Class Consciousness Requires Understanding The Difference Between Classes
Social science is based on historical materialism - the two classes opposing each other are the bourgeoisie and the proletariat - the capitalist ownership class vs. the working class
It may be difficult for some to determine what constitutes a social class given the fact that American society has been highly propagandized against socialism and has taken individualism to a fine art, so much so that many fail to recognize that there is even a society at all. Under these disfigured lenses, it may be confusing to determine what constitutes a social class as Karl Marx explained it.
Social science as described by Karl Marx is just that: a science. Class under social science does not depend on an individual’s personal views on unscientific or non-materialist issues. Marx explained that there are two classes in society opposing each other - the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat (Communist Manifesto, 1848)
Breaking down the classes a bit further is necessary to understand more about these social oppositions. Let’s take the Bourgeoisie first. The Bourgeoisie consists of the capitalists, the owners of the productive forces in a capitalist society: industry, agriculture and technology for example. It includes the owners and investors in finance capital, which owns and funds these industries. This class also includes what is known as the petit bourgeoisie, or small business owners. These are the smaller capitalists that own and operate individually-owned, smaller industrial ventures intended to benefit a family or a small group like a partnership. But both elements of the bourgeoisie use labor to produce their industrial output. The working class has no ownership or control over these enterprises in a capitalist system.
The opposing class is known as the Proletariat, or the working class. The Proletariat are the productive forces, or those who create all the value in society with their physical and mental labor. While this class produces and provides all the value in society, under the capitalist system, it has no ownership of the very value and products they produce. This is the oppressed class in a capitalist system.
Some often become confused and attempt to define class by drawing lines between salary levels or net worth levels, or other arbitrary, capitalism-derived terms that have no material meaning to a class analysis. These lines are abstractions and are anti-materialist and anti-historical. Others take a strict linguistic analysis of class and use language utilized by Marx in the 19th century under the social, material conditions of the 19th century and attempt to shoe-horn them into current conditions. For example, when Marx referred to “service workers” in the 19th century, he was mostly referring to the bank clerks and administrators that carry out the tasks of the bourgeoisie, apparatchiks of the capitalist class. “Service workers” today often refers to wait staff, flight attendants, grocery workers and other service positions. These workers are the proletariat. This is easy to see when you apply the Marxist class analysis - who is part of the ownership class and who is part of the productive forces?
Understanding how class works and how to apply class analysis is important so we don’t get bogged down in needless lines of division that are unscientifically applied, and force unnecessary divisions in society while we are trying to fight against capitalist domination.