Class a division of society based on socioeconomic status. Capitalism an economic system that is controlled by private owners. If class disappeared would sociology suffer? Or does class matter in a capitalist society? This essay, will argue that class is not an analytically useful construct in capitalist societies such as Australia. Overall the concept of class is becoming increasingly irrelevant to sociology. This discussion with use the concept of Karl Marx, Class theory, Globalisation and identity to illustrate how and why class is becoming unnecessary.
Class has been a central concept that enables a better understanding of society. The traditional definition of class is a set of things or persons that have common attributes, qualities or
What class means for Capitalism, according to Marx is class conflict. In Class theory, the class structure of a capitalist stage of production consist of two classes’ bourgeoisie and the proletariat (working class). The working class possesses the ability to sell their labor. While the bourgeoisie is defined by their ownership of property and the ownership of capital. According to Marx, class conflict would occur because of the relationship with the means of production. Class conflict occurring between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat over various issues, including wages, working conditions and economic inequality. “Under pretense of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep.” (Jefferson, 1787) Class is formed when members achieve class consciousness; individuals become aware of exploitation and inequality. Not all class conflict threatens capitalism, a small number of workers fighting for higher wages will not be a threat to the status quo. (Beck, 2002) Class consciousness is a term coined by Georg Lukacs which states that each social class has a determined class consciousness which it can achieve. While Marx states that the proletariat awareness to be one “for itself” it a motivating force in class
1) Civil rights campaigns for Indigenous Australians rights in the 1960s, which concentrated on recognition of identity and cultural history in addition to land rights and feminism. These types of new social movements were not necessarily related to class. Class radicalism is no longer the flavor of the month. Married women traditionally had the class position of their husbands, “given that women await their liberation from their families… in a capitalist society… female workers are largely peripheral to the class system.” (Bottero, 2005, p. 109) These various examples above challenge class theory because it dismisses the notion of a unified working class and working class consciousness. Women traditionally are concentrated in the middle and typically they are part time workers (Bottero, 2005) who occupied jobs in non-manual work, semi-skilled manual labour , caring , health in addition to unskilled sectors that consist of domestic services and childcare. “The interplay between gender and class become more apparent... Therefore exposing the limitations of class theory.”(Habibis & Walter, 2015, p. 8) Class theorist would argue that gender differences are unnecessary because