, as when used to make comments, or extremely complex, as when rebuilding the “grand theory.” They are a product of human beings. The concepts have theoretical bases.

Scientific concepts are never constrained by theoretical assumptions only. They also face what may be called “real-world concepts empirically measured”, in short, “empirical concepts”.

For scientific matters, such theoretical concepts involving systematic and conscious work in the production of new concepts should be seen as a merit. However, if no systematic theoretical concepts are imposed on the explanatory success of the theory, then it is at risk of falling into “theoretism”, i.e., that in practice it is immunized against the performance of the empirical constraints necessary for the theory to fulfill its mission to explain. Conversely, no matter is arranged in such a way that prevents the development of conscious theoretical constraints, which has sometimes been called “empiricism.”

Generally, when making the concept takes place within an established framework, the concept formation process is at the same time a process of choosing among rival concepts.

Unless we have a rival concept that behaves better in relation to the theoretical and empirical constraints that regulate the formation of concepts, it is often difficult to reach definitive conclusions about the suitability of a particular concept.

By “rival concepts” I mean, in general, competing definitions of the theoretical object.

One of the main reasons for undertaking the much more difficult task of reconstructing a theory is the repeated failure of attempts to form concepts in this theory, to produce concepts that satisfy both the theoretical and empirical constraints.

“Dogmatism” is nothing but the refusal of a theorist to question elements of general surprise in the light of such continued failure (or, for that matter, to deal with these failures by denying its existence).

The “eclectic”, however, is refusing to worry about theoretical coherence. It changes the old concepts and adopts new ones based on different theoretical frameworks through an ad hoc process, without stopping to consider their compatibility or integration in a framework. What you need to achieve is a balance between the theoretical commitment to maintaining and strengthening the coherence of the different frames and the opening of the general rhetorical theory necessary for the transformation of concepts and theories reconstruction.

Steps in the analysis of the formation of the concept of contradictory position.

The empirical stage. To start this type of empirical study, once we meet the problem of how to categorize people in connection with the classes. The taxonomic problem was really a conceptual problem. The problem of concept formation with which we faced was how to generate a class concept for the concrete analysis to properly collect these positions, but while preserving the general budget and the framework of Marxist class analysis. In other words, how to transform the ideological category of “middle class” into a scientific concept?.

Theoretical constraints. In the case of the concept of class, there is little consensus among Marxists about what the general Marxist class relations are, and thus the range of possible solutions to the problem of transforming a certain class concept varies depending on how to characterize the constraints imposed by the general theory. So much is dependent on the principle of specifying exactly how these constraints work. There are two general types of constraint which are of special importance: 1) constraints imposed by the explanatory role that the concept of class has within the Marxist society and history, and 2) constraints imposed by the structural properties of both class concepts allowing it to meet its explanatory role within the general theory.

The explanatory program. The concept of class appears as an explanatory principle in one way or another in virtually all substantive issues addressed in Marxist theory. However, two explanations are the most important blocks: one that revolves around the interconnection between class structure, class formation, class consciousness, and class struggle, and another that addresses the relationship between class and epochal transformation of societies.

Conceptual constraint one: the class structure imposes limits on class formation, class consciousness, and class struggle. Classes have a structural existence that is irreducible to the different types of organizations that develop historically (class formation).

E.P. Thompson has argued that the structural existence of classes has no relevance apart from the experiences of the agents.

The argument that the class structure confines the basic training of class, class consciousness, and class struggle is essentially equivalent to the assertion that this structure is the basic mechanism to distribute access to resources in a society, and thus to distribute the capabilities to act.

Since the class structure defines the access of individuals to those key resources that have the potential to be mobilized collectively, it imposes the basic limits to the possibilities of formation of such organized collective capabilities.

The class struggle represents the basic transforming principle within this model of determination.

Two conceptual constraints: class structures are essential qualitative lines of social demarcation in the historical trajectories of social change.

The class structure represents the central organizing principles of societies that define the field of possible variations in the state, ethnic relations, gender relations, etc. So that the best way to identify different historical periods is through the dominant class structures in them.

Class structures are the central determinant of social power. And therefore can determine what kind of social change is possible even when not functionally determining the concrete form of every institution of society.

The definitions of the conflict between classes based on the agents insist that for a conflict to be considered “class struggle”, the officers concerned should be agents of class (or individuals of certain classes or organizations representing certain classes) and the fronts of the conflict should be fronts of class.

Various non-class forms of struggle can have effects on classes without being considered as class struggle, and, secondly, that the class struggles are not confined to cases in which agents are consciously fighting issues of class power. The thesis that class struggle is the “motor” of history means then that it is the conflict between agents defined by their position within the class structure which explains the qualitative changes that mark the epochal trajectory of social change.

Structural properties of the class concept

As an abstract concept, the Marxist concept of class is built around four basic structural properties: the classes are relational, these relations are antagonistic, these antagonisms are rooted in exploitation, and exploitation is based on social relations of production.

Conceptual constraint three: the concept of class is a relational concept. To say that classes are a relational concept is that classes are always defined within social relations, particularly with reference to other classes. For there to be social conflict, opposing groups are needed, and that opposition means some kind of social relationship between them. Classes “high” and “low” do not maintain any necessary relationship to each other, so that rational decision itself does not provide any support point for understanding the generation of real social conflicts.

Four conceptual constraints: the social relations that define the classes are inherently antagonistic, not symmetrical.

This does not mean that it is never possible to “compromise” between competing interests but simply that such commitments must carry the realization of some interests against the interests of another class. What is impossible is not the commitment but harmony.

Conceptual construct five: the factual basis of their conflicting interests is exploitation. The most basic determinant of class antagonism is exploitation. It is by virtue of this causal link between the welfare of a class and the deprivation of another that the antagonism between classes defined by these relations has a ‘goal’.

Conceptual constraint six: the foundation of the operation should be sought in social relations of production. Classes are defined by different relations of control within the production process. In all these cases, however, the class is defined as a relational concept focused on production.

Simple polarization

The simplest response to the emergence of positions within capitalist societies, which do not appear to fall within the working class or capitalist class, is the claim that this is simply an “appearance” and that the “essence” is that almost all these positions actually belong to the working class. At most, professional and managerial employees constitute a privileged stratum of the proletariat, and that the expansion of this stratum does not change the basic map of the capitalist class. Managerial and professional employees, like all other workers, have no means of production and should, therefore, sell their labor power to live.

The new petty bourgeoisie The first systematic solution that has been proposed has been to classify the “middle class” as part of the petty bourgeoisie. This solution is based on the category of “unproductive labor.” In many cases, the interests of unproductive employees are distinguishable from those of industrial workers, or at least are much closer to those of the latter than to the other “members” of the “new petty bourgeoisie.”

The new class

Gouldner defined it primarily in terms of its control over “cultural capital.” Szelenyi and Konrad emphasize the “teleological” intellectuals as key to its potential power of class. Barbara and John Ehrenreich argue that the new class—the “professional-directive class”, according to their analysis—is defined by shared positions within the social relations of reproduction of capitalist class relations. All of these respective brands have prospects as a crucial feature: to solve the problem of redefining the middle class, these positions, in terms of the relationship, one way or another, remain linked to cultural production.

Intermediate layers.

Instead of modifying any of the concrete concepts of class, positions that do not seem to fit the bourgeois-proletarian dichotomy are labeled simply as “intermediate strata.” The peculiarities of their social position are then described: they are intermediate layers and intermediate classes, because they are outside of the basic relations of classes.

Construction of the new concept

Some positions may have multiple class characters and may belong to more than one class at a time. These positions are what I have called contradictory positions within class relations.