Marx's Class Analysis

[which doctor]

America, Canada, Western Europe and much of the First World have experienced a dramatic shift to a post-industrial economy, or late capitalism.

This shift is marked by a rapid increase in the service sector and a decline in the manufacturing sector, as well as a rise in the information economy.

As far as I know Marx had not predicted such a dramatic change in capitalism. In Marx's time much production occurred close to home, for logistical reasons.

Marx believe that peoples' class distinctions (and therefore revolutionary potential) depend on their relation to the means of production. With the rise of post-industrial capitalism people have increasingly become estranged from the means of production. It has become more and more difficult to fit some people into a certain class. There have been numerous threads on revleft asking what class different people belong in, and there has almost always been conflicting answers.

Is Marx's class analysis still relevant in this age of late-capitalism? We continue to speak of class war, but just what does this class-war comprise of if class lines are blurring?

[Fawkes]

All of the classes pointed out by Marx still exist today. Remember that not all workers are industrial ones. The people whom you speak of that do not easily fit into any certain class can decide for themselves if they would benefit more under socialism or capitalism. Keep in mind also that you don't have to be working class to be a revolutionary leftist, therefore, those people whom you speak of can also decide if they would prefer to go the selfish route and stick with capitalism or go the selfless route and go with socialism.

As the bourgeois begins to lose power, it will become desperate to retain it's power and thus will turn into a fascist or quasi-fascist state. It is at this time that the class lines will be more defined than ever because there will be such a huge gap between those in power and those not in power.

I hope this helped.

[which doctor]

Keep in mind also that you don't have to be working class to be a revolutionary leftist,
Well, that's certainly a very debatable idea amongst us radicals.


those people whom you speak of can also decide if they would prefer to go the selfish route and stick with capitalism or go the selfless route and go with socialism.
Don't blame people for being "selfish." We are all selfish to a certain extent, we are living organisms after all and therefore lookout for our own well-being. For some capitalism isn't the selfish route, it's the logical one. And likewise, for some socialism isn't the selfless route, it is the logical route. It just all depends on how you stand to make out under capitalism.


those people whom you speak of can also decide if they would prefer to go the selfish route and stick with capitalism or go the selfless route and go with socialism.
Marxist class lines don't develop along who is in power and who is not. They develop along the means of production.

[Fawkes]

My response was actually an attempt to answer a question that I myself am pondering also, so excuse me if it is not very insightful.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 11:35 pm
America, Canada, Western Europe and much of the First World have experienced a dramatic shift to a post-industrial economy, or late capitalism.

This shift is marked by a rapid increase in the service sector and a decline in the manufacturing sector, as well as a rise in the information economy.
Before you get too deep into trying to figure out the implications, maybe you oughta verify if that's accurate.

For example, the number of industrial workers is in fact still growing, even in the advanced capitalist countries.

WORKERS IN INDUSTRY, US (Source)
1900 10,920,000
1950 20,698,000
1971 26,092,000
1998 31,071,000

POPULATION, US (Source)
1900 76,094,000
1950 152,271,417
1971 207,660,677
1998 270,248,003

RATIO BETWEEN INDUSTRIAL WORKERS AND TOTAL POPULATION, US
1900 6.96%
1950 7.35%
1971 7.95%
1998 8.69%
previously posted, with sources, in this thread (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=41683)

Also, there are all kinds of issues in terms of defining the service sector. (Does it include transport, for example? Including, say, railroad workers and truck drivers?)

The number of industrial workers in the Third World is of course growing very rapidly.

And industrial workers are not the whole of the working class, of course.

The problem with the whole idea of a "post-industrial" or "consumer" or "service" economy is that things still have to be produced before they can be consumed. And production is still the source of profit.

Now, when somebody figures out how to be produce all these things without factories, then we'll see a truly post-industrial economy.

Now, I'm sure there are significant implications of the growth of the communications, media, entertainment, and other "information" sectors of the economy. Which are worth discussing. Some of 'em have been previously discussed on this board. Just don't blow 'em completely out of proportion before discussing them.

[RGacky3]

Any one that earns a wage (or salery) is a worker as far as I'm concerned.

Of coarse theres the raise in what Marxists would call the "petite bourgiouse" (silly term I think), or someone who owns his own firm, and does the bulk of the work, there are many of those such as Lawers, accountants, CPAs, engineers that work for themselves, mostly in intellectual industries, and most of those could easily be radical leftist, they arn't exploiters, they work for themselves. Of coarse then there is the issue of investers and the such. For example who is the real bourgiousie, the Board of Directors and the CPA, or the shareholders, in the past, most of the time they were the same persons, now many times its very shady, a lot of times the big shareholders are insurance groups and retirement funds.

[Springmeester]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2007 05:35 am
America, Canada, Western Europe and much of the First World have experienced a dramatic shift to a post-industrial economy, or late capitalism.

This shift is marked by a rapid increase in the service sector and a decline in the manufacturing sector, as well as a rise in the information economy.

As far as I know Marx had not predicted such a dramatic change in capitalism. In Marx's time much production occurred close to home, for logistical reasons.

Marx believe that peoples' class distinctions (and therefore revolutionary potential) depend on their relation to the means of production. With the rise of post-industrial capitalism people have increasingly become estranged from the means of production. It has become more and more difficult to fit some people into a certain class. There have been numerous threads on revleft asking what class different people belong in, and there has almost always been conflicting answers.

Is Marx's class analysis still relevant in this age of late-capitalism? We continue to speak of class war, but just what does this class-war compromise of if class lines are blurring?
On the contrary. And I do not agree with the populair concept of the post-industrial society. We don't have a post-industrial society, the industry is still very much alive but the production has become planetary. Thousands of workers over various continents are now all working on the very same product and for a decreasing group of multinationals.

I think it is also important to keep in mind that due to technological development workers have become even more powerfull then before. While in the 1900's there were hunderds of workers keeping one factory running, now only a hand full controll the entire production process.

I also want to give Severian a compliment for finding such usefull information, good job! A very interesting book on the subject is 'The working class in the age of the trans-national enterprises' by Peter Mertens from the PTB (communist party in Belgium) check it out if there is an english version: www.ptb.be

[which doctor]

Originally posted by RGacky3[email protected] 06, 2007 02:40 am
Any one that earns a wage (or salery) is a worker as far as I'm concerned.
Nearly anyone who makes a living earns a wage or a salary. Even the bourgeoisie.

[The Bitter Hippy]

but one can earn a wage and still have a bourgeois relation to capital. Like the CEO of a firm such as coca cola, or even a small services firm employing twenty people. The CEOs will generally have shares in the corporation to an extent that they qualify as members of the bourgeiosie. The salary is just other members trying to increase their personal capital by hanging onto the "best" leaders.

Anyone who, through their use of capital and their relationship to the means of generating capital (a term more relevant than 'means of production' i find :-/) belongs to the bourgeoisie. Whether they are paid or not doesn't matter.

[RGacky3]

Then the lines are very blurred, because that means any one with money invested in anything is bourgiousie, which is why I think Marx's class analysis is a little outdated. The difference between a CEO and a worker is even though the worker gets a Salery, that Salery is'nt earned by him, its earned by other people, and since he's the desicion maker, he gets to choose. I think its more of a concept of Worker vrs Boss, than Bourgiousie vrs Proletariate.

[Ol' Dirty]

I'm a bit critical of Marx's theories, y'know? I mean, it's not like these distinctions are engraved in the fabric of the universe. Remember, this was a work created in 1848, which is more than a century-and-a-half ago. Things worked almost contrary to Marx's beliefs; capitalists became stronger, free marxet exploitation has increased, and a shitload of all other sorts of problems.

[ComradeRed]

Things worked almost contrary to Marx's beliefs; capitalists became stronger, free marxet exploitation has increased, and a shitload of all other sorts of problems. Uh, no, Marx actually predicted those things happening.

I suggest you read Part seven of Das Kapital, vol 1. There Marx predicts the capitalists becoming stronger, the free market exploitation increasing, and explains how it happens (and he is very accurate too).

Perhaps it may be best to, y'know, actually read Marx before dismissing him? Just a crazy thought I had.

[which doctor]

Shift,


On the contrary. And I do not agree with the populair concept of the post-industrial society. We don't have a post-industrial society, the industry is still very much alive but the production has become planetary. Thousands of workers over various continents are now all working on the very same product and for a decreasing group of multinationals.
Yes, industry is still alive, and probably always will be. But the problem lies in the location of industry. A lot of industry and manufacturing has left the advanced capitalist nations, and it is believed that communism will first arise from these advanced capitalist nations.


I think it is also important to keep in mind that due to technological development workers have become even more powerfull then before. While in the 1900's there were hunderds of workers keeping one factory running, now only a hand full controll the entire production process.
Workers have not become more powerful, they are still ultimately ruled by the bourgeoisie. They may have more responsibility now due to automation, but they certainly do not control the entire production process. That is left to the bourgeoisie.

[I'd Rather Be Drinking]

Look, you're free to reject Marx's class analysis, but you should actually read what Marx wrote and critique that instead of strange ideas you may want to project onto Marxism...

Nowhere does Marx suggest that the labor/capital or proletariat/bourgeoisie antagonism is "engraved in the fabric of the universe." In fact he consistently says the exact opposite, that these exist only under capitalism.

Also, nowhere does Marx say that management are workers. In fact in Capital Volume III (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch23.htm), Marx goes on at some length to argue against this view. He argues that profits tend to separate into interest and profits of enterprise. Productive capitalists actually running an enterprise tend to develop the view that their activity of managing the employees is work, for which they receive "wages of superintendence". Marx writes that to this capitalist it appears that, "The labour of exploiting is just as much labour as exploited labour." This is just an ideological feature of management, it does not make them workers. Marx writes of this capitalist, "He forgets, due to the antithetical form of the two parts into which profit, hence surplus-value, is divided, that both are merely parts of the surplus-value, and that this division alters nothing in the nature, origin, and way of existence of surplus-value."

One of the points of misunderstanding is that Marx wants to show how the way we reproduce our everyday lives gives rise to classes. The capitalist mode of production (which is based on antagonism, on dead labor feeding on living labor) has two sides... capital and labor, and tends to remake everything in this image. This doesn't mean that you couldn't have, say, a self-managed factory... in which the worker and capitalist function are performed by the same people. This is a way of tying the workers to the capitalist production process... like piecework, or tips or giving employees shares... etc... Again, nothing which disproves what Marx wrote.

On another point, there is a lot of confusion here between working class people, productive workers, wage-laborers, blue collar folks and workers who work in manufacturing. These are not all the same thing. There has been a decline in the percentage of the US workforce who work in manufacturing. 50 yrs ago it was 1 in 3, today it's 1 in 10. (http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5078&sequence=0). But workers in the "service industry" may very well be productive workers (such as nurses, cooks, truck drivers etc...) These workers produce surplus value, although do not work in manufacturing.

The point is that groups of people and their identity are somewhat fluid--the capital/labor relation has existed since capitalism began. Class analysis has to be about analyzing society and then looking for the possibilities and likelihoods of revolt. Analyzing individuals is just moralism.

This of course does not mean that Marx was never wrong, or that I agree with every bit of his class analysis.

[Hiero]

I think the original criticism is wrong. Marx's analysis of capitalism druing his time gave all Communist a system to analyse capitalism during our time. Marx may have made some predictions, but his bulk of work is about analysis class systems. It may be hard to apply this analysis, but it can be down in any system. I think people just overlook the role of imperialism in changing class relations, in creating a labor aristocracy.

Fob says
We continue to speak of class war, but just what does this class-war compromise of if class lines are blurring?

Alot of people on this site, and many first world parties do talk about class war in the first world. This is kind of ridiculous, there is class war, but any use of Marx (such as Lenin and many non-Leninist in the modern era) shows that colonialism and imperialism ignites class conflict in the colonised and neo colonised nations and damper class conflict in the 1st world.

Kwame Krumah had some ideas about this.


Neo-colonialism, like colonialism, is an attempt to export the social conflicts of the capitalist countries. The temporary success of this policy can be seen in the ever widening gap between the richer and the poorer nations of the world. But the internal contradictions and conflicts of neo-colonialism make it certain that it cannot endure as a permanent world policy. How it should be brought to an end is a problem that should be studied, above all, by the developed nations of the world, because it is they who will feel the full impact of the ultimate failure. The longer it continues the more certain it is that its inevitable collapse will destroy the social system of which they have made it a foundation.

The reason for its development in the post-war period can be briefly summarised. The problem which faced the wealthy nations of the world at the end of the second world war was the impossibility of returning to the pre-war situation in which there was a great gulf between the few rich and the many poor. Irrespective of what particular political party was in power, the internal pressures in the rich countries of the world were such that no post-war capitalist country could survive unless it became a ‘Welfare State’. There might be differences in degree in the extent of the social benefits given to the industrial and agricultural workers, but what was everywhere impossible was a return to the mass unemployment and to the low level of living of the pre-war years.

From the end of the nineteenth century onwards, colonies had been regarded as a source of wealth which could be used to mitigate the class conflicts in the capitalist States and, as will be explained later, this policy had some success. But it failed in ‘its ultimate object because the pre-war capitalist States were so organised internally that the bulk of the profit made from colonial possessions found its way into the pockets of the capitalist class and not into those of the workers. Far from achieving the object intended, the working-class parties at times tended to identify their interests with those of the colonial peoples and the imperialist powers found themselves engaged upon a conflict on two fronts, at home with their own workers and abroad against the growing forces of colonial liberation.

The post-war period inaugurated a very different colonial policy. A deliberate attempt was made to divert colonial earnings from the wealthy class and use them instead generally to finance the ‘Welfare State’. As will be seen from the examples given later, this was the method consciously adopted even by those working-class leaders who had before the war regarded the colonial peoples as their natural allies against their capitalist enemies at home.


Marx predicted that the growing gap between the wealth of the possessing classes and the workers it employs would ultimately produce a conflict fatal to capitalism in each individual capitalist State.

This conflict between the rich and the poor has now been transferred on to the international scene, but for proof of what is acknowledged to be happening it is no longer necessary to consult the classical Marxist writers. The situation is set out with the utmost clarity in the leading organs of capitalist opinion. Take for example the following extracts from The Wall Street Journal, the newspaper which perhaps best reflects United States capitalist thinking.

In its issue of 12 May 1965, under the headline of ‘Poor Nations’ Plight’, the paper first analyses ‘which countries are considered industrial and which backward’. There is, it explains, ‘no rigid method of classification’. Nevertheless, it points out:

‘A generally used breakdown, however, has recently been maintained by the International Monetary Fund because, in the words of an IMF official, “the economic demarcation in the world is getting increasingly apparent.”’ The break-down, the official says, “is based on simple common sense.”’

Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of imperialismKwame Nkrumah 1965 (http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/nkrumah/neo-colonialism/introduction.htm)

I think people fail to make a whole analysis of the capitalist situation. We need to no longer look at single countries, but rather the whole system, which includes many countries. The class system is streched over borders. There are capitalists in England, who have proletariat in African countries. If we don't broaden class analysis to the whole world as one system, then we find it hard to look for the class conflict.

[which doctor]

Look, you're free to reject Marx's class analysis, but you should actually read what Marx wrote and critique that instead of strange ideas you may want to project onto Marxism...
I'm not rejecting it. I'm just saying we re-examine it or maybe even *GASP* update it.


Nowhere does Marx suggest that the labor/capital or proletariat/bourgeoisie antagonism is "engraved in the fabric of the universe." In fact he consistently says the exact opposite, that these exist only under capitalism.

And nowhere do I suggest that the labor/capital antagonism is "engraved in the fabric of the universe."


Also, nowhere does Marx say that management are workers. In fact in Capital Volume III (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch23.htm), Marx goes on at some length to argue against this view. He argues that profits tend to separate into interest and profits of enterprise. Productive capitalists actually running an enterprise tend to develop the view that their activity of managing the employees is work, for which they receive "wages of superintendence". Marx writes that to this capitalist it appears that, "The labour of exploiting is just as much labour as exploited labour." This is just an ideological feature of management, it does not make them workers. Marx writes of this capitalist, "He forgets, due to the antithetical form of the two parts into which profit, hence surplus-value, is divided, that both are merely parts of the surplus-value, and that this division alters nothing in the nature, origin, and way of existence of surplus-value."
I do not argue that members of management are necessarily members of the proletariat either, but some of them are exploited to a certain point. There is a lot of micromanagement these days and a long chain of managers each answering to another above them.


Analyzing individuals is just moralism.
I haven't analyzed individuals.

[Ol' Dirty]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2007 08:54 pm

Things worked almost contrary to Marx's beliefs; capitalists became stronger, free marxet exploitation has increased, and a shitload of all other sorts of problems. Uh, no, Marx actually predicted those things happening.

I suggest you read Part seven of Das Kapital, vol 1. There Marx predicts the capitalists becoming stronger, the free market exploitation increasing, and explains how it happens (and he is very accurate too).

Perhaps it may be best to, y'know, actually read Marx before dismissing him? Just a crazy thought I had.
Uh! Oy vey! My ego! :o You whore! Your bullshit rhetoric really got to me! Ow! Your poor trivialization of my argument trully puts salt on the wound, good sir or maddam!

:lol:

You might want to read between the lines, dude. I might've been more specific, y'know, but I dindn't realize I was dealing with a pro (*wink wink* *nudge nudge*).

Secondly, I was talking about this line of The Mannifesto of the Communist Party:


The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself.

Wow, what a prophet. :rolleyes:

Marx was an excellent political scientist. Unfortunately, some of his theories have been disproven by history. My idea is that we should take the better of Marx's theories (e.g. proletarian revolution, historical materialism) and throw out the shit (an over-simplified class analysis, prophecies of a constantly changing future.)

Anyway, talking isn't going to do jack shit unless we do something about our world. Marx's wholle point was to not just to philosophize our world, but change it!

[ComradeRed]

Marx was an excellent political scientist. Unfortunately, some of his theories have been disproven by history. My idea is that we should take the better of Marx's theories (e.g. proletarian revolution, historical materialism) and throw out the shit (an over-simplified class analysis, prophecies of a constantly changing future.)
Holy hell! What a profound library of ignorance you retain!

It took over 1000 years for feudalism to fall and you rush to say that less than five centuries is ample time to disprove Marx?

Well, first, you would need to integrate over all future events and past ones BEFORE you can get around to "debunking" Marx "empirically". When you don't have all the results, you can't come to a conclusion empirically. That's basic analytical reasoning in any science.

Oh wait, you're beyond scientific thinking. Silly me :rolleyes:

[Rawthentic]

Marx was an excellent political scientist. Unfortunately, some of his theories have been disproven by history. My idea is that we should take the better of Marx's theories (e.g. proletarian revolution, historical materialism) and throw out the shit (an over-simplified class analysis, prophecies of a constantly changing future.)

Wrong here. The future is and always will be changing. Under Communism, this change will cease to be in the form of class struggle and social revolution, to be replaced by social evolution.

As long as there are humans on Earth, there will always be change.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2007 05:35 am
America, Canada, Western Europe and much of the First World have experienced a dramatic shift to a post-industrial economy, or late capitalism.
No, that's certainly untrue. While there certainly was a rise of the many different economic activities incorrectly lumped into the pseudo-concept of "services", the central economic activity remains production, whether agricultural or industrial.


This shift is marked by a rapid increase in the service sector and a decline in the manufacturing sector, as well as a rise in the information economy.

And "information economy", is it secondary or tertiary?


As far as I know Marx had not predicted such a dramatic change in capitalism. In Marx's time much production occurred close to home, for logistical reasons.

Nor was his business to predict anything.

The "dramatic change" you are describing did not change the fact that mankind is still - and even increasingly - divided between those who own means of production, and those who don't.


Marx believe that peoples' class distinctions (and therefore revolutionary potential) depend on their relation to the means of production. With the rise of post-industrial capitalism people have increasingly become estranged from the means of production. It has become more and more difficult to fit some people into a certain class. There have been numerous threads on revleft asking what class different people belong in, and there has almost always been conflicting answers.

There is no such thing as "post-industrial capitalism". And the "strangement" of people from means of production is, well, what Marx called proletarisation.

The fact that people, in revleft or other places, do not use the ownership of means of production in their class analysis, or subdue it to, or mix it with, other, non-marxist, criteria, cannot be faulted into Marxist analysis.


Is Marx's class analysis still relevant in this age of late-capitalism?

More relevant now than in the XIX century.


We continue to speak of class war, but just what does this class-war comprise of if class lines are blurring?

Class lines are not blurring, far from that. The bourgeosie maintains, as then, the monopoly of the means of production. Do you contend this fact?

Luís Henrique

[which doctor]

Actually, I don't even know what I was thinking when I started this thread. Feel free to trash it. Some people may have misunderstood what I was trying to say and may believe that I'm not for class war, which in fact I very much am.

[Janus]

Then the lines are very blurred, because that means any one with money invested in anything is bourgiousie, which is why I think Marx's class analysis is a little outdated. The difference between a CEO and a worker is even though the worker gets a Salery, that Salery is'nt earned by him, its earned by other people, and since he's the desicion maker, he gets to choose
In labor and finance, wages are defined a bit more strictly. Wages are paid at a wage rate and are paid for some specific quantity of work done while salaries are paid periodically without reference to the number of hours worked. Thus, most workers are paid wages while most professionals and bourgeois are paid a salary.

[KC]

Marx was an excellent political scientist. Unfortunately, some of his theories have been disproven by history. My idea is that we should take the better of Marx's theories (e.g. proletarian revolution, historical materialism) and throw out the shit (an over-simplified class analysis, prophecies of a constantly changing future.)

Marx's analyses on class and class struggle aren't "over-simplified" at all. The problem comes in when people treat his analysis as such. This problem isn't Marx's; it's yours. If you would like to learn more about Marx's theories on class and class struggle I would highly recommend reading the first 50 or so pages of Claudio J. Katz's From Feudalism To Capitalism: Marxian Theories of Class Struggle and Social Change. It's an excellent read that goes into detail on this very subject, and will definitely help you understand Marx's theories. I suggest looking for it at the library, first, though, as it's kind of expensive.

[Guest1]

Where "post-industrial" theory is exposed as post-left bull is at the video store.

The self-service stores that are paving the way to a "serviceless" economy that is.

Service economy? Pie in the sky.

[Ol' Dirty]

I think I understand what my detractors are saying. I guess I'll have to read a bit more before I make more comments on this subject. Sorry for any confucion.