The concept of social class is directly inherited Karl Marx (it is not him which discovered this concept but it is him which introduced the concept of '' fight '' of the classes, which will be taken again thereafter in policy). It results from this an analysis from the social conflicts like fights, conflicts of interests, between dominant classes and dominated classes . This design of the company was inspired by the study of the Histoire according to a methodology, the historical Matérialisme. These oppositions, these conflicts of interests, rise from a design Dialectique: any thing has its opposite, even exists only compared to its opposite: Dominating/dominated, Main/Slave, Lord/Serf, Capitalist/proletarian,… These reports/ratios of Domination/Soumission cross the ages thanks to the transmission of the social position by heritage.

This original definition was largely modernized by the Marxists of the 20th century, who define a social class as today a Classe of equivalence for a relation Sociale . For example, the relation " to belong to the Socioprofessional category ouvriers" defines the social class of the workmen as the segment of population (the whole of the individuals) who check this relation (which belongs to this Socioprofessional category).

Statistical reality or sociological reality?

Because of the political implications of the Marxist definition, the modern Anthropologie tends to prefer the concept of Segment of population starting from investigations and multicriteria analyzes.

The social classes remain nevertheless a statistical reality , if one uses simplified criteria of differentiation allowing a hierarchisation of the populations. It is enough to note different the GCV (professions and socioprofessional categories) established by INSEE to give an account of it: they gather between them the higher professions, on another side the workmen, etc This classification is done on several criteria, among which is taken into account the representation that the population has of a population (with the statistical direction of the term).

Apart from these distinctions by statistical criteria hiérarchisables, a social class is a sociological Réalité (conscience of group, Marxist concept of class consciousness)) when it is animated by

  • a feeling of membership of the aforementioned class
  • and will to make survive this class.

The existence even of social classes is sometimes disputed, with the reason that a social class would require a class consciousness to be defined.

How much Marx classes did it distinguish?

Karl Marx in its analyzes of the industrialized company highlighted the existence of social classes, groupings of individuals partagant of the shared interests. The number of these social classes was not strictly defined. That depends on its works and the time of their drafting. The number considered varied from three at Sept. In its work the class struggle in France , it definite seven social classes:

  • financial aristocracy
  • industrial middle-class
  • commercial middle-class
  • the lower middle class
  • the farming community
  • the proletariat
  • the lumpen proletariat

But Marx always considered that the two most important classes were the Prolétariat (employee), and the capitalist Bourgeoisie (owner of the means of production), which are the two antagonistic poles actors of the Class struggle in the industrialized company. In fact these two classes developed, numerically especially the proletariat (more than 80% of the credits today in France), whereas other classes, like the farming community, largely decreased.

Bibliographical resources:

Bouffartigue (Paul) (to dir.), the return of the social classes, Paris, the Argument, 2004

See too

Internal bonds

External notes and bonds

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