Classes in Marxian Theory

Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff

Review of Radical Political Economics, 1981, vol. 13, issue 4, 1-18

Abstract: We argue that Marx provided the basis for a far more complex class analysis of social formations than has been recognized. We find this analysis to be consistent neither with the two-class approach long prevalent in the Marxian tradition nor with recent critiques of that approach by Poulantzas, Wright, and others. Marx's most basic philosophic concepts and his value analysis are shown to imply a differentiation between what he terms the fundamental classes (performers and appropriators of surplus labor) and we term the subsumed classes (recipients of distributed shares of the appropriated surplus labor). This differentiated class analysis, in turn, suggests certain adjustments in Marxian value analysis. It also suggests a resolution to the debates over productive/unproductive labor and over the defmiition of "the working class." Finally, we demonstrate how such a class analysis of any concrete social situation requires the specification of the precise fundamental and subsumed classes involved and the contradictions, alliances, and struggles within and between them. We analyze briefly several topics (e.g., the state, household, and capital accumulation) to illustrate the explanatory power of our formulation of Marx's concepts of class.

Date: 1981
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://rrp.sagepub.com/content/13/4/1.abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:13:y:1981:i:4:p:1-18

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Review of Radical Political Economics from Union for Radical Political Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().