How was the upper-class created?

[GodLike1001]

Curious...does it date back to the industrial revolution or some sort of fedual system?

also, does class antagonisms still exist today?

[Aesop]

The upper class has existed so long as class society has existed. Meaning that it goes back further than the industrial revolution and feudalism, all the way back too the slave societies such as egyet/the middle kingdom.

In regards to class antagonism, yes it still exists and will always exist if there is a class society, in which the few want to preserve theit privilege and benefits of being in control private property(rivers, land etc etc). While the many will strive for a comfortable standard of living , as long as these two interests exist class antagonism will exist.
You can if see in the sphere of culture of class conflict in with prince charles often refer to pieces of post-modernist work as 'shite'. This at face value may seem trival. however this is linked to ideology due to the fact that prince charles reflects a certain class in which in enjoys being structurally advantaged, hence cultural conservativism in the form of refering to modernist /victorian buildings appeals to the upper class due to the fact that it is associated with tradition and continuity.

His constant reference to traditional buildings helps for the rationalisation of capitalism and preserving the status quo.

This is one example of class antagonism although it may seem far-fetched.

*By upper class i take it you mean the ruling class and landowners etc etc.

[ComradeOm]

There is no one "upper class" through out history. Ruling classes change along with the societies that they preside over. Thus the feudal ruling class (the nobility) is different to today's capitalist ruling class (the bourgeoisie). The latter generally established their primacy, varying from country to country, in the 18-19th Cs but the position of the 'ruling class' itself dates from the emergence of class society in prehistoric times

[ContrarianLemming]

Curious...does it date back to the industrial revolution or some sort of fedual system?

no, if that was the case then anceint rome had no ruling class, which is obviously not true.
The ruling class came about with the advancment of agriculture. Before more advanced farming tech ws invented, what we produced was roughly equal to what we needed, there was only just enough to go around, this was "primitive communism".
Eventually we became advanced enough to produce more then we needed, this inevitably lead to individuals having more then others, more goods, more wealth. With more wealth comes power over others, with power comes rulership (and great responsiblity).
Thus, we can link the rise of rulers from the ability to produce more then was necessary, giving people the means to have more then others.


also, does class antagonisms still exist today?

every time you see police break a strike, every timeyou hear about someone who was fired unfairly or see an organized walkout - you're looking at class antagonisms.

[#FF0000]

Curious...does it date back to the industrial revolution or some sort of fedual system?

Class societies became commonplace after the Agricultural Revolution. Prior to that, societies couldn't really accumulate enough wealth to have classes, since hunter-gatherers just followed the game. Agriculture made it possible to have people settle in one area and produce more than they could previously, which lead to surplus, and then classes.



also, does class antagonisms still exist today?

Oh, definitely. Workers struggle for wages, politician wage political war against unions and workers in the media, the poor get poorer and the rich get much richer because of it. In fact, the distance between classes (in America, at least), is greater than it has been in the past 30 years.

[Adil3tr]

Engels wrote about this in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/index.htm)
Also, you could read Chris Harman's A People's History of the World. Basically, we lived as communists when we lived like Native Americans. But once we droped that and really settled down, things like the rigid family, classes, the state, and religion emerged.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

and religion emerged.

Native American's are irreligious? :rolleyes:

[Blake's Baby]

I think part of the problem here is that the term 'upper class' has different connotations to different people. In Britain and maybe other European countries, 'upper class' usually means aristiocracy, who were indeed the feudal ruling class, while the bourgeoisie is the 'middle class'; though this is somewhat altered by the fact that for the last couple of hundred years, the 'middle class' has actually been the ruling class.

So, by 'upper class' do you mean:
1 - the ruling class now, that is the bourgeois/capitalist class?
2 - the historical 'upper class', that is the aristocracy?
3 - the ruling class in general, as a feature of class society?

[Bubbles]

I can recommend a book called Man's Worldly Goods written by Leo Huberman it's fairly ease to understand and is very interesting . I'm half way trough the book and it describes the rise of the modern capitalist class and downfall of older rulers. It's available on google books. In the Swedish edition the last chapter is added by an other author dealing with post WWII-something

[MilkmanofHumanKindness]

How was the upper class created?

Exploitation

[death_by_semicolon]

also, does class antagonisms still exist today?

Yes, it is our very reason for being here (well, for me at least). Socialist revolution is an evolutionary product of class antagonism.

[jake williams]

Two words, "primitive accumulation".

The modern ruling class over most of the world is the bourgeoisie. There are still monarchs and aristocracies, some with more real power than others, some mostly with tokenistic power, but still nominally controlling vast amounts of wealth (the British monarchy, the Vatican). In and around Saudi Arabia there are several countries where the monarchs are also major capitalists, with what's called "sovereign" (eg. state) wealth being de facto their personal wealth with which they invest and profit.

What is going on in the Gulf monarchies today is a good example of how the modern bourgeoisie was formed. There are many engineers and such in the Middle East who are able to accumulate enough wealth through their labour to invest into profitable ventures and become major capitalists. It happens. There are many people from the working class in the United States in the first part of the 20th century who happened to be starting the right kind of business at the right time to become major capitalists. It happens. But many of the most powerful capitalists (and the ruling class generally) are descendant from aristocratic families. And those families acquired their wealth largely through colonialism and conquest. Of course, modern capitalists do the same thing today.

[Blake's Baby]

But to be fair, that's not how the bourgeoisie developed. In Britain, and in France, vicious wars were conducted between the rising bourgeoisies and the fading aristocracies. Two kings had their heads cut off, hundreds of thousands on both sides (including many workers and peasants) were killed in the wars and the Terrors.

The bourgeoisie developed slowly under monarchial/state control, first through mercantilism (trading in big ships, eg England, Venice, Amsterdam and Antwerp) and then through manufactury. Some aristocrats became involved or leant money, some bourgeois married into aristocratic families, but buy and large the bourgeoisie dominated trade and industry, the aristocracy dominated landholding. And relations between the two were rarely entirely harmonious. There's a story that during WWI after the death of Lord Kitchener, when General Haig was appointed as supreme British commander, someone was heard at a party saying they didn't know who this Haig fellow was. When being asked if they'd heard of the whisky of the same name, the scandalised toff replied "you mean he's in trade?"

So those attitudes were still around a good 400 years after capitalism arrived as a serious economic force in western Europe.