marxism social inequality

Social Class Inequalities

• Society has historically faced divisions of power (Marx)

• The ruling class uses ideological control to maintain their superior position (Marx / Althusser)

• Class inequality is justified through hegemony (Gramsci)

• Power is becoming more concentrated in society - Rich are getting richer! (Westergaard)

Marx (Social Class)

Society has historically faced divisions of power.

Historical materialism - human beings have always had material needs for food, shelter etc. and need to work to meet these.

Throughout all history, material goods have been gained through labour - the forces of production (hunting, picking fruit, building huts, coal mining, mass producing iPhones). As humans developed tools, we started to co-operate with each other and enter into social relations of productions.

Over time, these relations form a division of labour, in which two classes are formed - labourers and owners of the means of production.

Primitive Communism: Ancient past small scale groups existed with no system of property ownership. Everything was communally owned. Over time they perfected their tools - produced a surplus and began some private ownership

Ancient mode of production: Some private property owned - including slavery. Higher labour productivity began to be demanded, conditions of slaves deteriorate, slaves not interested in production.

Feudalism: Class divisions between landowners vs. landless peasants and tenant farmers forced to work for landowners to survive.This form of society was a '3 tiered' system - Landowners, nobles and peasants. Population increased, demand increased new discoveries e.g. improvement of tools etc to source goods / farm etc.

Capitalism: 2 class system - bourgeoisie own means of production exploit the proletariat for cheap labour to keep profits high. Full introduction of private ownership of businesses, housing, wealth etc.

Marx/Althusser (Social Class)

The ruling class uses ideological control to maintain their superior position.

The other way to explain social class inequality from the work of Karl Marx is to focus on the other aspects of society outside of the economy.

According to Marx, all other institutions in society make up the superstructure - the role of which is to support and reinforce the base.

The dominance and subordination of the proletariat is essential to the relations of production in capitalist societies, therefore these relations will be further reflected in the superstructure ideologically.

Marx highlighted how the institutions of the superstructure support and reflect ruling class ideology (belief system/worldview/set of ideas), and they use this ideology to control the masses.

Political and legal systems will support ruling class power by creating laws that protect the interests of capitalists. The cultural and religious beliefs and values of society will support ruling class domination (eg. even if you are poor, donate to the church). Mass media and education will spread messages that encourage working class people to spend their money on consumer commodities that lose value instantly

Thus capitalism will be seen as reasonable and just, rather than exploitative and oppressive (false class consciousness). In this way, beliefs and values will disguise and distort the true nature of society and class inequality will continue

Gramsci (Social Class)

Class inequality is justified through hegemony.

Hegemony = Control of Ideas: Instead of just using violence or direct control, the ruling class influences how people think. They make their ideas seem like they're just the "natural" way things are.

Cultural Influence: The ruling class uses media, education, religion, and other cultural institutions to spread their values. Over time, most people accept these values as normal, even if they aren't in their best interest.

Consent, not just Force: People follow the rules of the system not just because they're forced to, but because they come to believe that the system is fair or inevitable.

In short, hegemony is the way those in power get people to agree to their leadership, without always needing to resort to violence or coercion, by shaping and controlling ideas and beliefs.

Westergaard (Social Class)

Power is becoming more concentrated in society - Rich are getting richer!

The richest 20% of people in the UK have 60% of the wealth. THe richest 1% of people in the UK have as much wealth as the lower 60% of the UK's population.

Westergaard argued that there was little evidence of class divisions disappearing - even in the 1970's, in fact, he believed they were widening. Westergaard argued that this was due to the way that the capitalist system operates.

Westergaard believed that the gradual process of production being expanded, and technology rendering the workforce obsolete will create a polarisation of the classes. The rich will get richer and poor will get poorer!

Despite writing in the 1970's, we can still apply Westergaard's study to society today! In the 2020's the upper class still inherit most of the nation's wealth - For example, wealth in Great Britain is very unequally divided. In 2020, the ONS calculated that the richest 10% of households hold 43% of all wealth. The poorest 50%, by contrast, own just 9%. More than that, for the UK as a whole, the top 0.1% had a share of total wealth double between 1984 and 2013, reaching 9%. Worldwide, the top 0.01% owned 11% of the global wealth by 2021

Gender Inequalities

• Women must be submissive wives to ensure a pure bloodline (Engels) - Marxist

• Men need to exercise their control in the home if they do not have control of other areas of life (Zaretsky) - Marxist

• Women do unpaid labour in the home and this is essential to the smooth running of capitalism (Benston) - Marxist Feminist

• Women act as a disposable and cheap part of the workforce which benefits a capitalist society (Bruegel) - Marxist Feminist

Engels (Gender)

Women must be submissive wives to ensure a pure bloodline.

Engels suggested that women's subordinate position is a result of the ownership of private property and the development of the nuclear family that went with it.

A nuclear family is a family unit made up of parents and their children, usually living in the same home.

This means women carry out caring duties allowing men to work…It allows men to work longer hours… Raising the next generation of well disciplined workers

Engels felt that the exploiter - exploited relationship that many faced in the workplace became reflected in the home and within relationships between men and women.

In a capitalist society, men were required to gain control over women so they could eventually pass on any private property in the form of inheritance to their children, it was important for a man to have control to ensure they had fathered legitimate offspring and that their wealth could be passed on for generations.

This highlighted the importance of the nuclear family, as it restricted women's sexuality and enforced monogamy - effectively to protect male property rights!

Zaretsky (Gender)

Men need to exercise their control in the home if they do not have control of other areas of life.

Zaretsky argued that family life gave proletarian men something they could control and a space where they could be the "boss". This provided a clear function for capitalism because it meant that workers would tolerate the powerlessness and frustration of being exploited at work because they had this private domain where they were "king of the castle" and could take out their stress and frustrations on their wives.

Marxists see families as essentially a conservative institution that helps to preserve capitalism. They also weaken the position of individual workers in relation to the boss.

By having their wives at home, men are able to exercise their power and be 'in control' which prevents them from walking away from their job whereby they are alienated and exploited and have no say in the matter, it also ensures the worker has dependents relying on them, making it harder for them to resist the oppression they face at work as they need their wages.

Marxists argue that this is another reason why a capitalist society is built to benefit a nuclear family, to encourage workers to engage in one.

Benston (Gender)

Women do unpaid labour in the home and this is essential to the smooth running of capitalism.

Benston argued the unpaid domestic labour of women helps support the capitalist system, if women were paid a wage for their work there would have to be huge redistributions of wealth.

According to Benston, on a daily basis, women renew men's ability to go out to work and create profits for the ruling class, by doing unpaid labour in the home. Women's unpaid labour includes cooking, cleaning, raising children and taking care of her husband. Women also socialise and care for children, reproducing the next generation of workers at no cost to capitalist employers.

Benston is critical of the nuclear family and a women's role within it, as it is a stabilising force in a capitalist society, it keeps it running.

Additionally, as women are in the home doing unpaid work, only one wage needs to be paid and a wife becomes dependent on her husband's wage.

Being part of the nuclear family weakens the position of individual workers in relation to their boss. If they felt they were not being paid enough or being treated badly, a single person may well choose to walk away and hope that they can find better employment soon, or they can join with other workers and go on strike and temporarily do without pay by way of a protest to push for better pay or conditions. But when that worker has to also take dependents into account (e.g. a spouse and children) that becomes a much more difficult decision.

Bruegel (Gender)

Women act as a disposable and cheap part of the workforce which benefits a capitalist society.

Bruegel argues that because of women's unpaid domestic labour, they are readily available to work outside of the home when society requires them to do so. They point out that the ruling class use women to join the workforce when needed (in economic booms) and send them back to the role of full-time housewife when not required. Henceforth highlighting how the family is central to women's oppression.

As a result women become a cheap 'reserve army of labour' that can be utilised by the ruling class when they see fit. This, at times, generates a group of unemployed people looking for work creating competition amongst individuals for work and an acceptance of exploitation.

Women are often not members of trade unions and are prepared to work for less money as their wage could be a second income.

Ethnic Inequalities

• There is a direct relationship between capitalism and racism (Cox)

• Immigrants act as a reserve army of labour in a capitalist society (Castles and Kosack)

• The ruling class divide the working class for ideological purposes (Castles and Kosack)

• The ruling class uses the media to detract attention away from capitalist failings (Hall)

Cox (Ethnicity)

There is a direct relationship between capitalism and racism.

Cox stressed that the idea of 'race' is itself a human creation. Racism was something developed by exploiters against the exploited to justify exploitation.

In fact, Cox argues that racism has its origins in the development of capitalism, with its needs to systematically exploit labour power. Furthermore, Cox argues that early capitalism went hand in hand with colonialism, as European nations conquered other areas of the world, they were able to exploit the workforce in those colonies and they justified their actions through racism, by claiming white Europeans were superior to other races. White people developed capitalism, and therefore they first developed racism.

He claims 'if capitalism had not developed then the world may never have experienced racial prejudice'.

Castles and Kosack (Ethnicity)- reserve army of labour

Immigrants act as a reserve army of labour in a capitalist society.

CASTLES AND KOSACK- Castles and Kosack studied immigrant work in Britain and found that most immigrants were concentrated in low-skilled and low-paid manual jobs that were mainly carried out in poor working conditions; many immigrants were also unemployed. Castles and Kosack claimed that in Britain this treatment of immigrants ultimately derived from the need in capitalist societies for a reserve army of labour.

It was necessary to have a surplus of labour to keep wage costs down, since the greater the overall supply of labour, the weakening the bargaining position for existing workers became. Castles and Kosack believed capitalist economies were inherently unstable. They underwent periods of boom and slump, and a reserve army of labour needed to be available to be hired and fired as the fluctuating fortunes of the economy dictated.

Castles and Kosack (Ethnicity)- ideological purposes

The ruling class divide the working class for ideological purposes.

Ethnic minorities are the most disadvantaged group in the working class and do not form a separate underclass.

Racism was fostered and encouraged to divide the proletariat and weaken their power.

3 ideological reasons for this are

To legitimise

• Racism helps to justify low pay and poor working conditions because black workers are seen as second class citizens.

Employers benefit from this.

To divide and rule

• If black and white workers are in conflict there is less chance of a revolution - Stops the masses uniting!

To scapegoat

• Ethnic minorities are scapegoats for society's problems- examples: Increased crime rates, Unemployment, Lone parenthood, Terrorism and Lack of housing

After the Second World War, capitalist societies exhausted their indigenous reserve army of labour - women. Therefore, countries in Europe turned to immigrant labour to provide a necessary cheap pool of workers who could be profitably exploited.

The arrival of immigrants led to the working class being divided into two groups, with indigenous white population becoming the top layer of the working class and the immigrant workers becoming the most disadvantaged.

Castles and Kosack argue this divide and rule tactic was beneficial to the ruling class as it suppressed the overall wage levels of the working classes and immigrants could be scapegoated i.e the white working class would blame for problems such as unemployment and housing shortages, thus allowing the capitalist class to divert the white working class' attention from the real cause of inequality - capitalism. Furthermore, this situation became too divided to unite and overthrow the capitalist system.

Hall (Ethnicity)

The ruling class uses the media to detract attention away from capitalist failings.

Neo-Marxism draws on aspects of Marxist and Interactionist theory in order to explain the criminalisation of ethnic minorities by the media and the state.

Stuart Hall's work, Policing the Crisis (1979), examined the moral panic that developed over the crime of mugging in the 1970s. Despite sensationalist newspaper reports that claimed there was an increase in mugging, particularly among young black men in London, Hall's own research showed that it was actually growing more slowly than in the previous decade.

Hall argued that a moral panic over black criminality at the time created a diversion away from the wider economic crisis - 'black youths out of control' being the headlines rather than 'Capitalism in Crisis' - hence the title of the book 'Policing the Crisis' (of Capitalism).

Hall broke his analysis down into several stages - focusing firstly on how Capitalism caused crime, and then on how the media, state and the police responded to this, and finally on the further reaction of the criminalised black youth:

Capitalism faced 'legitimation crisis' after economic recession in 70s

Recession led to further social and economic marginalisation of black youth = increase in street robbery

Media picked up on robbings

Government responded by putting more police in street areas with high crime

Higher arrest rates, reported by media

'End consequence' - attention of public is focused on black criminality, rather than problems within capitalist society, which both causes crime and then further criminalises minority groups

Age Inequalities

• The elderly act as a reserve army of labour in a capitalist society (Phillipson)

• Individuals are kept in a false consciousness about their exploited position (Gramsci)

• The elderly are forced to become dependent to create space in the labour market for young, productive workers (Phillipson and Townsend)

• The capitalist class manipulates the elderly into retiring and uses them as a scapegoat for societal issues (Vincent)

Phillipson (Age)

The elderly act as a reserve army of labour in a capitalist society.

Marx stated a reserve army of labour was a necessary part of capitalism. The basis of the idea that some members of society are a secondary source of labour.

Groups such as the young and the elderly are often bought in as temporary or flexible labour. In society there is a growing market of 'zero-hour contracts' where employees are only given work when available, but have to be free to work regardless and benefits such as pensions or sick pay are not provided.

Of course, those in the reserve for work category take up these contracts, such as unemployed youth or elderly people looking to continue work to bring in some income post-retirement. Phillipson claimed that the elderly have historically been used as a reserve army of labour , but this role has grown in recent years. So age inequality can be seen as something constructed by the Bourgeoisie.

Gramsci (Age)

Individuals are kept in a false consciousness about their exploited position.