2 - Proletariat into a Class: The Process of Class Formation

Summary

Introduction

The difficulties encountered by marxist theory in analyzing the class structure of concrete capitalist societies had already appeared at the time of the formation of the socialist movement. Their roots are to be found in the formulation by Marx of the problematic in which processes of class formation are seen as a necessary transition from a “class-in-itself” to a “class-for-itself,” a formulation in which economic relations have the status of objective conditions and all other relations constitute realms of subjective actions.

In place of this formulation we must think along the lines, also suggested by Marx, in which economic, political, and ideological conditions jointly structure the realm of struggles that have as their effect the organization, disorganization, or reorganization of classes. Classes must thus be viewed as effects of struggles structured by objective conditions that are simultaneously economic, political, and ideological.

Class analysis is a form of analysis that links social development to struggles among concrete historical actors. Such actors, collectivities-in-struggle at a particular moment of history, are not determined uniquely by objective conditions, not even by the totality of economic, political, and ideological conditions. Precisely because class formation is an effect of struggles, outcomes of this process are at each moment of history to some extent indeterminate.

Class analysis cannot be limited to those people who occupy places within the system of production. It is a necessary consequence of capitalist development that some quantity of the socially available labor power does not find productive employment.