NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Class warfare

Class conflict is both the friction that accompanies social relationships between members or groups of different social classes and the underlying tensions or antagonisms which exist in society. Class conflict is thought to play a pivotal role in history of class societies (such as capitalism and feudalism) by Marxists who refer to its overt manifestations as class struggle. Regardless of the truth or utility of that theory, conflict between classes exists and is expressed both in daily life and politics. Social class refers to the ranking of people into a hierarchy within a culture. ... ... History Forums - History is Happening -Discuss all historical topics, as well as current events, in an academic setting. ... Capitalism has been defined in various ways (see q:Capitalism). ... Defining feudalism is difficult because there is no generally accepted agreement on what it means. ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century German philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... Class struggle is class conflict looked at from a Marxist, libertarian socialist, or anarchist perspective. ... Politics is the process and method of making decisions for groups. ...

Sometimes class conflict results in violent struggles, either episodic, such as the Johnson County War in Wyoming in the 19th century, or chronic, such as the atmosphere that prevailed in pre-revolutionary Russia. It can be open, as with a business lockout aimed at destroying a labor union, or it can be hidden, as with an informal slowdown in production that protests low wages or an excessively fast or dangerous work process. The Johnson County War, also known as the War on Powder River or Wyoming Civil War, was a range war which took place in Johnson County, Wyoming, in the Powder River Country, in April, 1892. ... State nickname: Equality State Other U.S. States Capital Cheyenne Largest city Cheyenne Governor Dave Freudenthal Official languages English Area 253,554 kmÂ² (10th) - Land 251,706 kmÂ² - Water 1,851 kmÂ² (0. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a political movement in Russia that climaxed in 1917 with the overthrow of the Provisional Government that had replaced the Russian Tsar system, and led to the establishment of the Soviet Union, which lasted until its collapse in 1991. ... Open battle between striking teamsters armed with pipes and the police in the streets of Minneapolis, 1934. ... A union (labor union in American English; trade union, sometimes trades union, in British English; either labour union or trade union in Canadian English) is a legal entity consisting of employees or workers having a common interest, such as all the assembly workers for one employer, or all the workers...

Representing a political group of working people with a common interest, Labour unions and labor-oriented political parties have revolutionised health and safety standards in industrial economies, either directly (by making government policy) or indirectly (by pressuring incumbent politicians). A union (labor union in American English; trade union, sometimes trades union, in British English; either labour union or trade union in Canadian English) is a legal entity consisting of employees or workers having a common interest, such as all the assembly workers for one employer, or all the workers... A political party is a political organization that subscribes to a certain ideology and seeks to attain political power within a government. ...

1 Classes under capitalism
2 Class in the Soviet Union and similar societies
3 See also
4 Further reading

Classes under capitalism

Class warfare is a term long-used by many socialists (including Marxists and communists, but also anarchists, democratic socialists, etc.) to describe social and political conflicts between classes (groups of people with a different relationship to the means of production, and to each other). For information on mainstream political parties using the term Socialist, see Social democracy and Democratic socialism,For the governments of the USSR, the PRC, and others, see: Communist state, Other variants of Socialism include Marxism, Communism, and Libertarian Socialism. ... This article is about communism as a form of society built around a gift economy, as an ideology that advocates that form of society, and as a popular movement. ... Libertarian socialism is any one of a group of political philosophies dedicated to opposing coercive forms of authority and social hierarchy, in particular the institutions of capitalism and the state. ... A red rose held in a closed fist is the international symbol of democratic socialism. ... =General Means of production generally refers to productive assets which are inputs in a production process. ...

In this view, capitalism consists of two social classes: the wage-workers (the proletariat) and the business owners or capitalists (the bourgeoisie). The wage-workers do not own or have control over the means of production, and must sell their labor-power to the capitalists in order to survive. The capitalists own and control the means of production, and subsist by exploiting the workers. Capitalism has been defined in various ways (see q:Capitalism). ... The proletariat (from Latin proles, offspring) is a term used to identify a lower social class; a member of such a class is called a proletarian. ... Bourgeois at the end of the thirteenth century Bourgeois redirects here; for the composer with that name, see Derek Bourgeois. ... According to Karl Marx, there is a clear distinction between labor and labor-power in economics. ... In political economy, economics, and sociology, exploitation usually does not include simple theft, since the latter is not a persistent economic or social relationship, as when a pimp exploits his prostitute. ...

Therefore, a socio-political imbalance is said to exist between individuals of extreme wealth or power and those with little or no wealth. This imbalance was probably first recognized by Adam Smith:

"The masters [i.e., employers], being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, or merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate." (The Wealth of Nations, volume I, ch. 8, paragraph 12)

Going beyond Smith, the interests of the wealthy are seen to conflict (often dramatically and violently) with the interests and needs of classes without power.

Corporations are seen to function as a vehicle for combination of individual capitals, transcending the bounds of mortality and liability that accompany an individual-owned enterprise. Arguably, there is little fundamental difference between the class warfare that existed between the Victorian era monarchy and the common public, and a modern corporation and its workers. A corporation (usually known in the United Kingdom and Ireland as a company) is a legal entity (distinct from a natural person) that often has similar rights in law to those of a Civil law systems may refer to corporations as moral persons; they may also go by the name... In the most general sense, a liability is anything that is a hinderance, or puts one at a disadvantage. ... A monarchy, (from the Greek monos, one, and archein, to rule) is a form of government that has a monarch as Head of State. ...

In any class society, each of the two main classes has its own divisions, so that neither is monolithic. Concerning capitalism, Marxist theory argues that the working class has both an "objective" class interest as a collective group, and a large number of individual interests of workers. Class interest may thus differ from "trade union consciousness", economism, and the like. Similarly, the capitalist class may be riven by the difference between the long-term collective interest of the class and the profit-seeking of individual capitalists. In a revolutionary situation, convergence of individual interests and class interests is expected; this might be seen as a polarization of society.

The empirical manifestation of class antagonisms depends on the specific (concrete) historical situation in which they operate. For example, other societal divisions -- concerning issues of nationality, ethnicity, religion, language, and gender -- can interact with, confuse, and/or mute class tensions. Sometimes class can be simultaneously moderated by ethnic issues (as between white proletarians and capitalists in apartheid-era South Africa) and intensified by them (as between blacks and whites there).

Class in the Soviet Union and similar societies

Many argue that in a Stalinist dictatorship such as the Soviet Union, the leaders of the ruling party form a powerful bureaucratic stratum -- sometimes termed a "new class" -- that controls the means of production. In many ways, this kind of hierarchy recreated the kind of class antagonisms that were seen as prevailing under capitalism. Stalinism is a brand of political theory, and the political and economic system implemented by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union. ... The new class is a term to describe the privileged ruling class of bureaucrats and Communist party functionaries which typically arises in a Stalinist communist state. ...

Some communists, such as the trotskyists, see this as an essential problem which creates exploitation of a similar kind as the one present in capitalism, and they propose solutions that include a democratic state for the purpose of putting the power over the state (and thus the control of the means of production) in the hands of the people. They reject the idea of "socialism in one country" as a long-lasting situation, so that sooner or later a democratic socialist system would have to be world-wide. However, to avoid establishing new dictatorships, all revolutions would have to come from popular working-class forces rather than being imposed from above or from outside a country. Communism - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins/monobook/IE50Fixes. ... Trotskyism can refer to either the body of ideas associated with Leon Trotsky or the movement based on those ideas. ... The term democracy indicates a form of government where all the states decisions are exercised directly or indirectly by a majority of its citizenry through a fair elective process. ...

Other socialist critics of Soviet-style societies, such as the libertarian socialists and the syndicalists, argue that the solution is for factories and offices to be run by the workers who work in them. In this view, merely changing who controls the state is insufficient; the nature of the work process itself must also be changed. Libertarian socialism is a political philosophy dedicated to opposing coercive forms of authority and social hierarchy, in particular the institutions of capitalism and the state. ... Syndicalism is a political and economic ideology which advocates giving control of both industry and government to labor union federations. ... A state is an organized political community occupying a definite territory, having an organized government, and possessing internal and external sovereignty. ...

Contents

Classes under capitalism GA_googleFillSlot("encyclopedia_square");

Class in the Soviet Union and similar societies

See also

Further reading

Classes under capitalism