Frank Engster: The Concept of Class. Klassensprachen #0_2017

Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory, 2015

Marx’s analysis of the concept of class in chapter 52 of Capital Volume III is unfortunately far from being complete. This paper aims at reconstructing a Marxian conceptualisation of class on the basis of Marx’s own writings and with the aid of representatives of creative Soviet Marxism such as Evald Ilyenkov and contemporary Western critical theory, specifically the Open Marxism approach and Werner Bonefeld. It proposes that class is not a sociological entity signifying a group or a stratum in society. Rather, it is a fluid being that is logically preceded by its conceptuality: class is a continuously constituted social relation that is mediated politically; it is the mode of being of the human basis of capitalist social relations of production.

In the previous chapters, we have utilized Marx's understanding of class relations and have already discussed the material basis for his definition of class. In particular we have seen that class for Marx is related to amounts of ownership of different productive forces. Classes have objectively divergent interests that causes the economic detriment of exploitation to occur. This exploitation would be impossible if classes were eliminated. This is why Marx advocates a classless society as a desirable solution to these divergent interests and resulting detriments. This chapter will contain an analytical reconstruction of Marx's class theory. This section will include a structural presentation of classes, a presentation of the objectivity of classes and the objectivity of class interests and class antagonisms, a presentation of class formation and classconsciousness as subjective phenomena, and a presentation of class alliances. The second section will be an analysis of Marx's classic treatments of class and class relations in The Communist Manifesto.

There are very few ideas which are closely linked with Marxism as the concepts of class and class conflict. Therefore, it is impossible to imagine what a Marxist philosophy of history or a Marxist revolutionary theory would be in their absence. Hence, as with much else in Marxism, these two concepts remain abstruse and contradictory at all times. Some scholars may argue that, Marx didn't provide any coherent or unique understanding or conception of class and class struggle. In this paper, I would try to explain the origin of the concept of " class " on Marxist theories and how it is developed. The paper argues that in Marxist doctrine, the concept of class is grounded in the process of production and the working class.

The concept of class has greater explanatory ambitions within the Marxist tradition than in any other tradition of social theory and this, in turn, places greater burdens on its theoretical foundations. In its most ambitious form, Marxists have argued that class – or very closely linked concepts like " mode of production " or " the economic base " – was at the center of a general theory of history, usually referred to as " historical materialism ". 1 This theory attempted to explain within a unified framework a very wide range of social phenomena: the epochal trajectory of social change as well as social conflicts located in specific times and places, the macro-level institutional form of the state along with the micro-level subjective beliefs of individuals, large scale revolutions as well as sit-down strikes. Expressions like " class struggle is the motor of history " and " the executive of the modern state is but a committee of the bourgeoisie " captured this ambitious claim of explanatory centrality for the concept of class. Most Marxist scholars today have pulled back from the grandiose explanatory claims of historical materialism (if not necessarily from all of its explanatory aspirations). Few today defend stark versions of " class primacy. " Nevertheless, it remains the case that class retains a distinctive centrality within the Marxist tradition and is called upon to do much more arduous explanatory work than in other theoretical traditions. Indeed, a good argument can be made that this, along with a specific orientation to radically egalitarian normative principles, is a large part of what defines the continuing distinctiveness and vitality of the Marxist tradition as a body of thought, particularly within sociology. It is for this reason that I have argued that " Marxism as class analysis " defines the core agenda of Marxist sociology. 2 The task of this chapter is to lay out the central analytical foundations of the concept of class in a way that is broadly consistent with the Marxist tradition. This is a tricky business, for among writers who identify with Marxism there is no consensus on any of the core concepts of class analysis. What defines the tradition is more a loose commitment to the importance of class analysis for understanding the conditions for challenging capitalist oppressions and the language within which debates are waged – what Alvin Gouldner aptly called a " speech community " – than a precise set of definitions and propositions. Any claims about the theoretical foundations of Marxist class analysis which I make, therefore, will reflect my specific stance within that tradition rather than an authoritative account of " Marxism " in general or of the work of Karl Marx in particular. 3 There will be two principle punchlines to the analysis: first, that the ingredient that most sharply distinguishes the Marxist conceptualization of class from other traditions is the concept of " exploitation " , and second, that an exploitation-centered concept of class provides theoretically powerful tools for studying a range of problems in contemporary

A paper presented at the Marxism and Education: Renewing Dialogues Seminar IX, University of London, Institute of Education, 2006

Here I take forward ideas first advanced in a paper I produced for the British Sociological Association Education Study Group in 2001 (Rikowski, 2001) and a further elaboration of some of those ideas with Paula Allman and Peter McLaren (in Allman, McLaren and Rikowski, 2005). It is very much a programmatic paper, mapping out work that remains to be done (the second half of the paper) as much as summarising work already completed (in the first half). The style is compressed, aphoristic even, and reflects both the time at my disposal for sustained thought on theoretical and academic issues these days, and the fact that many ideas stand in need of development and to be infused with further background reading. The main aim of this paper is to work out a specifically Marxist analysis of class and then to relate this to education. This is not as straightforward as it seems as mainstream sociologists and education researchers and theorists mistake ‘social classes’ for status groups. Some Marxists do this too, unfortunately. When Marxists do this the result is a neo-Weberianism box-like apparatus rather than a Marxist analysis of class. What I am after is a dynamic perspective of social class that more adequately reflects life in contemporary capitalism, whilst also critiquing and challenging the social existence of class itself.

A paper prepared for the British Sociological Association Education Study Group Meeting, King's College London, 2001

Journal of Internaitonal and Global Studies, 2018

Das, Raju. Marxist Class Theory For a Skeptical World. Chicago: Haymarket, 2018. Marxian class theory, as the world knows it, has long been declared dead. Its obituary, although premature, was written both inside and outside of Marxism. Those in denial of class-divided capitalist society have triumphantly heralded the 'end of history.' But those who still clung to class theory and its explanatory potential forged new ways to understand social reality. They, however, refused to accept the proletariat as the historical agent of revolutionary reconstitution of society. As a result, different variants of Marxism have sprung up that challenge traditional Marxism and its putative fixation on class. Of these, analytical Marxism and post-structuralist Marxism are the most prominent. Both questioned the foundational concepts of classical Marxism, and attempted to bring it into alignment with the contemporary human condition. The challenge to traditional Marxism also produced its stout defenders. Among them Raju Das, a professor of Geography at York University, Canada, is a leading thinker of class. He has written a magnum opus in defense of classical Marxism. His work is a critique of different versions of contemporary Marxism that tore themselves away from original Marxian theory. While critiquing growing neo-Marxist traditions, which tend to draw less and less upon classical Marxism, Das's approach has been that of a sympathetic scholar and a dispassionate social scientist who drinks deep at the scientific theory of class as conceived by Marx. He productively engages with analytical Marxism and post-structural Marxism. He faithfully describes the basic tenets of each, and diligently identifies key figures and their major contributions to these traditions. How carefully he treads this path is evident from the fact that he waits almost 200 pages, detailing key ideas and key disagreements of analytical and postmodern Marxisms, before he offers their critical evaluation. Das is unfailingly generous in acknowledging many worthwhile contributions that these traditions and their key figures make. Sometimes he digs deeper into the neo-Marxist literature to uncover the obscure insights that even their authors might not have thought much of, or failed to recognize their significance in a given argument. Nuanced clarity is a hallmark of Das's splendid writing style. Also, he dutifully presents his interlocutors' ideas with the same clarity that they themselves could not have mustered. This meticulous and methodical approach further lends credibility to Das's monumental work, and opens up productive space for an engaged dialogue with his interlocutors on the other side of the debate. Sometimes he pithily makes declarative statements to undo what he sees 'conflation' of divergent ideas by contemporary Marxists: neoliberalism is not capitalism as Marxist geographer David Harvey would have us believe; class is not a set of monopolizable skills as analytical Marxist Erik Wright would argue; or class is not reducible to 'positionality' as anti-essentialist post-modern Marxism deems. Das applauds Wright for getting it right that "the explanatory capacity of the theories we construct depends to an important extent on the coherence of concepts we deploy within them" (p. 162). Yet, he argues, Wright's own intellectual practice, especially his methodological thinking does not "cohere with his class theory thinking" (p. 162). Despite denunciation of skill and organizational exploitation in his work, Das thinks, Wright still deploys these ideas in his class theory. Similarly, in spite of various problems with Wright's concept of middle class, some of which Wright himself recognizes, Das argues, he still continues to use them and indeed thinks that we need not wait until we have completely coherent concepts.

Sociological Inquiry, 1995

This article examines two major attempts to revitalize Marxist class analysis in recent years. It provides a critical appraisal of both class structure analysis and dialectical and historical materialist analysis in assessing the applicability of Marxist class analysis to the study of contemporary capitalist society. It shows that going beyond an analysis of the class structure of advanced capitalism, the dialectical and historical materialist approach provides a dynamic analysis of society and social transformation that takes into account the changing nature of class relations and class struggle as we approach the twenty-first century.

Glimpses of Social Equations (ISBN 978-81-939-268-81), 2018

This paper reiterates the merits of understanding capitalism from a class-based perspective and how concepts employed by Marx are still useful for such an analysis. The paper concludes by stressing that the crises that are endemic to capitalism cannot be sustainably solved within the system, which necessitates the need for system-transcendence.

Presentation at the Education Studies Research Group Seminar, Sulgrave 220, School of Education, University of Northampton, 18th October 2007