Class

Marxism Day School April 09, 2006

Class Sartaj Khan

Defining a Class • Common Sense View • Influenced by capitalist sociologists eg Max Weber

• Marxist Conception

Common Sense View of Class • Status

• Social position • Perception: Own/Others

• Life Style • Consumption Patron

• Occupation • Kind of work one does • Manual Worker/White Collar

• Income

Marxist Conception • Class as a relationship

• Relationship of an individual in a group with other social groups • Antagonistic relationship • • • •

Forms in Process of Production Exploiter/expolited Exploiter owns means of production Exploited sells labour power

• ClassStruggle-Class inseparable • Class Struggle: Owners Security & Control of Labour

Layers in Class • Two Main Classes • Capitalist • Workers

• Layers

• White Collar • Middle Class

• Who are Capitalists?

• Owners of means of production/distribution land, tools)

• Have effective control of MoP

• Who are Workers

• Productive Labour

• Produces surplus value (profit)

• Non-Productive

(machinery,

Effective Control?

• MoP: Not a problem of Legal Definition • Bosses: Seth, Director • Bosses: • Multinational Executive: IBM, Boeing • State Bureaucrats • Administrators

• State Owners

• China, Pakistan Railway, PIA

• Effective Control matters rather than the type of ownership

Exploitation Forms Classes • How Classes are Formed?

• Through Explotation • One group takes away the surplus

• Power to Appropriate Surplus • Control on Means of Production • Workers Need to Sell labour

Classes in History • Various Forms of Classes • Various types of Conflicts • Owner and Slave • Landlord and Surf • King and Subjects

• Why Capitalism is Different • Conflict Between

• Capitalist – owner of means of production • Worker – sells labour time

• Motivation for Capitalist • Competition

− Increase Surplus at Less Labour Cost

Conclusion • • • •

Capitalism Exploits for Profit Workers Produce Profit Exploitation has to End Working Class Can Organise Production for Need instead of Profit

New Middle Class • Semi-Autonomous

•

• • • •

Employees No longer Self-Employed Designers, Media Producers No or little control..

The New Middle Class have a measure of operational control delegated to them from above, thanks to their success as individuals in climbing up a bureaucratic career-structure.

The Rest of the New Middle Class • Managerial, Professional, Administrative, Clerical

• Lower-Professionals: School Teachers, Nurses, Draughtsmen, Lab Technicialns, Social Welfare Workers, Call Centre Workers, Sales Promoters, Computer Operators, Computer Programmers, Copy-Writers, Sub-Editors, Reporters, Medical Reps

• Purely wage labour • Have no control at all over investment, decision making, resource allocation • Treated on the same or even weaker grounds than manual ‘workers’

Therefore • Capitalists’ Class • Working Class

Conclusion • All those who sell their hours for a salary or wage are working class • They have no role in decision making or over the means of production • They are exploited by one or the other type of exploitation • Their only way out is the abolition of class-based system

Books to Read • Changing Working Class Alex Callinicos & Chris Harman

• Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx (Chapter 8: Marx Today) • Alex Callinicos

• International Socialism Journal • Socialist English/Urdu