Comparision Between Weber And Marx

6 Pages 1402 Words

Social class

A social class is, at its most basic, a group of people that have similar society, social status. The relative importance and definition of membership in a particular class differs greatly over time and between societies, particularly in societies having a legal differentiation of groups of people by birth or occupation. In the well-known example of socioeconomic class, many scholars view societies as stratifying into a hierarchical system based on Economics, economic status, wealth, or income. Using wealth as a dimension, many have used a bi-partite model to view societies, from ancient history to the present day: *an Upper class of the immensely wealthy and/or economic power, powerful *a Lower class of the poor and/or weak With the social changes of the 20th century, a gradually developing urban middle class appeared in most Western countries, producing three strata: *an Upper class of the immensely wealthy and/or powerful *a Middle class of managers and highly paid professionals *a Lower class of people paid average or low wages or receiving "welfare". Some are homeless. (Some writers divide Middle & Lower classes between ''White collar'' & ''Blue collar'' jobs.) Karl Marx famously claimed that the primary social division was between a "ruling class" and a labouring class. Under slavery, this division corresponds to that between the slave-owners and the slaves, while under feudalism, it corresponds to that between lords and serfdom, serfs. Under capitalism, the capitalists (the bourgeoisie) exploitation , exploit the working class (the proletariat, or in other words the wage-earners). See labor theory of value. Note that the Marxist definition of social class is based on ''how'' money is earned, not ''how much'' money is earned. The bourgeois are those who own the means of production (i.e. business owners) and hire other people to work for them; the proletarians are those who do not own means of production, and earn t...