Classless society pass on to a
society in which no one is bound by a social class or constrained by social
division based on pure economic yardsticks. Such distinctions of income,
wealth, education, culture, or social network and power arise and would only be
determined by individual experience and achievement in such a society.
Scrutiny of class divisions and
struggles is principally imperative in mounting an appreciation of the character
of capitalism. To Marx classes are defined and structured by the relations
concerning work and labour and ownership or possession of property and the
means of production. In fact, relations of production and means of production
decide mode of production in every epoch in history and these economic factors
more fully govern social relationships in capitalism than they did in previous
stages in history of societies. Whilst earlier societies contained various
strata or groupings which might be considered classes, such as patrician and
plebeian, Freeman and slave, guild-master and journeyman, lord and serf, in a
word; oppressor and oppressed stood in continuous hostility to one another and
carried on an nonstop, concealed, open fight; a fight that each time ended
either in a revolutionary restructuring of society at large or in the common
ruin of the contending classes by the passing if time.
For Marx, the assessment of social
class, the class structures and the changes in the said structures are central
to knowing capitalism and other social systems or modes of production. Meantime,
in the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels comment that the history of
all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles (Bottomore,
1983:75).
In the capitalist
system, for instances; the locus of the productive basis of society- the
factory, is the prime layer of opposition between classes-between exploiters
and exploited, between buyers and sellers of labour power and it is far more
vigorous than a functional relationship. Class interests and the confrontations
of power that they bring in their wake are to Marx the vital determinant of
social and historical process in history.
Classes in the real
sense are a social production. Ever since recorded history division of society
based on many criteria has been prevalent. Marx’s contribution towards this was
that of developing a scientific understanding of class in human history and its
social production. For Marx Class is the channeling force of history and class
struggle will ultimately result in classless society through different stages;
primitive, feudal, capitalist and communist stage. This means class ultimately
results in classlessness and a classless society.
Classless
society, in Marxism has been the decisive stipulation
of social organization, anticipated to crop up when true Communism
is pulled off. To Karl Marx (1818–83), the prime role of
the State is to bottle up the lower classes of society in
the interests of the ruling class in the capitalist order. Nevertheless, after
the class struggle has resulted in the triumph of the proletariat and the
founding of a socialist society, there will be no further call for for such a
suppressive organisation with the disappearance of classes, the state is
expected to wither away in time and the state drop its bureaucratic and coercive utility and is
substituted by collective and decentralized administration of society in the
classless society.
Considering
the modern world from different angle, it is immature to think that classless
society is attainable and sustainable in the twenty-first century. The
state exists as long as classes exist; market exists as long s classes exist;
education exists as long as classes exist; nationalism exists as long as cases
exist in short it is almost naive to think that straight away following a
revolutionary outburst and flourishing revolution, all classes would disappear
and class is irrelevant in modern life.
There is extensive proof of
mounting class consciousness around the world in twenty-first century and a
resumption of political and social activism not seen in the Cold war period. A
totally classless society as such might not be achievable or even unattractive,
but rather a society which is at least free of dehumanisation, exploitation,
dire poverty, enormous disparities of wealth, malnutrition, toxic pollution, transmittable
diseases, institutionalised greed and corruption and State violence might be most
preferred and realistic even if some class structure still exists in this
century.
The contemporary world has seen
many class conscious movements as of now. Class movements are largely because
the current world if full of divisive and contradictory tendencies in social,
economic, political, cultural and even at psychological levels. There was what
was questionably the United States' largest and most continued radical,
extremely class conscious movement called Occupy Wall Street very recently. The
US society is highly polarized on many factors and more specifically economic grounds
and it is evident from the growing number of people in below poverty line.
To look at Europe, there seems
immense dissent explode in many countries of the European Union and most
remarkably in Spain and Greece; where more acutely rooted traditions of
insurrectionary anarchism sparked much more violent resistance. Mainly
resistance against devastating austerity measures which have completely reduced
many workers' salaries, devastated their pensions and made yawning cuts to
social spending in countries whose economies are more geared toward dependence
on such social spending by now. Many economists argue that these austerity measures
are like economic suicide and really craft the problems they are supposedly
trying to remedy far bad. Whilst the vast majority of participants in these
protests remained nonviolent, there were significant numbers of militant
anarchists who pronged off from the main marches and rallies, sourced
significant property harm and set many buildings in flames eventually.
Class problems have been seen very
much vibrant and significant in Arab Spring in Middle East nations where people
began to fight down despotic regimes which arguably handicapped the citizens
for years. In Latin America there were considerable sentiments against
neo-liberal agenda which exploited citizens and the result was the rise of a
new-left in Latin American politics and the subsequent electoral victory of
Left governments in Brazil, Venezuela Columbia etc.
It is not exaggeration to think
that rich get richer and the poor get poorer in the contemporary world.
Capitalism is an intrinsically exploitative system where rich people own the
large corporations, factories, banks, mines, shops, multiplexes etc and poor
people are dragged towards more inequality and inequity. Moreover capitalism coalesces
with market, patriarchal ideologies; traditional authorities, leadership of
different sorts, primordial allegiances like ethnic, racial identity and at
large bring about a global system of flows of goods and capital across borders
that ultimately result in the destruction of local communities, indigenous
eco-system and even life become difficult.
In fact, class system are produced,
sustained and desirable in some other way so as to fight down the ills and pit
falls of modern productive system that produces more classes than before. The
globalization of capitalism along with commoditisation of all human interaction
has had a weighty latent and manifest impact on the nature and conditions of
class configuration now a day.
It is high time briefly highlight
some of the contemporaneous changes in differing geo-economic regions of the
world economy as of now and see class is configured in the complex system of
production, exchange and labour in a condition of market forces deciding social
organisation.
The most important influence of
neo-liberal ideologies along with capitalist production system based on large corporatisation
manufacturing has resulted in grave problems in Latin America, Africa and Asia
– more particularly in China, where colossal flows of capital by manufacturing
multi-national corporations, in connection with state capital has fashioned a gigantic
industrial working class population.
The ascend of Asia, especially
China, in fact has led to long-term increase in commodity prices and cheap
labour especially in China, the hasty specialisation of Latin American
economies in primary goods exports and growing outsourcing destinations in
forms of BPO and KPO in Philippines, India etc., all resulted in making new
forms classes. Equally important is the fact that Agro-mineral exports based on
massive flows of foreign and national ‘extractive capital’ is the motor force
of growth in such economies. As a result the socio-economic axis of class configuration
has shifted to new proportions.
The industrial working class protest
in Brazil have been intermittent, confined to economic struggles and restricted
by trade union ties to the social liberal Workers Party and largely turns to be
political. Thus the arch pillar of the class struggle has been centered in the
Rural Landless Workers Movement (MST) which engaged in major land-occupations
of uncultivated landed estates and other forms of direct action but sure class
still survives in Brazil[1]
and its protest potential too infect modern capitalist order.
Venezuela can be categorized the
center of class configuration in the developing world. At the same time the axis of class movement
in the Andean region has shifted dramatically to the mining and energy
provinces with larger Indian-peasant populations. Moreover, Oil politics has
created new forms of class resistance in the Latin American world against
neo-liberal corporate. Colombia has also experienced the longest sustained
armed class struggle in Latin America and perhaps the world which also added
rich source to class configuration in contemporary world order.
Now comes the central question Are issues of Social Class still relevant in modern
society? Is class still attainable and sustainable in the
century? An Exploration in to the issues involved in Latin
America, Asia and Africa , with reference to the original ideas of Karl Marx
and more recent concepts such as the notions of a 'middle class' and an
'underclass' reveal a different and more complex nature class and even class
struggle in a entire out of context scenario in modern life.
Analysing the
writings of Karl Marx in the 1860s and 1870s; class antagonism, deep-seated in
the economic veracities of differential relations to the means of production,
that flooded into every aspect of social
life, including market, work, economy, education, politics, family, religion
and culture. Marx measured that all societies spaced out from the most simple
were made up of two major social classes- the bourgeoisie; being the most
powerful 'class', owning the means of production that is factories land, etc.,
and the proletariat; the least powerful 'class', being compelled to trade their
labour in order to subsistence and life. Admittedly the capitalist society, the
capitalist 'class' or bourgeoisie is the ruling class, owning more property and
wealth, consequently facilitating them to preserve and maintain what they embrace
and the working class or proletariat which Marx considered as the subordinate
class exercising much less power and control in entire social milieu. For Marx,
each class followed their own interests and that all through history the two
major classes would be fundamentally opposed.
However, with
the proletariat dictatorship and subsequent withering away of State a classless
society would prevail and there will be no meaning for class struggle. But the
prevailing situation in the modern capitalist social life and productive order
gives a new picture of surfacing new forms of class and new forms of struggles
tinged with new power relations and relations of production. In short the class
is still relevant and more attainable not in the sense that to establish a
proletarian revolution and withering away of state but rather to fight down the
forces that bring about avoidable injustices and inequality.
Endnotes
[1] James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer, (17 August
2012) Class Struggle in Present Day Globalized Capitalism, accessed on
09-03-2013 (http://petras.lahaine.org/?p=1906)
References
Bottomore, Tom, ed., A Dictionary of
Marxist Thought, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1983
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