# Was Marx right? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 27, 2010, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529 "2010-12-27T17:12:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/121 "2010-12-30T04:59:45Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > You are operating from a position of ignorance. You perfectly define yourself. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/122 "2010-12-30T05:30:18Z")
[QUOTE=Olentzero] And to be more specific re: my earlier question, what are the social origins of the American bourgeoisie? Which class did they arise from, if not the class that made the Revolution? [/QUOTE] Are you suggesting that the industrialists and capitalists were descended from the founding fathers? Or the other movers and shakers of the revolution?? To answer your question, the ‘American bourgeoisie’ didn’t arise from any specific ‘class’. Many of them arose from the lower classes, some from the nascent middle class, and some from the upper classes. I don’t think that many of the FF’s families (or other political families of the early American nation) went on to become the ‘bourgeoisie’ as Marx meant the term…if that’s what you were getting at. -XT ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/123 "2010-12-30T05:37:01Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Haven’t really kept up with the discussion, …yada. What do you think now? ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/124 "2010-12-30T07:45:32Z")
I’m not talking about genealogy, I’m talking about the development of social classes. The class that led the American Revolution was not made entirely of farmers and landed gentry, but included merchants, manufacturers, and even bankers. In a word: bourgeoisie. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/125 "2010-12-30T07:51:20Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Hey, **I’m** not the one using fatuous and desperate intellectual dishonesty to try to define class struggle out of existence, as you did in [post #50,](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=13295229#post13295229) and in [post #52,](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=13295267#post13295267) and in [post #62.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=13295514#post13295514) I suppose that I could belabor the point and draw your attention to the fact that it’s somewhat ironic to claim “intellectual dishonestly” and make something up in order to pretend that it occurred. Case in point, I never attempted to define anything out of existence, at all, that’s a fiction. What I actually said was that the term has to be defined in an objective manner with consistent internal logal and categorization. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 1. **Class is real.** […] Most people marry within their own native class. Class relations are always hierarchical. Two social classes are not simply two groups with different functional specialties but equal status, like electricians and plumbers; one has a superior position to the other in terms of prestige, wealth, privileges, opportunities, education, and/or power/influence. You start by ignoring that ‘class’ is a label we drape over reality, not primal reality itself. We can draw many different classes, as Marx did, and we can group them up or break them down as we see fit. Your here are also fairly arbitrary The all classes must be hierarchical is only because you’ve created that condition by fiat, of course. Every single profession has a difference in the degree of prestige, income, blah blah blah that it offers. Even working at two separate restaurants in one town may be the difference between a lower class or comfortably middle class existence. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 1. **Class interest is real.** Too broad and lacks much specificity. Any group, no matter how you define it, will have some things which may effect it that some would argue are bad, and some that they would argue are good. The group’s participants will often disagree, as well. So far you build classes mostly arbitrarily by necessity, otherwise we’d have a Denny’s Waitresses class that was a bit lower in prestige than the Fine Dining Waitress class, and then you define any action, volitional or not that in some subjective opinion is best for a group, as “class interest.” > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 1. **Class action is real.** When members of a social class – not necessarily all of them, just enough to make a difference – try to further or protect their class interest, that is class action. This does not necessarily require “class consciousness,” in fact it does not even require concerted action. This is absurdly sloppy and lacking in any form of specificity at all. Some actions, whether they are undertaken selfishly or not, whether they are on behalf of the class or not, no matter who and what you slice as being part of their class, become “class actions” if they subjectively help some group’s perceived interests. Actions, with no volitional “class anything” component, but undertaken for any number of other reasons, but which have unintended consequences for a “class”, however we define it, because “class actions”. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 1. **Class conflict is real.** Whenever the class interest or class action of Class A collides with that of Class B, there is class conflict. Whenever the interests of any Group A come into conflict with any Group B, there will be conflict. Just like when Individual A comes into conflict with Individual B. There is no need to tack on artificial ‘class’ labels for an analysis. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 1. **Class struggle is real.** Class struggle is simply any class conflict that is not immediately resolved by victory or compromise or surrender. So, just like all human group dynamics will have a degree of conflict as long as the sides have different situations and goals, now we have an a useless point whereby group “conflicts” become “struggles” if they’re not finalized. Except, almost every conflict that two groups can come into will stay roughly static as their interests will not change, so basic human inequality becomes “class struggle”, even if it has nothing to do with class. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 1. **Class struggle matters.** Just another way of saying that all conflict between groups matters, still with no objective definition of classes and no reason to use this gloss before another. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 1. **Non-class social divisions exist.** People in a society can be divided by sex, socially-defined “race,” religion, region, ethnocultural background, or sports-fan rivalries. And yet, even if someone explicitly does something for one of those groups, if it also benefits their class (however we define it) it becomes a class action and part of class struggle. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Now, **FinnAgain,** I repeat: No, you ignore. Yet again your position is based on ignorance, I do not have to come up with a definition for _your_ term or create an internal schema that’s logical and consistent for _your_ term. That’s your job, since you’re the one using it to base arguments around. I can understand why pointing out that your terms aren’t worthwhile points of discussion as presented makes you think I lack credibility. Just like I can understand why you want me to define your terms for you and craft a cohesive context in which to place them, for you. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/126 "2010-12-30T14:19:04Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > You start by ignoring that ‘class’ is a label we drape over reality, not primal reality itself. WTF?! The existence of social classes is about as close to “primal reality” as you can **get** in sociology! Social classes are groups with sociologically identifiable characteristics, group ties, and distinctions from other classes. Any sociologist will tell you there are different **kinds** of social groups, of course – and that class is very definitely one of those kinds, in **every** society, and not easily confused with the other kinds. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/127 "2010-12-30T14:33:38Z")
[Social class:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class) > [@](#): > > Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of ‘social stratification’. In the modern Western context, stratification typically comprises three layers: upper class, middle class, and lower class. Each class may be further subdivided into smaller classes (e.g. occupational). > > The most basic class distinction is between the powerful and the powerless.[1][2] Social classes with a great deal of power are usually viewed as “the elites” within their own societies. Various social and political theories propose that social classes with greater power attempt to cement their own ranking above the lower classes in the hierarchy to the detriment of the society overall. By contrast, conservatives and structural functionalists have presented class difference as intrinsic to the structure of any society and to that extent ineradicable. > > In Marxist theory, two basic class divisions owe to the fundamental economic structure of work and property: the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The capitalists own the means of production, but this effectively includes the proletariat as they are only able to sell their own labour power (See also: wage labour). These inequalities are normalised and reproduced through cultural ideology. Max Weber critiqued historical materialism (or economic determinism), positing that stratification is not based purely on economic inequalities, but on other status and power differentials. Social class pertaining broadly to material wealth may be distinguished from status class based on honour, prestige, religious affiliation, and so on. > > Theorists such as Ralf Dahrendorf have noted the tendency toward an enlarged middle class in modern Western societies, particularly in relation to the necessity of an educated work force in technological economies.[3] Perspectives concerning globalization and neocolonialism, such as dependency theory, suggest this owes to the shift of low-level labourers to developing nations and the Third World.[4] Developed nations have thereby become less directly active in primary industry (e.g. basic manufacturing, agriculture, forestry, mining, etc.) and increasingly involved with “virtual” goods and services. The national concept of “social class” has therefore become increasingly complex and confused. Of course, sociology is not as highly-developed and rigorous a science as physics (yet), and two sociologists might differ as to the number of identifiable social classes in a given society or as to the precise boundaries between them; but not as to the **existence** of social classes (nor as to their essentially stratified and hierarchical relationship), and each understands perfectly what the other means by the phrase. > [@](#): > > Schools of sociology differ in how they conceptualize class. A distinction can be drawn between analytical concepts of social class, such as the Marxian and Weberian traditions, and the more empirical traditions such as socio-economic status approach, which notes the correlation of income, education and wealth with social outcomes without necessarily implying a particular theory of social structure. The Warnerian approach can be considered empirical in the sense that it is more descriptive than analytical. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/128 "2010-12-30T15:51:39Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > I suppose that I could belabor the point and draw your attention to the fact that it’s somewhat ironic to claim “intellectual dishonestly” and make something up in order to pretend that it occurred. Case in point, I never attempted to define anything out of existence, at all, that’s a fiction. What I actually said was that the term has to be defined in an objective manner with consistent internal logal and categorization. :dubious: Now **that’s** intellectually dishonest right there. Trying to “define class struggle out of existence” is **exactly** what you were doing. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/129 "2010-12-30T16:02:11Z")
> [@adhay](#): > > Welcome to the floor. Thank you. I think I’ll just lie here awhile and try to stuff my living shit back in. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/130 "2010-12-30T17:33:24Z")
Evidently the capitalists have seized the means of pressing multiquote… > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Now **that’s** intellectually dishonest right there. Trying to “define class struggle out of existence” is **exactly** what you were doing. We’ve been over this Glutton, your lack of understanding is not a lack of honesty on my part. Who’d a thunk it? Trying to get you to define your own terms in an objective, consistent manner, cogent, cohesive manner? I’m sure it seems awful, just awful to you. It’s no fair, you want to posit your gloss as something that’s just “fact” and doesn’t have to be supported, defined in objective terms, etc… But, nope. Trying to get you to actually provide a rational argument based on objective definitions is hardly defining anything out of existence. What’s actually happened is that you’re inventing things and, then when they evaporate under scrutiny, you’re complaining that it’s the fault of the person who pointed out that the emperor is nekkid, because they defined his damn fine raiment right out of existence. Funny, asking for cohesive, objective definitions doesn’t define alpha radiation out of existence. It doesn’t define a phospholipid bilayer out of existence. It doesn’t define oxidation or reduction out of existence. It doesn’t define meitosis out of existence. It doesn’t define a parabolic ballistic trajectory out of existence. It doesn’t define shifts in allelic frequency out of existence. it doesn’t… Does it not strike you as odd that for some phenomena, defining them gives an objective, consistent definition and framework and for others, it makes them evaporate? And you claim that the problem is that I ask you to try to define your terms, not that your terms evaporate like summer dew under the least little bit of sun. That doesn’t suggest anything to you? > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > WTF?! ZOMG! > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The existence of social classes is about as close to “primal reality” as you can **get** in sociology! Well gee gorsh wilickers! That sure proves it. Please tell me that you understand that the models used by (some but not all) sociologists are no more a 1st level order of reality than (some but not all) cultural anthropologists’ models are 1st level order of reality than (some but not all) psychologists’ models are 1st level order of reality than (some but not all) literary critics’ models are a 1st level order of reality ? Right? You do understand that an abstraction is a 2nd level order, right? Or 3rd in some cases (and so on). You do understand that “this group of sociologists believes thus and such” is about as objective, in many cases, as the ‘correct’ position in a debate between post-modernists and post-structuralists trying to analyze a specific literary text. You do grok that a Marxist or a feminist or a Chicago School of a text is not any more ‘objective’ than a post-modern analysis of the same text, right? That things like the dispute between positivists and antipositivists is because the discipline is such that it cannot, ever, behave like hard sciences in which you can look at entities and always define their atomic number and whether something is hydrogen or helium doesn’t rest on the interpretative framework that’s being applied. You do understand that, right? > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Social class:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class) Ah, a direct wiki cut and paste. That’ll sure make the argument. But you have to understand it and not just block-quote it, glutton. “In the modern Western context, stratification typically comprises three layers: upper class, middle class, and lower class. Each class may be further subdivided into smaller classes (e.g. occupational).” What do you think that means? That the classes are always objective, that we don’t have to pick and choose and create our own artificial delineations to describe all of them? That based on how you “subdivide” groups, you won’t obtain a model that’s essentially different from other models? That instead of a schema of low-middle-high, we couldn’t create virtually any other schema of classification? > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Of course, sociology is not as highly-developed and rigorous a science as physics (yet), and two sociologists might differ as to the number of identifiable social classes in a given society or as to the precise boundaries between them; but not as to the **existence** of social classes (nor as to their essentially stratified and hierarchical relationship), and each understands perfectly what the other means by the phrase. Wow. Yeah, sociology will be a science like physics round about when literary criticism becomes a science like physics. Of course sociologists can swing the lingo and look at things from a (relatively) unified framework, but do you really not understand what it means that each can have their own “number of identifiable social classes” or the “precise boundaries between them” varies based on who you ask? Do you not understand that how we divide them will show whether or not, and to what degree, they’re “stratified and hierarchical”? You do understand that in virtually all human relationships, always, there will be imbalance and inequality, and even if you get down to defining classes-of-one, you’ll always somehow find hierarchy and stratification because of that imbalance and inequality? It really doesn’t strike you as odd that there can be multiple frameworks in sociology, each of which can see the same event in sometimes wildly different terms, and no interpretation is necessarily any more true than any other? That’s good science? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/131 "2010-12-30T17:40:15Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Wow. Yeah, sociology will be a science like physics round about when literary criticism becomes a science like physics. Come back when you know more of science than a novice in a nunnery. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/132 "2010-12-30T17:44:36Z")
Can you quantify how much science a novice in a nunnery (k)nows? Otherwise, how will Finn know when to come back? He could already exceed (by a large margin) the mean for such knowledge in the standard nunnery, after all…which means you’ve invited him to come right back. Or, possibly the average nun in training has a vast amount of scientific knowledge, simply being a novice concerning spiritual matters (or whatever it is that nuns learn). You need to be more precise in your language in the future, BG, so as not to leave these little loose ends about… -XT ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/133 "2010-12-30T17:53:42Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Come back when you know more of science than a novice in a nunnery. Brilliant factual refutation Glutton. Truly. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/134 "2010-12-31T03:42:12Z")
More about Edward Bernstein: he was the original “Revisionist”, the first major figure in Socialism/Communism to dare say out loud that Marx’s predictions weren’t coming true, especially the prediction that the proletariat would become increasingly poor and desperate, when in fact living standards for the working class continually rose. Bernstein ended up in the camp that said that reform short of revolution was possible. I’ve wondered if he was the inspiration for the character of “Goldstein” in **1984** , the ultimate apostate of the Revolution. ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/135 "2010-12-31T04:07:42Z")
Yes. Inside of a dog, it _is_ too dark to read. Sorry, been wanting to say that every time I read this thread title. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/136 "2010-12-31T04:09:12Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > The American Revolution was a struggle of the Colonial American bourgeoisie against the power of Britain’s feudal monarchy, placing power in the hands of a new and different class as a result. Monarchy and feudalism had little to do with the American Revolution. What the Colonials were rebelling against was the fact that as colonies they had no direct representation in Parliment, and thus an oligarchy in Britain could simply dictate what laws Americans lived by. Despite the rhetorical device in the Declaration of Independence of laying the ultimate blame at the King’s feet, all of the things that the colonials protested against were acts of a duly constituted Parlliment. What the Americans rebelled against was being on the wrong end of an imperial/colonial relationship. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/137 "2010-12-31T04:29:22Z")
> [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](#): > > Yes. Inside of a dog, it _is_ too dark to read. Actually . . . well, you’d be surprised. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/138 "2010-12-31T06:59:08Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Monarchy and feudalism had little to do with the American Revolution. What the Colonials were rebelling against was the fact that as colonies they had no direct representation in Parliment, and thus an oligarchy in Britain could simply dictate what laws Americans lived by. Despite the rhetorical device in the Declaration of Independence of laying the ultimate blame at the King’s feet, all of the things that the colonials protested against were acts of a duly constituted Parlliment. What the Americans rebelled against was being on the wrong end of an imperial/colonial relationship. Still put power in the hands of a new and different class - the American bourgeoisie. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/139 "2010-12-31T07:13:24Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > Still put power in the hands of a new and different class - the American bourgeoisie. No, it left power in the exact same non-bourgeois hands as before the Revolution, minus only the royal governors and the United Empire Loyalists. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529/140 "2010-12-31T07:52:29Z")
If merchants, manufacturers, and bankers are not bourgeois, what are they? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-marx-right/565529.md?page=8)