How do Classes Hinder Production?

[ExUnoDisceOmnes]

“The state, then, has not existed from all eternity. There have been societies that did without it, that had no idea of the state and state power. At a certain stage of economic development, which was necessarily bound up with the split of society into classes, the state became a necessity owing to this split. We are now rapidly approaching a stage in the development of production at which the existence of these classes not only will have ceased to be a necessity, but will become a positive hindrance to production. They will fall as they arose at an earlier stage. Along with them the state will inevitably fall. Society, which will reorganize production on the basis of a free and equal association of the producers, will put the whole machinery of state where it will then belong: into a museum of antiquities, by the side of the spinning-wheel and the bronze axe."

I was reading this and wondered... how exactly do classes become a hindrance to production. Can anyone explain this?

[Broletariat]

I was reading this and wondered... how exactly do classes become a hindrance to production. Can anyone explain this?

Well we could simply look at how poorly off and uneducated some people are. Their lack of education does not enable them to contribute to the production process as fully as they would otherwise be able to.

Or we could glance at all the hundreds of empty factories that reside in American soil that have been sent overseas and such.

[syndicat]

the power of the capitalists over workers in production, to be maintained and force people to work for the interests of the firm, requires a bloated bureaucracy of managers, high end professionals (lawyers, financial analysts etc). this is an inefficiency. it also under-develops the skills and potential of workers through concentration of the expertise and decision-making into the hands of a few. this is another inefficiency. and, finally, it leads to lower productivity per worker hour because of lower morale from a system of forced labor. and that is yet another inefficiency.

[Blake's Baby]

The point is the division of society into classes which is a hinderance to the future development of society. Social production currently supports a parasitic class (the capitalist class) that expropriates the products that the working class produces, and returns some of this social product back to them in order to ensure the continuence of the working class.

At one stage of human development, this is actually seen as beneficial - it develops production (through the concentration of capital, creation of world market, etc) to the point where human needs can be satisfied - but eventually this point is reached, and passed, and then the existence of the capitalist class becomes a fetter or a hinderance on further development.

Some of us think this happened a century ago. At this point, capitalism descended into a particularly chaotic state that produced WWI, and the brutalities of the 20th century. It also produced the potential for the world socialist revolution, of which the Russian Revolution was the opening salvo.