If you ask a modern sociologist how many classes there are, they will answer six, or\nmaybe three, or twelve, or any other number that takes their fancy. Many definitions of\n‘class’ are offered. They are usually spurious and unhelpful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our society is split up into two classes. There is one Working Class and one Capitalist\nClass. The Working Class has to work in order to earn a living, the Capitalist Class has\nenough wealth to live off. If you wonder what class you are in, just ask yourself whether\nyou could live off your investments if you stopped work tomorrow. There is no question\nthat capitalist society can be split up in this way. There are some people in each class.\nOf course, most people are in the working class and the capitalist class is only a tiny\nproportion of the population. Yet, from the point of view of understanding capitalism,\nthey are a very important proportion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So what is the reason for there being only two classes? The answer is simple, that’s all\nyou need to understand the way capitalism works. Class explains how we got into the state\nwe are in. It explains how society has developed and changed from slave-society, through\nfeudalism into capitalism. One class with a particular economic interest has taken control\nover the economic base of society from another class. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But class does not only explain how we got into the mess of capitalism – it also\nexplains how capitalism works. The main fact of most peoples lives is work – work in the\nhome to support a wage-slave or paid work in order to live. Why? It hasn’t always been\ntrue. In feudal society serfs spent their time working on the land, producing food that\nthey could then eat. Of course, if produce had to be given to the lord, the feudal serf\nhad big problems, though these were very different problems from the modern wage slave. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Class also explains capitalism’s disasters: war is when we have to fight to protect the\ninterests of the capitalist class, famine is when the capitalist class can’t make profit\nfrom feeding us, unemployment is when the capitalist class gets more from leaving us out\nof work to keep wages down than from giving us jobs, and so on. So there are now two\nclasses because that’s what is needed to explain how we arrived at capitalism and also how\ncapitalism evolved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most important reason, however, why there are only two classes is neither of these\ntwo reasons. It is the fact that it can explain how we can get out of the mess of\ncapitalism. We the, working class, have an interest in getting rid of the sick capitalist\nsystem that we are forced to live in. By recognising that only class conscious activity\ncan establish a classless society, we see the way in which socialism can be established.\nBy combining together as a class we can transform society. Unless we do we will be stuck\nwith capitalism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Politicians’ claims that we have a ‘classless’ society are obviously misleading and if\nthey were honest they would admit it. The sociologists are wrong because they treat\ncapitalism as if it were here forever and will continue forever. The socialist case, that\nthere are only two classes, remains as correct and important as ever becauseit shows there\nis no other way in which we can stop war, famine, poverty and unemployment. We need class\nconsciousness and for that we need to be aware that we are the working class and they are\nthe capitalist class. There are the only two classes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Author: Gidon Cohen <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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