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Class conflict 1

Class conflict

Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) demonstration in New York, 11 April

1914

Class conflict, frequently referred to as

class warfare or class struggle, is the

tension or antagonism which exists in

society due to competing socioeconomic

interests and desires between people of 

different classes.

Class conflict can take many different

forms: direct violence, such as wars fought

for resources and cheap labor; indirect

violence, such as deaths from poverty,

starvation, illness or unsafe working

conditions; coercion, such as the threat of 

losing a job or pulling an importantinvestment; or ideology, either intentionally

(as with books and articles promoting capitalism) or unintentionally (as with the promotion of consumerism through

advertising). Additionally, political forms of class conflict exist; legally or illegally lobbying or bribing government

leaders for passage of partisan desirable legislation including labor laws, tax codes, consumer laws, acts of congress

or other sanction, injunction or tariff. The conflict can be open, as with a lockout aimed at destroying a labor union,

or hidden, as with an informal slowdown in production protesting low wages or unfair labor practices.

Usage

Teamsters wild-cat strike in Minneapolis, 1934

In the past the term Class conflict  was aterm used mostly by socialists, who define a

class by its relationship to the means of 

production  — such as factories, land and

machinery. From this point of view, the

social control of production and labor is a

contest between classes, and the division of 

these resources necessarily involves conflict

and inflicts harm. (Marx, 1848) However, in

more contemporary times this term is

striking chords and finding new definitionamongst capitalistic societies in the United

States and other Westernized countries.

Marxists argue that class conflict plays a

pivotal role in the history of class-based

hierarchical systems such as capitalism and

feudalism.[1] Marxists refer to its overt

manifestations as class war, a struggle whose resolution in favor of the working class is viewed by them as inevitable

under plutocratic capitalism.

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Class conflict 3

shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and

experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder

term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.[11]

 —Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Edward Carrington - January 16, 1787 

Warren Buffett, USA

Philanthropist and billionaire Warren

Buffett acknowledging war on the

middle-class in the USA

In 2012, and the years leading up to it, renowned investor and philanthropist

Warren Buffett has often found himself on the list of the top 10 wealthiest

men in the world. In a November 2006 interview in The New York Times,

Buffett stated that "[t]here’  s class warfare all right, but it ’  s my class, the rich

class, that ’  s making war, and we’  re winning."[] Later Warren gave away more

than half of his fortune to charitable causes through a program developed by

himself and computer software tycoon Bill Gates.[] In 2011 Buffett called on

government legislators to, "...stop coddling the super rich."[12]

Max Weber, Germany

Max Weber (1864 – 1920) agrees with the fundamental ideas of Karl Marx

about the economy causing class conflict, but claims that class conflict can

also stem from prestige and power.[13] Weber argues that classes come from

the different property locations. Different locations can largely affect one's

class by their education and the people they associate with.[13] He also states

that prestige results in different status groupings. This prestige is based upon the social status of one's parents.

Prestige is an attributed value and many times cannot be changed. Weber states that power differences led to the

formation of political parties.[13] Weber disagrees with Marx about the formation of classes. While Marx believes

that groups are similar due to their economic status, Weber argues that classes are largely formed by social status.[13]

Weber does not believe that communities are formed by economic standing, but by similar social prestige. [13] Weber

does recognize that there is a relationship between social status, social prestige and classes.[13]

Muslim societies (Arab Spring)

Numerous factors have culminated in what's known as the Arab Spring. Agenda behind the civil unrest, and the

ultimate overthrow of totalitarian governments throughout the Middle-East included issues such as dictatorship or

absolute monarchy, human rights violations, government corruption (demonstrated by Wikileaks diplomatic

cables),[14] economic decline, unemployment, extreme poverty, and a number of demographic structural factors, [15]

such as a large percentage of educated but dissatisfied youth within the population.[16] Also, some, like Slovenianphilosopher Slavoj Žižek attribute the 2009 Iranian protests as one of the reasons behind the Arab Spring. [17] The

catalysts for the revolts in all Northern African and Persian Gulf countries have been the concentration of wealth in

the hands of autocrats in power for decades, insufficient transparency of its redistribution, corruption, and especially

the refusal of the youth to accept the status quo.[18][19] as they involve threats to food security worldwide and prices

that approach levels of the 2007 – 2008 world food price crisis.[20] Amnesty International singled out Wikileaks'

release of US diplomatic cables as a catalyst for the revolts.[21]

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Class conflict 4

The Soviet Union and similar societies

A variety of predominantly Marxist and anarchist thinkers argue that class conflict exists in Soviet-style societies.

These arguments describe as a class the bureaucratic stratum formed by the ruling political party (known as the

Nomenklatura in the Soviet Union) — sometimes termed a "new class".[22] —that controls the means of production.

This ruling class is viewed to be in opposition to the remainder of society, generally considered the proletariat. This

type of system is referred to by its detractors as state capitalism, state socialism, bureaucratic collectivism or newclass societies. (Cliff; Ðilas 1957) Marxism was such a predominate ideological power in what became the Soviet

Union since a Marxist group known as the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party was formed in the country, prior

to 1917. This party soon divided into two main factions; the Bolsheviks, who were led by Vladimir Lenin, and the

Mensheviks, who were led by Julius Martov.

Marxist perspectives

Karl Marx, 1875

Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) was a German born philosopher who lived the

majority of his adult life in England. In The Communist Manifesto, Karl

Marx argued that a class is formed when its members achieve classconsciousness and solidarity.[13] This largely happens when the

members of a class become aware of their exploitation and the conflict

with another class. A class will then realize their shared interests and a

common identity. According to Marx, a class will then take action

against those that are exploiting the lower classes.

What Marx points out is that members of each of the two main classes

have interests in common. These class or collective interests are in

conflict with those of the other class as a whole. This in turn leads to

conflict between individual members of different classes.

Marxist analysis of society identifies two main social groups:

•  Labour (the proletariat or workers) includes anyone who earns their

livelihood by selling their labor power and being paid a wage or

salary for their labor time. They have little choice but to work for

capital, since they typically have no independent way to survive.

• Capital (the bourgeoisie or capitalists) includes anyone who gets their income not from labor as much as from the

surplus value they appropriate from the workers who create wealth. The income of the capitalists, therefore, is

based on their exploitation of the workers (proletariat).

Not all class struggle is violent or necessarily radical, as with strikes and lockouts. Class antagonism may instead be

expressed as low worker morale, minor sabotage and pilferage, and individual workers' abuse of petty authority andhoarding of information. It may also be expressed on a larger scale by support for socialist or populist parties. On the

employers' side, the use of union busting legal firms and the lobbying for anti-union laws are forms of class struggle.

Not all class struggle is a threat to capitalism, or even to the authority of an individual capitalist. A narrow struggle

for higher wages by a small sector of the working-class, what is often called "economism", hardly threatens the

status quo. In fact, by applying the craft-union tactics of excluding other workers from skilled trades, an economistic

struggle may even weaken the working class as a whole by dividing it. Class struggle becomes more important in the

historical process as it becomes more general, as industries are organized rather than crafts, as workers' class

consciousness rises, and as they self-organize away from political parties. Marx referred to this as the progress of the

proletariat from being a class "in itself", a position in the social structure, to being one "for itself",an active and

conscious force that could change the world.

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Class conflict 5

Marx largely focuses on the capital industrialist society as the source of social stratification, which ultimately results

in class conflict.[13] He states that capitalism creates a division between classes which can largely be seen in

manufacturing factories. The proletariat, is separated from the bourgeoisie because production becomes a social

enterprise. Contributing to their separation is the technology that is in factories. Technology de-skills and alienates

workers as they are no longer viewed as having a specialized skill.[13] Another effect of technology is a homogenous

workforce that can be easily replaceable. Marx believed that this class conflict would result in the overthrow of the

bourgeoisie and that the private property would be communally owned. [13] The mode of production would remain,

but communal ownership would eliminate class conflict.[13]

Even after a revolution, the two classes would struggle, but eventually the struggle would recede and the classes

dissolve. As class boundaries broke down, the state apparatus would wither away. According to Marx, the main task

of any state apparatus is to uphold the power of the ruling class; but without any classes there would be no need for a

state. That would lead to the classless, stateless communist society.

Non-Marxist perspectives

Social commentators, historians and socialist theorists had commented on class struggle for some time before Marx,

as well as the connection between class struggle, property, and law: Augustin Thierry, [23] François Guizot,

François-Auguste Mignet and Adolphe Thiers. The Physiocrats, David Ricardo, and after Marx, Henry George noted

the inelastic supply of land and argued that this created certain privileges (economic rent) for landowners. According

to the historian Arnold Toynbee, stratification along lines of class appears only within civilizations, and furthermore

only appears during the process of a civilization's decline while not characterizing the growth phase of a

civilization.[24]

Proudhon, in What is Property? (1840) states that "certain classes do not relish investigation into the pretended titles

to property, and its fabulous and perhaps scandalous history."[25]

Fascists have often opposed class struggle and instead have attempted to appeal to the working class while promising

to preserve the existing social classes and have proposed an alternative concept known as class collaboration.

Class vs. race struggle

Jobless Black workers in the heat of the Philadelphia summer, 1973

According to Michel Foucault, in the

19th century the essentialist notion of 

the "race" was incorporated by racists,

biologists, and eugenicists, who gave it

the modern sense of "biological race"

which was then integrated to "state

racism". On the other hand, Foucaultclaims that when Marxists developed

their concept of "class struggle", they

were partly inspired by the older,

non-biological notions of the "race"

and the "race struggle". In a letter to

Friedrich Engels in 1882 Karl Marx

wrote: You know very well where we

 found our idea of class struggle; we

 found it in the work of the French

historians who talked about the race struggle.

[26]

For Foucault, the theme of social war provides the overridingprinciple that connects class and race struggle.[27]

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Class conflict 6

Moses Hess, an important theoretician of the early socialist movement, in his "Epilogue" to "Rome and Jerusalem"

argued that "the race struggle is primary, the class struggle secondary... With the cessation of race antagonism, the

class struggle will also come to a standstill. The equalization of all classes of society will necessarily follow the

emancipation of all the races, for it will ultimately become a scientific question of social economics."[28]

In modern times, emerging schools of thought in the U.S. and other countries hold the opposite to be true. [29] They

argue that the race struggle is less important, because the primary struggle is that of class since labor of all races facethe same problems and injustices. The main example given is the United States, which has the most politically weak

working class of any developed nation, where race is held as a distraction that has kept labor divided and

unorganized.[30]

Chronology

Riots with a basically nationalist background are not included.

Classical antiquity

•• Conflict of the Orders•• Roman Servile Wars

Middle Ages

• Ciompi in Florence 1378

• Jacquerie - France 14th century

Modern era

The rebellion of György Dózsa in 1514 spread

like lightning in the Kingdom of Hungary where

hundreds of manor-houses and castles were burnt

and thousands of the gentry killed.

• German Peasants' War since 1524

• English Civil War (1642 – 1651) (Diggers)

• French Revolution since 1789[31]

• Canut revolts in Lyon since 1831 - often considered as the

beginning of the modern labor movement

• Revolutions of 1848 France (et al.)

• Paris Commune 1871

• Donghak Peasant Revolution in Korea 1893/94

•• 1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt

• Mexican Revolution since 1910

• October Revolution in 1917

• Spartacist uprising in Germany 1919• Seattle General Strike of 1919 in Seattle

• General Strike of 1919 in Spain

• Winnipeg General Strike 1919

• Ruhr Uprising in Germany 1920

• Kronstadt rebellion 1921

• Hamburg Uprising 1923

•• 1926 United Kingdom general strike

•• 1934 West Coast waterfront strike

• Spanish Civil War 1936-1939

•• Uprising of 1953 in East Germany• Cuban Revolution 1953-1959

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Class conflict 7

• Hungarian Revolution of 1956 - foundation of worker's councils

•• Poznań 1956 protests

• Mai 68 in France

• Battle of Valle Giulia 1968 Italy

• Wild cats in Western Germany in 1969

• Winter of Discontent 1978/79

• UK miners' strike (1984 – 1985)

•• 1993 Russian constitutional crisis

• 2006 Oaxaca protests in Mexico

•• 2008 Greek riots

•• 2010 Kyrgyzstani uprising

•• Egyptian Revolution of 2011

•• 2011 England riots

References

[2][2] Frederick Engels, German Peasants War, marxists.org[3][3] Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid

[4] The Five, Fox News Channel, April 11, 2012.

[5]  America's Newsroom, Fox News Channel, April 11, 2012.

[6] Special Report with Bret Baier , Fox News Channel, April 12, 2012.

[7]  America Live, Fox News Channel, April 12, 2012.

[9] Greg Palast, Burn baby burn http:/   /  www. gregpalast. com/  burn-baby-burnthe-california-celebrity-fires/ 

[13] Blackwell Reference Online. (http:/   /  www. blackwellreference. com.  libproxy.  lib. unc.  edu/  subscriber/  uid=834/ 

tocnode?id=g9781405124331_chunk_g97814051243319_ss1-50). Retrieved November 24, 2008.

[19] The Other Arab Spring (http:/   /  www. nytimes. com/  2012/  04/  08/  opinion/  sunday/  friedman-the-other-arab-spring.  html) April 7, 2012

Thomas L. Friedman New York Times Op Ed

[21] Peter Walker Amnesty International hails WikiLeaks and Guardian as Arab spring 'catalysts' (http:/   /  www. guardian.  co. uk/  world/  2011/ 

may/  

13/  

amnesty-international-wikileaks-arab-spring?), in The Guardian, Friday 13 May 2011[23] Augustin Thierry: Recueil des monuments inédits de l'histoire du Tiers état (http:/   /  books.  google.  lu/  books?id=c5A1lIZb5H8C&

dq=Histoire+  du+ Tiers+ Ãtat& source=gbs_navlinks_s)

[25] Pierre Proudhon, What is Property?, chapter 2, remark 2.

[26] Quoted in Society Must be Defended by Michel Foucault (trans. David Macey), London: Allen Lane, Penguin Press (1976, 2003), p. 79

[27] Ann Laura Stoler, Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault's "History of Sexuality" and the Colonial Order of Things , Duke University

Press (1995), p.71-72

[28] quoted in Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews by Jonathan Frankel, Cambridge University Press (1981), p.

22.

[30][30] The Tavis Smiley Show/NPR, various interviews.

[31][31] see Daniel Guérin, Class Struggle in the First French Republic, Pluto Press 1977

Further reading• Class & Class Conflict in Industrial Society,Ralf Dahrendorf, Stanford University Press, 1959, trade paperback,

336 pages, ISBN 0-8047-0561-5 (also available in hardback as ISBN 0-8047-0560-7 and ISBN 1-131-15573-4).

•• The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future and What It Will Take to Win It Back

Jeff Faux, John Wiley and Sons. 2006. ISBN 978-0-471-69761-9

•• Li Yi. 2005. The Structure and Evolution of Chinese Social Stratification. University Press of America. ISBN

0-7618-3331-5

• The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present , ed. by Immanuel Ness, Malden,

MA [etc.]: Wiley & Sons, 2009.

• Louis Adamic, Dynamite: The story of class violence in America, Revised Edition (1934)

• Leo Zeilig (Editor), Class Struggle and Resistance in Africa, New Clarion Press, 2002.

•• Gerson Antell/Walter Harris, "Economics For Everybody", Amsco School Publications, 2007

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Class conflict 8

• Mathew Maavak, " Class Warfare, Anarchy and the Future Society (http:/   /  www.  jfs. tku. edu. tw/  17-2/  A02.

pdf)", Journal of Futures Studies, December 2012, 17(2): 15-36

External links

• 2008-2010 Study: CEOs Who Fired Most Workers Earned Highest Pay (http:/   /  www. democracynow. org/  2010/ 

9/  3/  study_ceos_who_fired_most_workers) - video report by Democracy Now!

• Blair Community Center and Museum (http:/   /  www.blairmountainmuseum. org/  ) to help preserve and

understand the largest labor uprising in US history —the Battle of Blair Mountain.

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Article Sources and Contributors 9

Article Sources and ContributorsClass conflict  Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=556628036 Contributors: Adelson Velsky Landis, Ahoerstemeier, Andycjp, AntelopeInSearchOfTruth, Apollonius 1236,Atlan, AyeSpy, Bjhguerin, Bookandcoffee, BradBeattie, Brian.ellis, Brothernight, BullRangifer, Cadr, Chiton magnificus, Ckhartman, Cogiati, Cybercobra, DVdm, Dechrwr, Doctors withoutsuspenders, Donnachadelong, Dpv, Dsp13, DuaneCampbell1, Ed Poor, Edison, Elmoro, Epbr123, Erianna, EricEnfermero, Fifelfoo, Floridan, Frankie1969, Fredbauder, Freedomwarrior,Fuhghettaboutit, Gobonobo, Ground Zero, Idlskk, JasonMacker, Jdevine, Jean-Jacques Georges, Jim1138, Jmv12387, Johnfreez, Kate, Kezmaniac, KillerChihuahua, Kingpomba, Knucmo2,Lapsed Pacifist, Lefty, Legoktm, Liquidswords, Loremaster, Lycurgus, Malhonen, Materialscientist, Maurreen, Max rspct, Meclee, Meddlecascade, Mediran, Mesoderm, Mlessard, Mojowiha, Mrpand, NawlinWiki, Neg, Nikodemos, Ningauble, North911, Nychelse, Ohnoitsjamie, Pdcook, PhilLiberty, Phirosiberia, Prashanthns, R'n'B, RadioActive, Raggz, Rangoon11, Redthoreau, Robert

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