Topic > Marxist theory of social classes: bourgeoisie and proletariat

According to Marx and Engels "the history of every existing society up to now is the history of class struggles". The oppressor and the oppressed find themselves in constant opposition to each other, in an uninterrupted struggle, which each time ends in a revolution of the entire society or with the common ruin of the contending classes. In the past there were complicated social structures that formed a multiple gradation of social rank. The modern communal society that evolved from the ruins of feudal society did not eliminate class antagonisms, but instead established new classes, new conditions of oppression, and new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayThe era of the bourgeoisie possesses a distinctive feature, which has simplified class antagonism, and society is increasingly dividing itself directly into two hostile classes facing each other, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. After the discovery of America, the feudal system of industry was no longer sufficient, manufacturing systems took its place. Meanwhile, markets continue to grow as demand increases. Current and machines have revolutionized industrial production and the place of manufacturing has been occupied by the gigantic Modern Industry, in place of the industrial middle class, of industrial millionaires, leaders of entire industrial armies, the so-called modern bourgeois. Modern industry created the world market, to which the discovery of America opened the way and gave immense development to trade, navigation and land communications. In turn this development reacted on the expansion of industry and as industry, commerce, navigation and railways expanded, the bourgeoisie increased its capital, which developed by relegating every class handed down from the Middle Ages to the background. The modern bourgeoisie is the product of a long cycle of development of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and exchange. Since the foundation of modern industry the bourgeoisie has conquered the modern representative state. They played an important role in the revolutionary era. They resolved personal value into exchange value and in place of the innumerable and indefensible freedoms granted and established a single inconceivable freedom, known as free trade. The bourgeoisie has torn the sentimental veil of the family, reducing the family relationship to a mere monetary relationship. . They cannot prevail without constantly revolutionizing the tools of production as well as the relations of production and with them the relations of society. The need for an ever-expanding market for its products pursues the bourgeoisie throughout the world. It must nestle, settle and make connections everywhere. During its hundred-year rule, the bourgeoisie created forces more massive and productive than those of all previous generations combined. As time passes, a crisis occurs in the existence of the entire bourgeois society, a large part of the existing and already created productive forces are destroyed, this causes an epidemic of overproduction. Industry and commerce also seem destroyed because there is too much civilization, too many livelihoods, too much industry and also too much commerce. This endangers bourgeois property, which in turn affects bourgeois society. Now the working class, also known as proletariats, has developed a class of workers who live only as long as they find work, and who find work only as long as their labor increases capital. These workers must sell themselves piece by piece because they are considered a commodity like any other article of commerce and trade.