Help me with an essay.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

The essay question is:Drawing on Marx’s theory of class, discuss the view that power relations in society are fundamentally economic in character. I'm stuck on how to define a power relation, I've never read Marx talk about power as a thing in itself, I just understand his view on class struggle and I'm hypothesizing the notion that the economic dominance he pointed out can be seen as a power relation, in fact the main source of power, in Marxist terms.


What I'm asking is if Marx ever did talk about power as a thing in itself, just to help me define power relation in this essay.

[Broletariat]

Power in this case could simply be defined as control of the means of production, this can easily be expanded upon and justified as a definition of power.

The bourgeois holding all the power in this case, workers gotta work to eat, working makes the bourgeois more rich/powerful, etc.

[Commissar Rykov]

Power in this case could simply be defined as control of the means of production, this can easily be expanded upon and justified as a definition of power.

The bourgeois holding all the power in this case, workers gotta work to eat, working makes the bourgeois more rich/powerful, etc.

Pretty much this. Marx discusses power but in regards to the relationship of the means of production and thus exploitation of workers. He never discusses power itself but he does discuss power relationships in regards to the oppression of wage-labor and the control of the means of production by the Bourgeoisie.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

i understand, so power as a social phenomenon exists as a result of material conditions. is there a view that (attempts) to counter this? as in, are there views that power isn't determined economically? or that there are different forms of power, some that are determined in ways other that economic conditions?

[Broletariat]

i understand, so power as a social phenomenon exists as a result of material conditions. is there a view that (attempts) to counter this? as in, are there views that power isn't determined economically? or that there are different forms of power, some that are determined in ways other that economic conditions?

Are you asking, in general, is there a view that counters this, or within Marxist currents?

Because there's pretty much hundreds of contrarian views, that power comes from God, correct Zen, karma, etc.

There's all sorts of different Idealistic and Materialistic ideas of where power comes from.

[Hit The North]

There could be arguments that power results from the possession and monopolization of non-material resources such as education, knowledge, and social networks (Foucault or Bourdieu, for instance); or from the virtue of possessing gendered, sexual and ethnic identities. From a Marxist point of view, though, non-material resources are rooted in, or correlated with, material resources, particularly in societies where the capitalist mode of production prevails and the power weilded by men, straights and whites are typically translated into economic and monetary advantage.

[Lucretia]

The essay question is:Drawing on Marx’s theory of class, discuss the view that power relations in society are fundamentally economic in character. I'm stuck on how to define a power relation, I've never read Marx talk about power as a thing in itself, I just understand his view on class struggle and I'm hypothesizing the notion that the economic dominance he pointed out can be seen as a power relation, in fact the main source of power, in Marxist terms.


What I'm asking is if Marx ever did talk about power as a thing in itself, just to help me define power relation in this essay.

If you control something that another person needs but cannot get without your consent, you have power over them.

[blake 3:17]

Are you familiar with Hegel`s Master-Slave dialectic? Do we get credit on your homework?