Unit II (c) Perspectives of KARL MARX

Conflict is seen as central to social life as an aspect of all forms of social life and not just
manifested in overt conflict. In their study of society, especially of urban communities, social
scientists have found conflict to be a central dimension of all social life. Even in the simplest
societies, there is a conflict or the possibility of it, although if society is undifferentiated along
class or status lines, the conflicts are more likely to be at the level of individuals and not at the
group level. Marx is credited with formalising conflict as a central aspect of the social structure
and also the prime mover in the process of historical transformation.

Karl Marx was a philosopher, social scientist, economist, historian, and revolutionary and
influential socialist thinker to emerge in the 19th century. He laid down the foundation of
conflict perspective. He was born in Germany. He did not think of himself as a sociologist, but
his ideas influenced many sociologists, especially the conflict theorists.

His works were written when industrialization and capitalism was at its peak. His theories and
perspectives explain the misery and suffering as the victims of the new economic system called
capitalism came into being. Some of his contributions includes historical materialism, class
struggle & mode of production, alienation etc. Fredrick Engels was the most influential person
in Marx’s life, both were against capitalism and advocated Marxism. However, his writings
carry deep imprints of the ideas of Hegel, Kant, Feuerbach, Adam Smith and so on. His writings
are highly original and polemical in nature. In 1848, Marx writes that all history is a history of
classes and class struggles. He believed the root of human misery lay in class conflict,
exploitation of workers by those who own the means of production. He analyses, society was
fundamentally divided between two classes, that is, bourgeois and proletariat who have
opposite interests. His writings inspired those who led the communist revolutions in Russia,
China, Cuba, Vietnam and elsewhere. Some of his main works include Economic and
Philosophical Manuscripts, Capital, The Holy Family, the Poverty of Philosophy, The
Communist Manifesto, German Ideology etc.

Communist Manifesto
Karl Marx welcomed this idea and produced the document early in 1848. Just a few weeks
before the Paris revolution of 1848, a document was published. It was called the Manifesto of
the Communist Party (1848)….This was also the time when he met in Paris a revolutionary by

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the name of Friedrich Engels, who was a German radical and son of cotton manufacturer. In
connection with publication of economic articles for Marx’s Journal, the two had met in the
autumn and thus began a long-lasting phase of friend and partnership between them. Following
the exile from Paris he left for England and stayed there until his death. Russians visited Karl
Marx in London and inspired the Russian revolutionaries.

At that point of time, the process of rapid industrialization and horrible working situations of
the industrial workers (working class or proletariat) led to the wide spread of poverty and social
distress in the society. In a way, it all culminated in the social revolution in France and
throughout Europe. These specific historic conditions influenced Marx very much and
gradually his increasing engagement with economic questions and economic problems was
articulated in his numerous writings. An important influence on him was his reading of
Engels’s The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 which made him aware of
the nature and extent of misery of industrial workers. Subsequently his engagement with the
workers’ movement became more and more passionate. Marx and Engels developed their
philosophy of communism and became the intellectual leaders of the working-class movement.

In the Communist Manifesto Marx made a historic statement that the proletarians have nothing
to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of the world would unite. The
emergence and gradual consolidation of industrial capitalism made him more aware and
articulate towards critiquing the exploitative system.

Historical Materialism
Engels, Hegal and Feuerbach had influenced Marx so much, so he had adopted the concept of
historical materialism. Hegel’s philosophy centred on two important concepts dialectic and
idealism. The dialectic is a method of philosophical argument wherein there is a contradictory
process between opposite sides. Hegel used the concept of dialectics to ideas. His philosophy
lays emphasis on the mind and ideas and not the material world. In other words, his philosophy
is that of idealism. Feuerbach on the other hand, was critical of Hegel. He did not emphasis
idealism more rather he was inclined towards materialism. Instead of focusing on the ideas, he
focused on the real material aspects. Marx was influenced by the concept of dialectic, but he
felt that it was the material aspects that were more important than the ideas. Thus, he took the
concept of dialectic from Hegel but was critical of his idealism. Similarly, he took the idea of
materialism from Feuerbach, but he did not totally agree with Feuerbach’s idea of materialism.

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 Feuerbach focused on the religious world whereas Marx applied the concept of materialism to
every aspect of the social world and especially to the economic aspect. Marx then came up with
his own idea of dialectical materialism.

He examined the dialectical relationship between capitalists and the proletariat. Also, he traced
the dialectical history of changes in society from primitive through feudal to capitalist society.
Further, dialectical approach takes a view that various aspects of society are in constant conflict
with each other. Following this understanding, Marx saw the contradiction between capitalists
and the proletariat. He maintained that while the very basis of capitalism is exploitation of the
working class. This exploitation will create conditions for the working class to revolt and
overthrow capitalism itself.

Major principles of historical materialism are;

o Economic structure of society is the most important one
o Economy determines politics and culture in society; and
o Instead of ideas, economic structure determines political and legal superstructure.

Historical materialism is a materialist interpretation of social, cultural and political phenomena.

His theory of historical materialism is both historical and material in nature. It is historical
because Marx has traced the evolution of human societies from one stage to another. It is
materialistic because he has interpreted the evolution of societies in terms of changes in their
material or economic bases. In evolutionary perspective, the history of society is seen through
the successive stages of evolution. Historical materialism is also the cornerstone of Marx’s
understanding of the process of social change. Over time, forces of production evolve.

Marx described stages of human history in terms of the four modes of production: the Asiatic,
Ancient, Feudal and Capitalist. According to him, ancient, feudal and capitalist modes of
production followed each other one after the other in western societies. Asiatic mode of
production is a feature of those societies in which ownership of land is communal, kinship
relations predominate, and production process and labour are controlled by the State. He
predicted that capitalist mode of production will be followed by socialism/communism.
Ownership over means of production in each mode of production lies in the hands of one class.
This determines the relations of production and class relations that emerge from production
process. Ancient mode of production is characterized by slavery, feudal mode of production is

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 characterized by serfdom and capitalist (bourgeois) mode of production is characterized by
wage earning. Asiatic mode of production is characterized by the subordination of all people
to the state or the state bureaucracy.

The stages of human history were differentiated by Marx based on their respective modes of
production or economic regime.
1. Primitive Communism - This stage was marked by a classless society or egalitarian society.
This mode of production consisted of subsistence living. There was absence of private
ownership, and the resources of the society were communally owned.

2. Asiatic Mode of Production - The production system in the Asiatic Mode of Production gave
birth to classes in the society. Here, those who own the resources and the productive system
with coercive power, extracted social surplus.

3. Ancient Mode of Production - Within this stage property became the direct possession of
individuals (emergence of slavery). At this stage, there was also a shift of ideologies where the
ruling class no longer saw themselves as gods but the direct descendants of gods. In this stage,
the two antagonistic classes were formed by the masters and the slaves. The slaves were
exploited by their masters.

4. Feudal Mode of Production - This stage was characterised by the possession of land by feudal
lords who eventually became powerful with the accumulation of land as capital. In addition to
land, the feudal lords also possessed the labour of peasants or serfs. The serfs are oppressed in
the hands of their chieftains or feudal lords. Exploitation was very rampant.

5. Capitalist Mode of Production - The profit making through surplus value by the capitalist is
the basis of this economic regime. Here, the bourgeoisie or capitalist class exploited the
proletariat or working class.

6. Socialist Mode of Production - Socialist mode of production means a system which satisfies
every basic need of human beings through equal distribution of goods and services and it does
not aim at generating profit. Here, the state owns the means of production and distribute it
equally among its members.

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7. Communist Mode of Production - This is considered to a utopian view which was perceived
by Marx and Engels. In this mode of production, there would be a classless and stateless
society. The exploitation of certain groups within society would end and there would be no
different classes of rich and poor.

Dialectical materialism is a philosophy of science, history, and nature developed in Europe

and based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxist dialectics emphasizes
the importance of real-world conditions, in terms of class, labor, and socio-economic
interactions. Dialectics describes the scientific method Marxists use to analyze the world
around them. Historical materialism extends the principles of dialectical materialism to the
study of society and its history. Historical materialism recognizes that history and society
develop based on material, economic conditions. Whereas idealism is the metaphysical view
that associates reality to ideas in the mind rather than to material objects. It lays emphasis on
the mental or spiritual components of experience and renounces the notion of material
existence.

From the above we have learned that Marx argued the evolution of societies from primitive to
advanced was not a product of the way people thought, as Comte proposed, but of the power
struggles in each epoch between different social classes over control of property. The key
variable in his analysis was the different modes of production or material bases that
characterized different forms of society, from hunting and gathering, to agriculture, to
industrial production. This historical materialist approach to understanding society explains
both social change and the development of human ideas in terms of underlying changes in
the mode of production. In other words, the type of society and its level of development is
determined principally by how people produce the material goods needed to meet its needs.
Their world view, including the concepts of causality described by Comte, followed from the
way of thinking involved in the society’s mode of production.

Concept of Alienation
Another central concept of Marx is alienation. The concept of alienation used by Marx in his
writings is derived from Hegel. In fact, according to Hegel, idea was the universal absolute
from which man was alienated i.e., estranged. In simple words, according to Hegel, we see our
own ideas and creations as external and alien to us. In the long run, we overcome this alienation.
Feuerbach did not agree with Hegel that idea was more important than man in the metaphysical

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 sense. While Marx accepted Hegel’s notion of alienation, he rejected the idea that alienation
has to do with consciousness alone. For Marx, alienation involves a sense of detachment of
workers from their own labour and the objects they create. Consider the case of a carpenter
who makes a chair but cannot use it for himself. The chair which he has made himself is for
sale but not for his own use.

According to Marx, alienation takes place in four ways;

(i) workers lose control over what they produce
(ii) workers lose control over their own work activity since they sell their labour for wages and
treat the productive process only as a means of subsistence
(iii) workers have to produce mechanically with no creativity or mental engagement; and
(iv) private labour of workers makes them self-centered and individualistic; they compete with each
other. This estranges them from each other.

The notion of class is central in the writings of Marxist analysis of society. According to him,
a social class occupies a fixed place in the production process and thus in the relations of
production. According to Marx, in the beginning of the human history, as the land was
collectively owned or was not owned by any one person or a group, it was seen as a classless
society. It is argued that class emerges as the corollary of property and ownership of property.
Marx in his work Capital (1894) distinguished three classes, related to the three sources of
income;
(a) owners of simple labour power or labourers whose main source of income is labour
(b) owners of capital or capitalists whose main source of income is profit or surplus value and
(c) landowners whose main source of income is rent
It needs to be mentioned that in two of Marx’s writings revolution and counter-revolution in
Germany and the class struggle in France, we find two different class structures.

However, the other explanation suggests that with the ownership of the means of production,
there emerges two classes; one who owns it i.e. ‘Haves’ (bourgeoisie/capitalists) and those who
do not own it, i.e. ‘Have nots’ (proletariats). The latter to survive often submits to the former
and thus theirs is a relation marked by super-ordination and subordination, oppressors and
oppressed. Bourgeoisie is the class of capitalists who control means of production. One can
also look in to ‘class in itself’ notion which means that all those who are sharing the same
relationship to the means of production comprise a class; and ‘class for itself’ where the

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members of a class are aware of their exploitative situation and come together to resolve it
through revolution.

Outlining the relations of subordination, Marx notes that in every historical stage of the human
society, we find the presence of two antagonistic classes that is masters and slaves in ancient
society, lords and serfs in feudal society and capitalist and industrial worker in capitalist
society. However, he sees class as a unique feature of capitalist societies because it is here that
exploitation reaches its peak and through revolution waged by class conflict and class struggle
the capitalism is overthrown. The cause of exploitation is the intense desire of the capitalist for
profit making in form of surplus value. Finally, capitalist mode of production will be replaced
by communism in which abolition of private property, self-alienation is abolished.

By ‘means of production’ Marx refers to things that are used for production (e.g., land, raw
material, technology etc.). Now, there is a class of people who own the means of production,
but it is not possible to produce anything with only tools, machinery, and technology. For
production process all these must be put to use. When this happens, people have to interact
with each other. The social relations that they enter for production are called ‘relations of
production’. Relations of production include both: relations between owners of means of
production and workers; and relations among workers themselves. Relations of production
between owners and workers are characterized by dominance and exploitation while those
among workers are characterized by cooperation. The way commodities are produced is
referred to as ‘forces of production’. This is a combination of means of production and labour
power. In simple words, forces of production refer to all the factors that contribute to the
process of material production directly. According to Marx, each stage of social history of the
society is differentiated with each other by how, or by what means, the members of society
produce the material goods for their survival and thus fulfilling their needs. Each mode of
production associated with a specific stage in the human history has its specific relations of
production.

Along with class and relations of subordination, the central ideas of Marx included means of
production, relations of production, mode of production and forces of production which in the
ultimate analysis provide a picture of Capitalism. Needless to say, as a philosopher and
economist of the times of revolutions of 18th and 19th centuries, Marx’s writings still resonate
in the contemporary times.

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Classes in Capitalism
To understand capitalism, class analysis and study of class struggle is very important. Marx
defined and arranged classes based on two variables: (i) the hard toil of the labourers and (ii)
the authority over the means of production. These two factors govern social relationships in
capitalism. The two main classes in capitalism are: 1) the bourgeoisie and 2) the proletariat.
However, along with the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, few other secondary classes also exist
in capitalism. They are petty bourgeoisie, landlords, peasants and lumpen proletariat.

Bourgeoisie - In the capitalist system, the bourgeoisie owns the capital. To make profit, the
bourgeoisie reap surplus value by exploiting the labourer class. Historically, the bourgeoisie
emerged in medieval Europe, with rapid industrialization and trade. With the formation of the
Bourgeois class, the feudalism ended in Europe and society turned to be progressive in nature.
The bourgeoisie helped undermine the feudal and hierarchical order of contemporary Europe
and contributed to the creation of a progressive society. The industrial capitalists formed the
bourgeoisie class, whose rapid economic actions brought change to the society. Both politically
and ideologically, this class began to rule the others in Britain by the mid nineteenth century.
Their main motive was the generation of profit through surplus value which was extracted by
exploiting the labourers.

With the formation of the Bourgeois class, the feudalism ended in Europe and society turned
to be progressive in nature. The bourgeoisie helped undermine the feudal and hierarchical order
of contemporary Europe and contributed to the creation of a progressive society. The industrial
capitalists formed the bourgeoisie class, whose rapid economic actions brought change to the
society. Both politically and ideologically, this class began to rule the others in Britain by the
mid nineteenth century. Their main motive was the generation of profit through surplus value
which was extracted by exploiting the labourers a revolution leading to the collapse of the
capitalist system and its replacement with socialism.

Proletariat - The proletariat do not own the means of production. The only thing that they own
is their own labour which they have to sell in order to earn their living. In the process, they are
exploited by the bourgeoisie whose only motive is generate more and more profit.

With the downfall of aristocracy in later middle ages, those who work for the aristocracy lost
their livelihood. The rapid population growth was responsible for unemployment and increased

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forced labour in few regions. While some of these people subsisted in allied economy like
handicraft production, but such production system soon got undermined by rapid
industrialization. A large section of landless and propertyless people emerged because of these
sweeping changes, who had no choice but to join the labour force, leading to the rise of the
proletariat.

Terminologies
Alienation means the feeling that you have no connection with the people around you. The
concept of Alienation was widely used by political philosophers like J.J. Rousseau, Immanuel
Kant and Karl Marx. It was however Karl Marx who gave sociological meaning to the concept
of alienation.
Class Conflict - When two classes having basic antagonisms of class interests struggle or clash
to safeguard their class interests then it is called class conflict.
Superstructure - All social, political and cultural institutions of societies except economic
institutions constitute the superstructure of a society. According to Marx, the materialistic
structure or economic structure is the foundation of a society. Infrastructure includes mode of
production, forces of production and relations of production. The superstructure of a society
rested on it.
Dialectical Materialism - It is the Marxian theory that explains that social change occurs due
to inherent contradiction between two opposite forces in the social system.
Historical Materialism - It is the Marxist theory of society which differentiates various
economies throughout history.
Mode of Production - The actual relationship between the relations of production and the forces
of production.
Forces of Production - Raw materials, tools, techniques, etc. which are required in production
process.
Relations of Production - Social Relationships that directly or indirectly arise out of the
production of material conditions of life.

Marxian model of stratification is a useful tool in the understanding of stratification more in a

capitalist society where the class formation is distinct with two distinct income groups, the rich
and the poor, creating a class-based social stratification. In such societies, conflicting class
interests clash, and new relationships are established.