Dynamics of Social Change

Marx's focus on the process of social change is so central to this thinking that it informs all his writings. The motor
force of history for Marx is not to be found in any extra-human agency, be it "providence" or the "objective spirit."
Marx insisted that men make their own history. Human history is the process through which men change
themselves even as they pit themselves against nature to dominate it. In the course of their history men
increasingly transform nature to make it better serve their own purposes. And, in the process of transforming
nature, they transform themselves.

In contrast to all animals who can only passively adjust to nature's requirements by finding a niche in the ecological
order that allows them to subsist and develop, man is active in relation to his surroundings. He fashions tools with
which to transform his natural habitat. Men "begin to distinguish themselves fro animals as soon as they begin to
produce their means of subsistence. . . . In producing their means of subsistence men indirectly produce their
actual material life."

Men "who every day remake their own life" in the process of production can do so only in association with others.
This is what makes man a zoon politicon. The relations men establish with nature through their labor are reflected
in their social relationships.

The production of life, both of one's own by labor and of fresh life by procreation, appears at once as a double
relationship, on the one hand as a natural, on the other as a social relationship. By social is meant the cooperation
of several individuals, no matter under what conditions, in what manner or to what end. It follows from this that a
determinate mode of production, or industrial stage, is always bound up with a determinate mode of cooperation,
or social stage, and this mode of cooperation is itself a 'productive force.'
In their struggle against nature, and to gain their livelihood through associated labor, men create specific forms of
social organization in tune with specific modes of production. All these modes of social organization, with the
exception of those prevailing in the original stage of primitive communism, are characterized by social inequality.
As societies emerge from originally undifferentiated hordes, the division of labor leads to the emergence of
stratification, of classes of men distinguished by their differential access to the means of production and their
differential power. Given relative scarcity, whatever economic surplus has been accumulated will be preempted by
those who have attained dominance through their expropriation of the means of production. Yet this dominance
never remains unchallenged. This is why "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."

Free men and slaves, patricians and plebeians, barons and serfs, guildmasters and journeymen, exploiters and
exploited have confronted one another from the beginning of recorded time. Yet Marx, insisted on the principle of
historical specificity, that is, he thought it essential to note that each particular class antagonism, rooted in
particular productive conditions, must be analyzed in its own right. Each stage in history is conceived as a
functional whole, with its own peculiar modes of production, which give rise to distinctive types of antagonisms
between exploiting and exploited classes. Not all exploited classes have a chance to assert themselves in successful
combat against their exploiters. The revolts of the slaves of antiquity or of the German peasantry at the time of the
Reformation were doomed to failure because these classes did not represent a mode of production that would
dominate in the future. On the other hand, the bourgeoisie in the last stages of feudalism and the proletariat in
modern times were destined to be victorious since they represented a future mode of production and social
organization.

While Marx can be considered a historical evolutionist, it would be a mistake to think of him as a believer in
unilinear evolution. He was acutely aware of periods of relative stagnation in human history--for example, in
Oriental societies--and he knew of historical situations characterized by a stalemate, a temporary equilibrium,
between social classes. His writings on the regime of Napoleon III illustrate in masterful fashion a historical
situation in which the forces of the old class order and of the new are so nearly balanced that neither is able to
prevail, thus giving rise to a "Bonapartist" stalemate. Moreover, though throughout his life Marx held fast to the
belief that the future belongs to the working class, which will lead the way to the emergence of a classless society,
he was nevertheless willing to consider the possibility that the working class may not be equal to its "historical
task" so that mankind would degenerate into a new kind of barbarism.

Marx conceived of four major successive modes of production in the history of mankind after the initial stage of
primitive communism: the Asiatic, the ancient, the feudal, and the modern bourgeois form. Each of these came
into existence through contradictions and antagonisms that had developed in the previous order. "No social order
ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and new higher
relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb
of the old society."

Class antagonisms specific to each particular mode of production led to the emergence of classes whose interests
could no longer be asserted within the framework of the old order; at the same time, the growth of the productive
forces reached the limits imposed by previous productive relations. When this happened, the new classes, which
represented a novel productive principle, broke down the old order, and the new productive forces, which were
developed in the matrix of the old order, created the material conditions for further advance. However, "the
bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production." When they
have been overthrown by a victorious proletariat, "the prehistory of human society will have come to an end," and
the dialectical principle that ruled the previous development of mankind ceases to operate, as harmony replaces
social conflict in the affairs of men.

Marx's emphasis on the existential roots of ideas, his stress on the need to view thinking as one among other social
activities, has remained--no matter what qualifications have to be made--one of the enduring parts of his work.
Together with his economic interpretation of the course of human history, his theory of class relations, and his
focus on the alienating aspects of social life in modern society, it has become a permanent part of the sociological
enterprise.

From Coser, 1977:55-57.

Marx, Social Change, & Revolution

Karl Marx was both a philosopher and a political agitator. He thus often thought about questions relating to social
change and revolution. However, Marx was not content to analyze each in isolation as if it were a self-contained
idea. Like every other idea he pondered, Marx examined social change and revolution in light of his all-
encompassing theory which sought to explain how societies progress materially, economically, and socio-
politically. Within his system social change is a by-product of class struggle and revolution that is as much a
permanent state of mind as an actual event marking capitalism's anticlimactic end.

Keywords Bourgeoisie; Class-for-Itself; Class Struggle; Dictatorship of the Proletariat; Forces of Production;
Historical Materialism; Labor-Power; Labor-Time; Lumpenproletariat; Means of Production; Permanent Revolution;
Petty Bourgeoisie; Proletariat; Relations of Production; Secondary Exploitation; Superstructure; Surplus Value

Marx, Social Change

Overview

At heart, Marx was an ideologue, a philosopher convinced he had discovered the immutable laws governing social
change. To Marx, only economics mattered. Free will, shifting societal values and aspirations, population growth
and dislocation, and many other possible causes of social change mattered little in the Marxian universe. Rather,
Marx believed, how we produce and exchange the goods necessary for our survival shapes how we relate to each
other. Moreover, he claimed that in order to take advantage of new knowledge and technology people always
have organized themselves around said production differently at distinct times in history. However, he believed,
society has often lagged behind these changes, creating friction and conflict until a new social order more
conducive to the emerging economic order replaces the old social order (Holton, 1981).

At best, social change is an uneven process that continually pits emerging interests against entrenched ones. That
is why Marx famously concluded in the Communist Manifesto "the history of all hitherto existing society is the
history of class struggles." Yet the idea of class struggle itself was far from new in Marx's day. Aristotle in fact
wrote about class and conflict in the fourth century BCE, observing that in democracies the poor ruled, while in
oligarchies the rich did. Further, he believed that politics reconciled the interests of the many with those of the
few, sometimes equitably, sometimes not (Arendt, 2002).

A more contemporary writer on the subject, the early nineteenth century social theorist Henri de Saint-Simon,
differentiated rich from poor as well. He went one important step further, though, by explicitly distinguishing
"producers" or laborers, from mere consumers or property-owners (Kim, n.d.). Marx soon turned this purely
descriptive distinction into a socioeconomic dynamo of the first order. Indeed, the impetus for all social change, he
asserted, emanated from the class struggle between workers, or the proletariat, and owners, or the bourgeoisie.
However, Marx believed that the ultimate source of this change lay elsewhere: in the inevitable conflict between
the economic forces of production and the communal relations of production, a dialectical process he called
historical materialism.

Here, man is defined entirely by what he makes, by the labor this production requires, and by the interactions with
others production necessitates. Broadly speaking, labor, technical expertise, and the organizational ingenuity
needed to make efficient use of both make up the forces of production. The relations of production, conversely,
arise from the social interactions among workers and between workers and the owners of the means of
production, who, in capitalism's case, are the bourgeoisie. Constantly in flux, the forces and relations of production
are all but guaranteed to clash, with the more basic of the two, the forces of production, prevailing. Changes in the
way things are made, in effect, require new forms of communication and cooperation, giving rise, over time, to
new relations of production.

Further Insights

In very real and persistent ways, then, the economic base of a society periodically reinvents itself, prompting
broader sociopolitical and cultural change. To perpetuate itself materially society must have order, so every
economic system gives rise to a corresponding societal superstructure. Courts, government bureaucracies, social
mores, family and religious values, and even culture itself all stem from the economic base they buttress. When
this base falters, the social fabric woven around it inevitably unravels (Wacquant, 1985).

In capitalism's case, Marx believed owners would ultimately bankrupt themselves trying to remain competitive,
and that this base would literally consume itself at humanity's expense. In effect, things would get far worse before
they got better. It was and is a bleak vision. And herein lies one of Marx's more uncomfortable beliefs: that lasting
social change would come at a terrible price. The capitalist system would have to self-destruct before a more
equitable socialist system could take its place. It must, in other words, fail so many so miserably that the
dictatorship of the proletariat following it would be welcomed with open arms. Then and only then would the real
revolution occur as private property gave way to collective ownership, class distinctions morphed into a society of
equals, and thinly veiled authoritarianism transformed into rule by consensus.

Such, at least, was Marx's utopian vision of the future, one so ideal that there would be no further need for a state.
In the meantime, increasing swathes of humanity not only would but had to live and die in the direst of conditions.
For, if nothing else, this utter deprivation will fan the flames of class struggle to a fever pitch, hastening capitalism's
demise. There is a logic, then, to Marx's rather dour prescription for social change. Incremental reforms like
reducing the length of the workday or banning child labor, he believed, were no more than temporary ploys
owners, citing declining profits, would revoke the minute workers put their own parochial interests above those of
their class as a whole.
Marx's Classes

But what exactly did Marx mean by "class?" Marx himself insisted that people, even if they are in similar
circumstances, are not a class per se unless they are aware of their shared relationship. A hereditary caste was
thus not a class in the Marxian sense, and neither are the upper, middle, and lower income bracketed classes
sociologists study today. Of those he did identify, the largest and, from his point of view the most important by far,
was the working class or proletariat. Technically speaking, anyone who drew a regular wage belonged because,
owning no private property or any means of production, these workers were reduced to selling their labor-power
to survive.

Capitalists, or the bourgeoisie, on the other hand owned the means of production outright and purchased workers'
labor-time. Sooner or later, though, they would find ways to boost earnings by increasing the tempo of production
but keeping workers daily wages the same. Marx saw this purloining as inherently exploitive. Those who enjoyed
wealth did not actually produce it, and those who did produce it lived in poverty. However, the latter had no
"legitimate" means of righting this wrong because laws, governments, and religious and social institutions all
existed in order to validate the existing forms of ownership and deflect any and all challenges to these forms.

A keen social observer, Marx also acknowledged the transient existence of more marginal classes: most notably
the petty bourgeoisie and the lumpenproletariat. Primarily artisans, shopkeepers, and small farmers, the petty
bourgeoisie owned their means of production and, doing so, worked for themselves. Until, that is, a declining
capitalism would no longer accommodate small businesses, at which point the petty bourgeoisie would enter the
ranks of the disaffected proletariat. The lumpenproletariat, on the other hand, didn't work at all. Its ranks were
populated by those farthest removed from the means of production: the chronically unemployed, the
unemployable, and the criminals. Marx predicted that, when push came to shove, the lumpenproletariat would
align with the proletariats, albeit tenuously, since the promised socialist revolution would provide for everyone's
needs regardless of their social status.