West European Studies

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Karl Marx argued that history is but the manifestation of class struggle. Class struggle is defined as the rigorous antagonism between and among classes  a competition over existing position, power, and resources in the society. Marx continued

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes (The Communist Manifesto)

According to Marx, class struggle is both natural and inevitable in a sophisticated cultural setting. It is natural in a sense that classes were borne out of intense competition between groups of individuals. It is inevitable because every society creates some form of social distinction. This distinction is expanded in a sense that certain criteria are added. Among the criteria considered are race, power, and wealth. Indeed, the wealthy members of the society occupy the highest positions  the poor are located in the bottom of the social ladder.

Here, Marx committed his gravest error. Class, in Western sense, is a measure of economic wealth. If Marx were to define the relationship between the freeman and slave, it would not be written in the context of economic wealth. In short, the distinction between the freeman and the slave cannot be defined in class terms. The same case can be said about the relationship between the patrician and plebeian. In a sense, the distinction between the two is not defined in economic terms. Some plebeians were much wealthier than some patricians. Power, rather than economic wealth, is the criterion which defines the relationship of the two groups. The same case can be said between the guild-master and the journeyman. The relationship between the two groups is defined by profession rather than by class or power. What separates the journeyman from the master-guild is degree of professional knowledge. Clearly, the latter is more knowledgeable than the former in their craft or profession.

To Marx, classes are natural, that is, they exist as part of nature. This is a fallacy. Classes, being social constructions, are human inventions. Indeed, in the history of the West, classes (in its modern sense) emerged only after the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Suppose classes are defined as general distinction based on wealth, Marx proposition will still be invalid. In some preliterate societies, although individuals are separated by wealth, the separation is vague. It is function rather than material actuality which defines the relationship between and among groups.

Marx stated that class antagonism is inevitable. This is also a fallacy. To be inevitable connotes permanency. Indeed, in the West, the antagonism between the patricians and the plebeians was temporary. The War of Classes, as some Roman historians noted, was not a war between antagonistic, uncompromising groups. The plebeian victory resulted to an equalization of power relations. The patricians gave the plebeians important positions both in the Roman Senate and the Army. In due time, the distinction between the plebeian and the patrician became obscured. Some emperors were plebeian by birth. Indeed, the distinction was more a fashion rather than a definitive mode of relations.

Marxs developmental theory of capitalism is a reference to dialectical materialism. Marx argued

The feudal system of industry, in which industrial production was monopolized by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The guild-masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle class division of labor between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labor in each single workshop (The Communist Manifesto)

History is a stage of development. As one epoch loses function  unable to cope with emerging developments  it is replaced by another economic system. The growing complexity and needs of the new markets made feudalism an inefficient mode of wealth accumulation.

Thus, the replacement of feudalism by capitalism ended in the redefinition of class relations. In feudalism, the distinction was between the feudal lord and the serf. In the age of capitalism, the distinction was between the bourgeois and the laborers.


Dialectical materialism states that historical epochs are essentially modified to satisfy the emerging needs of societies. Hypothetically, the existing epoch is the thesis market forces are subsumed under the category of antithesis. The resulting union is the synthesis. Suppose feudalism is the thesis the emerging capitalist condition as the antithesis, then the synthesis is capitalism.

According to Marx, each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding advance of that class. The oppressed class became an armed and self-governing association under the guidance of the nobility. When the monarchy was under threat, the oppressed class openly revolted. The nobility, the Church, and the monarchy were overthrown. A state of merchants and capitalist was established. Now, the executive of this modern state is but a committee for managing the affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.

From a historical point of view, Marx depiction of the Third Estate was accurate. View from a political perspective, it is imprecise. The Third Estate rose from the ashes of the French Revolution but only temporarily. The monarchy emerged from the chaos, under the leadership of the Bonaparte emperors. The Church remained powerful. Only the nobility was destroyed. In a sense, the state emerged was governed by a coalition of monarchists, merchants, capitalists, and Church officials. The bourgeoisie, in its modern sense, governed the economic affairs of the state while the monarchists and liberals governed its political structure.

Marx continued

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes (The Communist Manifesto)

This assertion is theoretically valid. The instrument or mode of production defines the relations of production. The economic mode of capitalist production led to the destruction of old social relations. The bourgeoisie-proletariat divide (with the middle class in an unstable position) is the definitive clause of the capitalist system. Indeed, history shows that social systems are continuously modified to suit cultural and technological advances.

Using Marxs own definition of social relations, his ideal Communist state is not immune to social change. It is impossible for a social-economic system to remain permanent if social conditions continue to change. Indeed, if the communist state were to remain permanent, social forces must be politically controlled. Such a case is impossible for the state is assumed to have withered away. Following Marxs dictum, the Communist state will change (assuming that it is attainable) as the pervasiveness of its ideological base changes over time.