Classes and Class Relations

[chimurenga]

What are classes? How did they come into being? which classes oppose each other and why? what class should any honest, fair and humane citizen of any country side with? who opposes the division of society into classes and why? these are questions that today interest millions ofpeople in the developing countries. man's class position is largely determined by how he answers these questions. i believe it is dialectical materialism that offers correct answers to these questions. Can anyone help me briefly analyze their assence.

[Refuse]

Originally posted by [email protected] 03, 2007 11:57 am
What are classes? How did they come into being? which classes oppose each other and why? what class should any honest, fair and humane citizen of any country side with? who opposes the division of society into classes and why? these are questions that today interest millions ofpeople in the developing countries. man's class position is largely determined by how he answers these questions. i believe it is dialectical materialism that offers correct answers to these questions. Can anyone help me briefly analyze their assence.
the vey first part of the communist manifesto goes into detail about classes.

i, and many other people, view classes in one easy way, the oppressor and the oppressed.

when looked at from this perspective it's easy to say that classes have been in existance for quite a long time, quoting the manifesto: "Freeman and slave, patriciann and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman.."

it's largely the oppressed that oppose the idea of classes - because they're the ones being oppressed! it's being born into unfairness.

i could continue to basically read you the manifesto, but i'll just stop with a recommendation of you picking yourself up a copy.

i disagree with your saying that what class a man fits into is determined by how he answers these questions..

[Hit The North]

"Oppressor and oppressed" are political categories.

For Marx, the economic relations of owners and non-owners of means of production is the fundamental root of social class.

In brief, Marx and Engels make a case for an historical narrative which sees class emerge as a result of rising production which results in a surplus and a developing division of labour. This allows non producing groups (priests, soldiers, political elites) to survive on the back of producers and to seize the surplus and turn it against the producers. Fundamentally it is this inversion where those groups dependent on the producers become their masters which guarantees class conflict.

Political oppression often becomes necessary in order to reproduce the above material relations - especially in pre-capitalist societies. Under the capitalist mode of production, however, political oppression is required less because the economic relations require less political maintenance. In other words, they are more autonomous from political and civil society.

[Refuse]

Originally posted by Citizen [email protected] 05, 2007 01:09 pm
"Oppressor and oppressed" are political categories.

not all of those who use capitalism to manipulate or oppress others are political figures

[Janus]

Defining classes (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=49379&hl=classes)

Marxist classification of classes (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=48635&hl=Plumber)