In Marxism, class consciousness is the set of beliefs that a person holds regarding their social class or economic rank in society, the structure of their class, and their class interests.[1][2] According to Karl Marx, it is an awareness that is key to sparking a revolution that would "create a dictatorship of the proletariat, transforming it from a wage-earning, property-less mass into the ruling class".[3]

Marxist theory

Early in the 19th century, the labels "working classes" and "middle classes" were already coming into common usage: "The old hereditary aristocracy, reinforced by the new gentry who owed their success to commerce, industry, and the professions, evolved into an "upper class". Its consciousness was formed in part by public schools (in the British sense where it refers to a form of private school) and Universities. The upper class tenaciously maintained control over the political system, depriving not only the working classes but the middle classes of a voice in the political process".[4][5]

While German theorist Karl Marx rarely used the term "class consciousness", he did make the distinction between "class in itself", which is defined as a category of people having a common relation to the means of production; and a "class for itself", which is defined as a stratum organized in active pursuit of its own interests.[2][6]

Defining a person's social class can be a determinant for their awareness of it. Marxists define classes on the basis of their relation to the means of production, especially on whether they own capital. Non-Marxist social scientists distinguish various social strata on the basis of income, occupation, or status.[7][8]

Whereas Marx believed that the proletariat achieved class consciousness as a result of experiences of exploitation, later orthodox Marxism, in particular Vladimir Lenin, believed that the working class by itself could only achieve "trade union consciousness" and thus needed a vanguard party of the most politically advanced section of the working class to bring class consciousness to it.[9]

In order to achieve a unity of theory and praxis, theory must not only tend toward reality in an attempt to change it; reality must also tend towards theory. Otherwise, the historical process leads a life of its own, while theorists make their own little theories, desperately waiting for some kind of possible influence over the historical process. Henceforth, reality itself must tend toward the theory, making it the "expression of the revolutionary process itself". In turn, a theory which has as its goal helping the proletariat achieve class consciousness must first be an "objective theory of class consciousness". However, theory in itself is insufficient, and ultimately relies on the struggle of humankind and of the proletariat for consciousness: the "objective theory of class consciousness is only the theory of its objective possibility".[10][9]

Criticism

Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises argued that "Marx confus[ed] the notions of caste and class". Mises allowed that class consciousness and the associated class struggle were valid concepts in some circumstances where rigid social castes exist, e.g. when slavery is legal and slaves thus share a common motive for ending their disadvantaged status relative to other castes, but that class is an arbitrary distinction in capitalism where there is equality before the law.[11] Von Mises' follower Murray Rothbard argued that Marx's efforts to portray the workers and capitalists as two monolithic groups was false as workers and capitalists would routinely compete within themselves, such as capitalist entrepreneurs competing amongst themselves or native workers competing with immigrant workers. Rothbard argued that if there is constant conflict between different members of the same class, then it is absurd to argue that these members have objective interests with one another against another class.[12]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Wright, Erik Olin (2006). "Class". In Beckert, Jens; Zafirovski, Milan (eds.). International encyclopedia of economic sociology. Psychology Press. p. 62. ISBN 978-0-415-28673-2.
  2. 1 2 Borland, Elizabeth (2008). "Class consciousness". In Parrillo, Vincent N. (ed.). Encyclopedia of social problems, Volume 1. SAGE. p. 134. ISBN 978-1-4129-4165-5.
  3. ↑ Appelrouth, Scott; Desfor Edles, Laura (2010). Sociological Theory in the Classical Era. United States of America: SAGE. p. 26. ISBN 978-1-4129-7564-3.
  4. ↑ David Cory. "Social Class". VictorianWeb.
  5. ↑ "Class Consciousness and Working Class Emancipation". 2021. Archived from the original on 2021-03-02.
  6. ↑ "Class Consciousness 101". 2017. Archived from the original on 2017-04-29.
  7. ↑ Jon Elster, An Introduction to Karl Marx. Cambridge, England, 1986.
  8. ↑ Crossman, Ashley. "Understanding Karl Marx's Class Consciousness and False Consciousness". Archived from the original on 2017-10-14.
  9. 1 2 'Marxism, being a scientific theory, could not be a spontaneous product of the working class [according to Lenin], but had to be imported from outside, by intellectuals equipped with scientific knowledge, became the peculiar ideological instrument to justify a new idea of the party of manipulators. Since the working class is in principle incapable of articulating theoretically its consciousness, it is possible and even necessary that the "genuine" theoretical consciousness of the working class should be incarnated in a political organism that could consider itself the carrier of this consciousness regardless of what the "empirical" working class thought about it, given that the "empirical" consciousness of this class is irrelevant in defining who in a given moment represents its interest. This is why the theory of class consciousness instilled from outside and the whole idea of scientific socialism so conceived served to justify the fact that in all kinds of political activity and later in the exercise of political power, the working class may be and must be replaced by the political apparatus which is the vehicle of its consciousness at the highest level. The whole Leninist and then Stalinist principle of dictatorship which the proletariat exercises through the intermediary of its self-appointed representatives, is only a development of the idea of "scientific socialism" so conceived.' Leszek Kolakowski, "Althusser's Marx" The Socialist Register 1971, pp. 111–128
  10. ↑ Leszek Kolakowski, "My Correct Views on Everything", The Socialist Register 1974, pp. 1–20
  11. ↑ Ludwig von Mises ([1957], 2007). Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution. Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute, p. 113. ISBN 978-1-933550-19-0
  12. ↑ Murray Rothbard (1995), An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, Chapter 12, pp.382-384, ISBN 0-945466-48-X
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