Marx's theory of class

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Marx's theory of class is a central element of Marxist thought, referring to the social stratification and conflict that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels argued was a defining feature of human history and particularly acute under capitalism. For Marx, a class is a group of people defined by their relationship to the means of production—the facilities, tools, land, and resources by which a society's goods are produced. He posited that the history of class society (that is all society in which classes and a structure of class have existed) is fundamentally a story of class conflict, in which the ruling class, which owns and controls the means of production, exploits the subordinate classes who do not. In capitalist society, Marx identified two primary classes: the bourgeoisie (the capitalist class), which owns the means of production, and the much larger proletariat (the working class), which must sell its own labor power to survive. This relationship is inherently exploitative, as the capitalists...

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