History 301/Spring 2000

Discussion and Study Questions for Theories of Class

(readings from Marx-Engels and Weber in Joyce, ed. Classes)

I. Definitions and keywords

class and class consciousness
status
power
bourgeoisie
proletariat
relations of production

II. Marx and Engels

1. How, according to Marx and Engels, have class relations become simplified? What are the results? What role is played in the simplification of class relations by the Industrial Revolution (and what do they mean by that term)?

2. What is the impact of industrialization on the class of proletarians, both in the aggregate and as individuals?

3. What is the difference between "class in itself" and "class for itself"? (p. 29)

4. "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness" (p. 30). What does this mean? Do you agree? What are some examples? Some counter-examples?

5. Why is the proletarian family distinct from the bourgeois family? Is this stated as a positive thing or a neutral fact?

III. Weber

6. What factors affect the behavior of a class?

7. What distinction does Weber make between consumption and production, or between struggles over consumption and over production?

8. What is the relationship of status group to class? Where does status come from? Where does class?

9. Where do parties (politics) fit?

IV. Class Theory

10. What is the engine that drives class formation? For Marx-Engels? For Weber?

11. How do the ideas about class reflected in each of these readings affect our ways of thinking about the experience of workers. Is class something abstract? In what way might it be historicized?

12. What role is there for human agency in the theories of class of these writers?