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| {{Short description|Concept in political and social science}}
| | #REDIRECT [[Class struggle]] |
| {{redirect-several|Class war|Class Struggle}}
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| [[File:Pyramid of Capitalist System.png|thumb|upright|300px|The [[Pyramid of Capitalist System]] visualizes and explains class conflict.]]
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| {{Revolution sidebar}}
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| In political science, the term '''class conflict''' (also '''class struggle''', '''class warfare''', '''capital-labour conflict''') identifies the political tension and economic antagonism that exist among the [[social class]]es of [[society]], because of [[socioeconomics|socioeconomic]] competition for resources among the social classes, between the [[Affluence|rich]] and the [[poor]]. In the political and economic philosophies of [[Karl Marx]] and [[Mikhail Bakunin]], class struggle is a central tenet and a practical means for effecting radical sociopolitical changes for the social majority, the [[working class]].<ref>“class conflict”, ''The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought'' (1999) Allan Bullock and Stephen Trombley, Eds., p. 127.</ref>
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| The forms of class conflict include direct violence, such as wars, for access to and control of natural resources and labour; assassinations and [[revolution]]; indirect violence, such as death from poverty and starvation, illness and unsafe working conditions; economic coercion, such as the threat of unemployment and [[capital flight]], the withdrawal of investment capital; and ideologically, by way of [[:Category:Political literature|political literature]].{{cn|date=March 2023}}
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| The political forms of class warfare include lobbying (legal and illegal) and bribery of legislators. The social-class conflict can be direct, as in a dispute between labour and management such as an employer's [[Lockout (industry)|industrial lockout]] of their employees in effort to weaken the [[bargaining power]] of the corresponding [[trade union]]; or indirect such as a workers' [[slowdown]] of production in protest against [[unfair labor practices]], low wages, and poor [[outline of working time and conditions|working conditions]].{{cn|date=March 2023}}
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| == Usage ==
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| [[File:battle strike 1934.jpg|thumb|Truck drivers fight the police in the course of the [[Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934]]]]
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| [[File:Storming the bastille 4 - 2.jpg|thumb|Heads of aristocrats on pikes]]
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| [[File:Choubapi.jpg|thumb|Farmer confronting landlord during [[Land Reform Movement (China)|China's Land Reform Movement]]]]
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| In political science, [[socialists]] and [[Marxists]] use the term ''class conflict'' to define a [[social class]] by its relationship to the [[means of production]], such as factories, agricultural land, and industrial machinery. The social control of labor and of the production of goods and services is a political contest between the social classes.
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| The anarchist [[Mikhail Bakunin]] said that the class struggles of the working class, the peasantry, and the working poor were central to realizing a [[social revolution]] to depose and replace the ruling class, and the creation of [[libertarian socialism]].
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| [[Marx's theory of history]] proposes that class conflict is decisive in the history of economic systems organized by hierarchies of social class such as [[capitalism]] and [[feudalism]].<ref>{{cite book |title=The Communist Manifesto |last=Marx |first=Karl |display-authors=etal |author-link=Karl Marx |year=1848 |publisher=www.marxists.org |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm }}</ref> 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 the [[plutocratic]] capitalism.
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| ==Oligarchs versus commoners==
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| Where societies are socially divided based on status, wealth, or control of social production and distribution, class structures arise and are thus coeval with civilization itself. This has been well documented since at least European [[classical antiquity]] such as the [[Conflict of the Orders]] and [[Spartacus]], among others.<ref>''[[The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World]]'' G.E.M. DE Ste. Croix Cornell University Press 1981 {{ISBN|0801495970}}</ref>
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| ===Thucydides===
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| In his [[History of the Peloponnesian War|''History'']], [[Thucydides]] describes a civil war in the city of [[Korkyra (polis)|Corcyra]] between the pro-[[Athens]] party of the common people and their pro-[[Corinth]] [[oligarchy|oligarchic]] opposition. Near the climax of the struggle, "the oligarchs in full rout, fearing that the victorious commons might assault and carry the arsenal and put them to the sword, fired the houses round the market-place and the lodging-houses, in order to bar their advance."<ref>Thucydides. [http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.3.third.html ''The History of the Peloponnesian War'']. Book Three, Chapter X, Translated by Richard Crawley. [http://classics.mit.edu/ The Internet Classics Archive].</ref>
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| The historian [[Tacitus]] would later recount a similar class conflict in the city of [[Seleucia]], in which disharmony between the oligarchs and the commoners would typically lead to each side calling on outside help to defeat the other.<ref>Cornelius Tacitus. [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Tacitus/Annals/6B*.html ''Annals''], Book VI, Section 42, Translated by John Jackson. [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/home.html LacusCurtius].</ref> Thucydides believed that "as long as poverty gives men the courage of necessity, [...] so long will the impulse never be wanting to drive men into danger."<ref>Thucydides. [http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.3.third.html ''The History of the Peloponnesian War'']. Book Three, Chapter IX.</ref>
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| ===Aristotle===
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| In the [[Politics (Aristotle)|''Politics'']], [[Aristotle]] describes the basic dimensions of class war: "Again, because the rich are generally few in number, while the poor are many, they appear to be antagonistic, and as the one or the other prevails they form the government.".<ref>Aristotle. [http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.2.two.html ''Politics''], Book Four, Part IV.</ref> Aristotle also commented that "poverty is the parent of revolution",<ref>Aristotle. [http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.2.two.html ''Politics''], Book Two, Part VI. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. [http://classics.mit.edu/ Internet Classics Archive].</ref> but did not consider poverty to be the only cause of revolution. In a society where property is distributed equally throughout the community, "the nobles will be dissatisfied, because they think themselves worthy of more than an equal share of honors; and this is often found to be a cause of [[sedition]] and revolution."<ref>Aristotle. [http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.2.two.html ''Politics''], Book Two, Part VII.</ref> Moreover, Aristotle said that it was wrong for the poor to seize the wealth of the rich and divide it among themselves, but he said that it is wrong for the rich to impoverish the multitude.<ref>Aristotle. [http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.3.three.html ''Politics''], Book Three, Part X.</ref>
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| Moreover, Aristotle further discussed a middle way, between laxity and cruelty, in the treatment of [[slavery|slaves]] by their masters, averring that "if not kept in hand, [slaves] are insolent, and think that they are as good as their masters, and, if harshly treated, they hate and conspire against them."<ref>Aristotle. [http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.2.two.html ''Politics''], Book Two, Part IX.</ref>
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| ===Socrates===
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| [[Socrates]] was the first [[Ancient Greek philosophy|Greek philosopher]] to describe class warfare. In the [[Republic (Plato)|''Republic'']], by [[Plato]], Socrates said that "any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other [the city] of the rich; these [cities] are at war with one another."<ref>Plato. [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1497/1497-h/1497-h.htm ''The Republic''], Book IV. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. [[Project Gutenberg]].</ref> Socrates disapproved of [[oligarchy|oligarchies]], in which members of a small class of wealthy property owners take positions of political power in order to dominate the large social class of impoverished commoners; and used the analogy of a [[maritime pilot]], who, like the power-holder in a [[polis]], ought to be chosen for political office for his skill, not for the amount of property he owns.<ref>Plato. [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1497/1497-h/1497-h.htm ''The Republic''], Book VIII.</ref>
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| ===Plutarch===
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| [[File:Amphora olive-gathering BM B226.jpg|thumb|upright|This 6th century Athenian black-figure urn, in the [[British Museum]], depicts the olive harvest. Many farmers, enslaved for debt, would have worked on large estates for their creditors.]]
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| The historian [[Plutarch]] recounts how the Greek people participated in the class warfare between the aristocrats and the common folk. Financially oppressed by their indebtedness to the aristocrats, the mass of Athenians chose [[Solon]] to be the lawgiver to lead them to freedom from their creditors.<ref>Plutarch. [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/674/674-h/674-h.htm ''Lives''], ''Solon''. Translated by John Dryden. [[Project Gutenberg]].</ref> The philosopher [[Hegel|Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]] said that Solon's constitution of the Athenian [[Ecclesia (ancient Greece)|popular assembly]] created a political sphere that balanced the competing socio-economic interests of the social classes of Athens:
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| * The wealthy aristocratic party of the plain
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| * The poor common party of the mountains
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| * The moderate party of the coast<ref>Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, [https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/hegel/history.pdf ''The Philosophy of History''], Part II: 'An antagonism had early arisen between ancient and wealthy families and such as were poorer. Three parties, whose distinction had been grounded on their local position and the mode of life which that position suggested, were then fully recognized. These were, the Pediaeans — inhabitants of the plain, the rich and aristocratic; the Diacrians — mountaineers, cultivators of the vine and olive, and herdsmen, who were the most numerous class; and between the two [in political status and sentiment] the Paralians — inhabitants of the coast, the moderate party. The polity of the state was wavering between Aristocracy and Democracy. Solon effected, by his division into four property-classes, a medium between these opposites.' McMaster University.</ref>
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| Participating in a war among the social classes of Ancient Greece was a dangerous political endeavour. In the book ''Parallel Lives'', Plutarch reported that [[Agis IV|King Agis of Sparta]] said that, "being desirous to raise the people, and to restore the noble and just form of government, now long fallen into disuse, [he] incurred the hatred of the rich and powerful, who could not endure to be deprived of the selfish enjoyment to which they were accustomed."<ref>Plutarch. [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/674/674-h/674-h.htm ''Lives''], ''Agis''.</ref>
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| ==Patricians versus plebeians==
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| It was similarly difficult for the Romans to maintain peace between the upper class, the [[Patrician (ancient Rome)|patricians]], and the lower class, the [[plebs]]. French [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] philosopher [[Montesquieu]] notes that this conflict intensified after the [[overthrow of the Roman monarchy]].<ref>[[Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu]]. [http://oll-resources.s3.amazonaws.com/titles/837/Montesquieu_0171-01_EBk_v6.0.pdf ''The Spirit of Laws'', Volume 1], Book XI, Chapter 13. [[Liberty Fund]].</ref>
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| In ''[[The Spirit of Laws]]'' he lists the four main grievances of the plebs, which were rectified in the years following the deposition of [[Lucius Tarquinius Superbus|King Tarquin]]:
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| * The patricians had much too easy access to positions of public service.
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| * The [[Roman constitution|constitution]] granted the [[Roman consul|consuls]] far too much power.
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| * The plebs were constantly verbally slighted.
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| * The plebs had too little power in their assemblies.<ref>Montesquieu. [http://oll-resources.s3.amazonaws.com/titles/837/Montesquieu_0171-01_EBk_v6.0.pdf ''The Spirit of Laws'', Volume 1], Book XI, Chapter 14.</ref>
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| ===Camillus===
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| The Senate had the ability to give a magistrate the power of [[Roman dictator|dictatorship]], meaning he could bypass public law in the pursuit of a prescribed mandate. Montesquieu explains that the purpose of this institution was to tilt the balance of power in favour of the patricians.<ref>Montesqueiu. [http://oll-resources.s3.amazonaws.com/titles/837/Montesquieu_0171-01_EBk_v6.0.pdf ''The Spirit of Laws'', Volume 1], Book XI, Chapter 16.</ref> However, in an attempt to resolve a conflict between the patricians and the plebs, the dictator [[Marcus Furius Camillus|Camillus]] used his power of dictatorship to coerce the [[Roman Senate|Senate]] into giving the plebs the right to choose one of the two consuls.<ref>Plutarch. [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/674/674-h/674-h.htm ''Lives''], ''Camillus''.</ref>
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| ===Marius===
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| Tacitus believed that the increase in Roman power spurred the patricians to expand their power over more and more cities. This process, he felt, exacerbated pre-existing class tensions with the plebs, and eventually culminated in a civil war between the patrician Sulla and the [[populist]] reformer [[Gaius Marius|Marius]].<ref>Cornelius Tacitus. [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Tacitus/Histories/2A*.html ''The Histories''], Book II, Section 38. Translated by C. H. Moore. [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/home.html LacusCurtius].</ref> Marius had taken the step of enlisting ''[[capite censi]]'', the very lowest class of citizens, into the army, for the first time allowing non-land owners into the [[Roman legion|legions]].
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| ===Tiberius Gracchus===
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| [[File:Tiberius Gracchus.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Tiberius Gracchus]]
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| Of all the notable figures discussed by Plutarch and Tacitus, [[agrarian reform]]er [[Tiberius Gracchus]] may have most challenged the upper classes and most championed the cause of the lower classes. In a speech to the common soldiery, he decried their lowly conditions:
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| <blockquote>"The savage beasts," said he, "in Italy, have their particular dens, they have their places of repose and refuge; but the men who bear arms, and expose their lives for the safety of their country, enjoy in the meantime nothing more in it but the air and light; and having no houses or settlements of their own, are constrained to wander from place to place with their wives and children."</blockquote>
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| Following this observation, he remarked that these men "fought indeed and were slain, but it was to maintain the luxury and the wealth of other men."<ref>Plutarch. [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/674/674-h/674-h.htm ''Lives''], ''Tiberius Gracchus''.</ref> [[Cicero]] believed that Tiberius Gracchus's reforming efforts saved Rome from tyranny, arguing:
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| <blockquote>Tiberius Gracchus (says Cicero) caused the [[Freedman|free-men]] to be admitted into the [[Roman tribe|tribes]], not by the force of his eloquence, but by a word, by a gesture; which had he not effected, the republic, whose drooping head we are at present scarce able to uphold, would not even exist.<ref>In Montesquieu. [http://oll-resources.s3.amazonaws.com/titles/837/Montesquieu_0171-01_EBk_v6.0.pdf ''The Spirit of Laws'', Volume 1], Book XI, Chapter 15.</ref></blockquote>
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| Tiberius Gracchus weakened the power of the Senate by changing the law so that judges were chosen from the ranks of the [[Equites|knights]], instead of their social superiors in the senatorial class.<ref>In Montesquieu. [http://oll-resources.s3.amazonaws.com/titles/837/Montesquieu_0171-01_EBk_v6.0.pdf ''The Spirit of Laws'', Volume 1], Book XI, Chapter 18.</ref>
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| ===Julius Caesar===
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| Contrary to Shakespeare's depiction of [[Julius Caesar]] in the tragedy ''[[Julius Caesar (play)|Julius Caesar]]'', historian [[Michael Parenti]] has argued that Caesar was a populist, not a tyrant. In 2003 [[The New Press]] published Parenti's ''The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome.''<ref name="Kirkus Reviews; June 1, 2003">{{cite web|title=The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/michael-parenti/the-assassination-of-julius-caesar/ |work=[[Kirkus Reviews]] |access-date=12 November 2014|author= <!-- no byline --> |date=1 June 2003}}</ref> ''Publishers Weekly'' said "Parenti [...] narrates a provocative history of the late republic in Rome (100–33 BC) to demonstrate that Caesar's death was the culmination of growing class conflict, economic disparity and political corruption."<ref name="Publishers Weekly; The Assassination of Julius Caesar">{{cite web |title=The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome |url=http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-56584-797-2 |work=Publishers Weekly |access-date=12 November 2011|author= <!-- no byline --> |date=26 May 2003}}</ref> ''Kirkus Reviews'' wrote: "Populist historian Parenti... views ancient Rome’s most famous assassination not as a tyrannicide but as a sanguinary scene in the never-ending drama of class warfare."<ref name="Kirkus Reviews; June 1, 2003"/>
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| ===Coriolanus===
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| [[File:Gavin Hamilton - Coriolanus Act V, Scene III edit2.jpg|thumb|''Coriolanus'', Act V, Scene III. Engraved by James Caldwell from a painting by [[Gavin Hamilton (artist)|Gavin Hamilton]]]]
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| The patrician [[Gaius Marcius Coriolanus|Coriolanus]], whose life [[William Shakespeare]] would later depict in the tragic play ''[[Coriolanus]]'', fought on the other side of the class war, for the patricians and against the plebs. When grain arrived to relieve a serious shortage in the city of Rome, the plebs made it known that they felt it ought to be divided amongst them as a gift, but Coriolanus stood up in the Senate against this idea on the grounds that it would empower the plebs at the expense of the patricians.<ref>Plutarch. [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/674/674-h/674-h.htm ''Lives''], ''Coriolanus''.</ref>
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| This decision would eventually contribute to Coriolanus's undoing when he was impeached following a trial by the [[tribunes of the plebs]]. Montesquieu recounts how Coriolanus castigated the tribunes for trying a patrician, when in his mind no one but a consul had that right, although a law had been passed stipulating that all appeals affecting the life of a citizen had to be brought before the plebs.<ref>Montesquieu. [http://oll-resources.s3.amazonaws.com/titles/837/Montesquieu_0171-01_EBk_v6.0.pdf ''The Spirit of Laws'', Volume 1], Book XI, Chapter 18.</ref>
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| In the first scene of Shakespeare's ''Coriolanus'', a crowd of angry plebs gathers in Rome to denounce Coriolanus as the "chief enemy to the people" and "a very dog to the commonalty" while the leader of the mob speaks out against the patricians thusly:
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| <blockquote>They ne'er cared for us yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear us.<ref>William Shakespeare. [http://shakespeare.mit.edu/coriolanus/full.html ''Coriolanus''], Act I, Scene I. [http://shakespeare.mit.edu/ The Complete Works of William Shakespeare]</ref></blockquote>
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| ===Landlessness and debt===
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| [[File:Secessio plebis.JPG|thumb|left|''The Secession of the People to the Mons Sacer'', engraving by B. Barloccini, 1849]]
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| [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]]-era historian [[Edward Gibbon]] might have agreed with this narrative of Roman class conflict. In the third volume of ''[[The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire]]'', he relates the origins of the struggle:<blockquote>[T]he plebeians of Rome [...] had been oppressed from the earliest times by the weight of debt and usury; and the husbandman, during the term of his military service, was obliged to abandon the cultivation of his farm. The lands of Italy which had been originally divided among the families of free and indigent proprietors, were insensibly purchased or usurped by the avarice of the nobles; and in the age which preceded the fall of the republic, it was computed that only two thousand citizens were possessed of an independent substance.</blockquote> [[Hegel]] similarly states that the 'severity of the patricians their creditors, the debts due to whom they had to discharge by slave-work, drove the plebs to revolts.'<ref>[[Hegel]]. [https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/hegel/history.pdf ''The Philosophy of History''], Part III. [[McMaster University]].</ref> Gibbon also explains how [[Augustus]] facilitated this class warfare by pacifying the plebs with actual [[bread and circuses]].<ref>Edward Gibbon. [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25717/25717-h/25717-h.htm ''History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire''], Volume III, Chapter XXXI, Part 1. [[Project Gutenberg]].</ref>
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| The economist [[Adam Smith]] noted that the poor freeman's lack of land provided a major impetus for Roman [[colonia (Roman)|colonisation]], as a way to relieve class tensions at home between the rich and the landless poor.<ref>[[Adam Smith]]. [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm ''The Wealth of Nations''], Book IV, Chapter 7, Part 1. 'The citizens, therefore, who had no land, had scarce any other means of subsistence but the bounties of the candidates at the annual elections. The tribunes, when they had a mind to animate the people against the rich and the great, put them in mind of the ancient divisions of lands, and represented that law which restricted this sort of private property as the fundamental law of the republic. The people became clamorous to get land, and the rich and the great, we may believe, were perfectly determined not to give them any part of theirs. To satisfy them in some measure, therefore, they frequently proposed to send out a new colony.' [[Project Gutenberg]].</ref> [[Hegel]] described the same phenomenon happening in the impetus to [[Greek colonisation]].<ref>[[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]]. [https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/hegel/history.pdf ''The Philosophy of History''], Part II. 'Nevertheless a part of the poorer classes would not submit to the degradations of poverty, for everyone felt himself a free citizen. The only expedient, therefore, that remained, was colonization. In another country, those who suffered distress in their own, might seek a free soil, and gain a living as free citizens by its cultivation.' [[McMaster University]].</ref>
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| ==Masters versus workmen==
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| Writing in pre-capitalist Europe, both the Swiss [[Philosophes|''philosophe'']] [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]] and the [[Scottish Enlightenment]] philosopher [[Adam Smith]] made significant remarks on the dynamics of class struggle, as did the [[Federalist Party|Federalist]] statesman [[James Madison]] across the Atlantic Ocean. Later, in the age of early industrial capitalism, English political economist [[John Stuart Mill]] and [[German idealist]] [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]] would also contribute their perspectives to the discussion around class conflict between employers and employees.
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| ===Rousseau===
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| [[File:Jean-Jacques Rousseau (painted portrait).jpg|thumb|upright|Rousseau by [[Maurice Quentin de La Tour]], 1753]]
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| It was with bitter sarcasm that [[Rousseau]] outlined the class conflict prevailing in his day between masters and their workmen: <blockquote>You have need of me, because I am rich and you are poor. We will therefore come to an agreement. I will permit you to have the honour of serving me, on condition that you bestow on me the little you have left, in return for the pains I shall take to command you.<ref>[[Rousseau]]. [https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/rousseau-the-social-contract-and-discourses#lf0132_head_069 ''The Social Contract and Discourses''], ''On Political Economy''.</ref></blockquote>
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| Rousseau argued that the most important task of any government is to fight in class warfare on the side of workmen against their masters, who he said engage in exploitation under the pretence of serving society.<ref>[[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]]. [https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/rousseau-the-social-contract-and-discourses#lf0132_head_069 ''The Social Contract and Discourses''], ''On Political Economy''. 'The law, which they thus abuse, serves the powerful at once as a weapon of offence, and as a shield against the weak; and the pretext of the public good is always the most dangerous scourge of the people. What is most necessary, and perhaps most difficult, in government, is rigid integrity in doing strict justice to all, and above all in protecting the poor against the tyranny of the rich.' [[Liberty Fund]].</ref> Specifically, he believed that governments should actively intervene in the economy to abolish poverty and prevent the accrual of too much wealth in the hands of too few men.<ref>[[Rousseau]]. [https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/rousseau-the-social-contract-and-discourses#lf0132_head_069 ''The Social Contract and Discourses''], ''On Political Economy''. 'It is therefore one of the most important functions of government to prevent extreme inequality of fortunes; not by taking away wealth from its possessors, but by depriving all men of means to accumulate it; not by building hospitals for the poor, but by securing the citizens from becoming poor.'</ref>
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| ===Adam Smith===
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| Like Rousseau, the [[classical liberal]] [[Adam Smith]] believed that the amassing of property in the hands of a minority naturally resulted in a disharmonious state of affairs where "the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of many" and "excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade [the rich man's] possessions."<ref>[[Adam Smith]]. [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm ''The Wealth of Nations''], Book V, Chapter 1, Part 2. [[Project Gutenberg]].</ref>
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| Concerning wages, he explained the conflicting class interests of masters and workmen, who he said were often compelled to form [[trade unions]] for fear of suffering starvation wages, as follows:<blockquote>What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little, as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower, the wages of labour.<ref name="gutenberg.org">[[Adam Smith]]. [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm ''An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations''], Book I, Chapter 8. [[Project Gutenberg]].</ref></blockquote>
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| Smith was aware of the main advantage of masters over workmen, in addition to state protection:<blockquote>The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily: and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit, their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work, but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes, the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, or merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks, which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year, without employment. In the long run, the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate.<ref name="gutenberg.org"/></blockquote>
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| Smith observed that, outside of colonies where land is cheap and labour expensive, both the masters who subsist by profit and the masters who subsist by rents will work in tandem to subjugate the class of workmen, who subsist by wages.<ref>Smith. [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm#chap32 ''The wealth of Nations''], Book IV, Chapter 7, Part 2. 'In other countries, rent and profit eat up wages, and the two superior orders of people oppress the inferior one; but in new colonies, the interest of the two superior orders obliges them to treat the inferior one with more generosity and humanity, at least where that inferior one is not in a state of slavery. Waste lands, of the greatest natural fertility, are to be had for a trifle. The increase of revenue which the proprietor, who is always the undertaker, expects from their improvement, constitutes his profit, which, in these circumstances, is commonly very great; but this great profit cannot be made, without employing the labour of other people in clearing and cultivating the land; and the disproportion between the great extent of the land and the small number of the people, which commonly takes place in new colonies, makes it difficult for him to get this labour. He does not, therefore, dispute about wages, but is willing to employ labour at any price.'</ref> Moreover, he warned against blindly legislating in favour of the class of masters who subsist by profit, since, as he said, their intention is to gain as large a share of their respective markets as possible, which naturally results in [[monopoly price]]s or close to them, a situation harmful to the other social classes.<ref>Smith. [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm ''The Wealth of Nations''], Book I, Chapter 11, Part 2. 'The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market, and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can only serve to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens. The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.'</ref>
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| ===James Madison===
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| In his [[Federalist No. 10]], [[James Madison]] revealed an emphatic concern with the conflict between rich and poor, commenting that "the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination."<ref>[[James Madison]]. [https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-1-10#s-lg-box-wrapper-25493273 ''The Federalist Papers''], [[Federalist No. 10]]. [[Library of Congress]].</ref> He welcomed class-based factions into political life as a necessary result of political liberty, stating that the most important task of government was to manage and adjust for 'the spirit of party'.<ref>Madison. [https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-1-10#s-lg-box-wrapper-25493273 ''The Federalist Papers''], [[Federalist No. 10]]. 'The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.'</ref>
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| ===John Stuart Mill===
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| Adam Smith was not the only classical liberal political economist concerned with class conflict. In his ''[[Considerations on Representative Government]]'', John Stuart Mill observed the complete marginalisation of workmen's voices in [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|Parliament]], rhetorically asking whether its members ever empathise with the position of workmen, instead of siding entirely with their masters, on issues such as the right to [[go on strike]].<ref>[[John Stuart Mill]]. [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5669/5669-h/5669-h.htm ''Representative Government''], Chapter 3. ' Yet does Parliament, or almost any of the members composing it, ever for an instant look at any question with the eyes of a working man? When a subject arises in which the laborers as such have an interest, is it regarded from any point of view but that of the employers of labor? I do not say that the working men's view of these questions is in general nearer to the truth than the other, but it is sometimes quite as near; and in any case it ought to be respectfully listened to, instead of being, as it is, not merely turned away from, but ignored. On the question of strikes, for instance, it is doubtful if there is so much as one among the leading members of either House who is not firmly convinced that the reason of the matter is unqualifiedly on the side of the masters, and that the men's view of it is simply absurd. Those who have studied the question know well how far this is from being the case, and in how different, and how infinitely less superficial a manner the point would have to be argued, if the classes who strike were able to make themselves heard in Parliament.' [[Project Gutenberg]].</ref> Later in the book, he argues that an important function of truly [[representative government]] is to provide a relatively equal balance of power between workmen and masters, in order to prevent threats to the good of the whole of society.<ref>Mill. [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5669/5669-h/5669-h.htm ''Representative Government''], Chapter 6. 'In a state of society thus composed, if the representative system could be made ideally perfect, and if it were possible to maintain it in that state, its organization must be such that these two classes, manual laborers and their affinities on one side, employers of labor and their affinities on the other, should be, in the arrangement of the representative system, equally balanced, each influencing about an equal number of votes in Parliament; since, assuming that the majority of each class, in any difference between them, would be mainly governed by their class interests, there would be a minority of each in whom that consideration would be subordinate to reason, justice, and the good of the whole; and this minority of either, joining with the whole of the other, would turn the scale against any demands of their own majority which were not such as ought to prevail.'</ref>
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| During Mill's discussion of the merits of [[progressive taxation]] in his essay ''[[Utilitarianism (book)|Utilitarianism]]'', he notes as an aside the power of the rich as independent of state support:<blockquote>People feel obliged to argue that the State does more for the rich than for the poor, as a justification for its taking more [in taxation] from them: though this is in reality not true, for the rich would be far better able to protect themselves, in the absence of law or government, than the poor, and indeed would probably be successful in converting the poor into their slaves.<ref>Mill. [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11224/11224-h/11224-h.htm ''Utilitarianism''], Chapter 5. [[Project Gutenberg]].</ref></blockquote>
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| ===Hegel===
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| In his ''[[Philosophy of Right]]'', [[Hegel]] expressed concern that the standard of living of the poor might drop so far as to make it even easier for the rich to amass even more wealth.<ref>[[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]]. [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/pr/philosophy-of-right.pdf ''Elements of the Philosophy of Right''], Part III, Paragraph 244. 'When a large number of people sink below the standard of living regarded as essential for the members of society, and lose that sense of right, rectitude, and honour which is derived from self-support, a pauper class arises, and wealth accumulates disproportionately in the hands of a few.' [[Marxists Internet Archive]].</ref> Hegel believed that, especially in a liberal country such as contemporary England, the poorest will politicise their situation, channelling their frustrations against the rich:<blockquote>Against nature man can claim no right, but once society is established, poverty immediately takes the form of a wrong done to one class by another.<ref>Hegel. [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/pr/philosophy-of-right.pdf ''The Philosophy of Right''], Addition 149.</ref></blockquote>
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| == Capitalist societies ==
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| The typical example of class conflict described is class conflict within capitalism. This class conflict is seen to occur primarily between the [[bourgeoisie]] and the [[proletariat]], and takes the form of conflict over hours of work, value of wages, division of profits, cost of consumer goods, the culture at work, control over [[parliament]] or [[bureaucracy]], and [[economic inequality]]. The particular implementation of government programs which may seem purely humanitarian, such as disaster relief, can actually be a form of class conflict.<ref>Greg Palast, Burn baby burn {{cite web |url=http://www.gregpalast.com/burn-baby-burnthe-california-celebrity-fires/ |title=Burn Baby Burn |date=26 October 2007 |access-date=10 March 2008 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071230023754/http://www.gregpalast.com/burn-baby-burnthe-california-celebrity-fires/ |archive-date=30 December 2007 }}</ref>
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| === Thomas Jefferson ===
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| [[Thomas Jefferson]] (1743–1826) led the U.S. as president from 1801 to 1809 and is considered one of the founding fathers. Regarding the interaction between social classes, he wrote:
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| {{Blockquote|text=I am convinced that those societies (as the [[Native Americans in the United States|Indians]]) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, & restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe. Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you & I, & Congress & Assemblies, judges & governors 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.<ref>{{cite web|last=Jefferson|first=Thomas|title=Letter to Edward Carrington |date= January 16, 1787|url=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letter_to_Edward_Carrington_-_January_16,_1787|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130116033458/http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letter_to_Edward_Carrington_-_January_16,_1787|archive-date=January 16, 2013}}</ref>|sign=[[Thomas Jefferson]]|source=''Letter to Edward Carrington – 16 January 1787''}}
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| === Max Weber ===
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| [[Max Weber]] (1864–1920) agreed with the fundamental ideas of Karl Marx about the economy causing class conflict, but claimed that class conflict can also stem from prestige and power.<ref name="Blackwell" /> Weber argued 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.<ref name="Blackwell" /> He also stated 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 stated that power differences led to the formation of [[political parties]].<ref name="Blackwell" /> Weber disagreed with Marx about the formation of classes. While Marx believed that groups are similar due to their economic status, Weber argued that classes are largely formed by [[social status]].<ref name="Blackwell" /> Weber did not believe that communities are formed by economic standing, but by similar social prestige.<ref name="Blackwell" /> Weber did recognize that there is a relationship between social status, social prestige and classes.<ref name="Blackwell" />
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| ===Twentieth century===
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| In the U.S., class conflict is often noted in labor/management disputes. As far back as 1933 representative Edward Hamilton of the [[Air Line Pilots Association, International|Airline Pilot's Association]], used the term "class warfare" to describe airline management's opposition at the [[National Labor Board]] hearings in October of that year.<ref>{{cite book|last=Kaps|first=Robert W.|title=Air Transport Labor Relations|year=1997|publisher=Southern Illinois Press|location=Section 3: Major Collective Bargaining Legislation|isbn=0809317761|page=51}}</ref> Apart from these day-to-day forms of class conflict, during periods of crisis or revolution class conflict takes on a violent nature and involves repression, assault, restriction of civil liberties, and murderous violence such as assassinations or death squads.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Zinn, Howard|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/50622172|title=A people's history of the United States : 1492–2001|year=2003|isbn=0060528427|edition= New|location=New York|oclc=50622172}}</ref>
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| ===Twenty-first century===
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| ====Financial crisis====
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| {{Main|Financial crisis of 2007–2008|We are the 99%|Occupy movement}}
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| Class conflict intensified in the period after the 2007/8 financial crisis, which led to a global wave of [[Anti-austerity movement|anti-austerity protests]], including the [[Anti-austerity movement in Greece|Greek]] and [[Anti-austerity movement in Spain|Spanish Indignados]] movements and later the [[Occupy movement]], whose slogan was "[[We are the 99%]]", signalling a more expansive class antagonist against the financial elite than that of the classical Marxist proletariat.
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| The investor, [[billionaire]], and [[philanthropist]] [[Warren Buffett]], one of the wealthiest people in the world,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/|title=The World's Billionaires|website=forbes.com|access-date=1 May 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130403013841/http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/|archive-date=3 April 2013}}</ref> voiced in 2005 and once more in 2006 his view that his class, the "rich class", is waging class warfare on the rest of society. In 2005 Buffet said to CNN: "It's class warfare, my class is winning, but they shouldn't be."<ref>[http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/05/10/buffett/index.html Buffett: 'There are lots of loose nukes around the world'] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160430104340/http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/05/10/buffett/index.html |date=30 April 2016 }} CNN.com</ref> 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."<ref name=Buffett_warfare>{{cite news|last=Buffett|first=Warren|title=In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class is Winning|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html|newspaper=The New York Times|date=26 November 2006|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170103165340/http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html|archive-date=3 January 2017}}</ref>
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| In the speech "The Great American Class War" (2013), the journalist [[Bill Moyers]] asserted the existence of social-class conflict between democracy and [[plutocracy]] in the U.S.<ref>Moyers, Bill (12 December 2013). [http://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/great-american-class-war The Great American Class War] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131222031232/http://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/great-american-class-war |date=22 December 2013 }}. [[Brennan Center for Justice]]. Retrieved 25 January 2014.</ref> [[Chris Hedges]] wrote a column for ''[[Truthdig]]'' called "Let's Get This Class War Started", which was a play on [[Pink (singer)|Pink's]] song "[[Get the Party Started|Let's Get This Party Started]]."<ref>[https://therealnews.com/chedges1112raipt2 The Pathology of the Rich – Chris Hedges on Reality Asserts Itself pt 1] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131209060244/http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11150 |date=9 December 2013 }} ''[[The Real News]].'' 5 December 2013. Retrieved 25 January 2014.</ref><ref>[[Chris Hedges|Hedges, Chris]] (20 October 2013). [https://www.truthdig.com/articles/lets-get-this-class-war-started/ Let’s Get This Class War Started] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131021143451/http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/lets_get_this_class_war_started_20131020 |date=21 October 2013 }}. ''[[Truthdig]].'' Retrieved 25 January 2014.</ref> In a 2022 piece "America’s New Class War", Hedges argues that increased class struggle and [[Striketober|strikes]] by organized workers, often in defiance of union leadership, is the "one last hope for the United States."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Hedges|first1=Chris|title=America's New Class War|url=https://scheerpost.com/2022/01/18/hedges-americas-new-class-war/|work=Scheerpost|date=January 18, 2022|access-date=January 21, 2022}}</ref>
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| Historian Steve Fraser, author of ''The Age of Acquiescence: The Life and Death of American Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power'', asserted in 2014 that class conflict is an inevitability if current political and economic conditions continue, noting that "people are increasingly fed up [...] their voices are not being heard. And I think that can only go on for so long without there being more and more outbreaks of what used to be called class struggle, class warfare."<ref>[http://billmoyers.com/episode/steve-fraser-new-robber-barons/ Full Show: The New Robber Barons] {{webarchive|url=http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/20141223054003/http://billmoyers.com/episode/steve-fraser-new-robber-barons/ |date=23 December 2014 }}. ''[[Moyers & Company]].'' 19 December 2014.</ref>
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| ====Arab Spring====
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| Often seen as part of the same "movement of squares" as the Indignado and Occupy movements, the [[Arab Spring]] was a wave of social protests starting in 2011. Numerous factors have culminated in the Arab Spring, including rejection of dictatorship or [[absolute monarchy]], [[human rights]] violations, [[government corruption]] (demonstrated by [[United States diplomatic cables leak|Wikileaks diplomatic cables]]<ref name="Walker 2011">{{cite web | last=Walker | first=Peter | title=Amnesty International hails WikiLeaks and Guardian as Arab spring 'catalysts' |website=the Guardian | date=2011-05-12 | url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/13/amnesty-international-wikileaks-arab-spring | access-date=2021-10-11}}</ref>), economic decline, unemployment, extreme poverty, and a number of demographic structural factors,<ref>{{cite journal |author=Korotayev A, Zinkina J |author-link=Andrey Korotayev |url=https://www.academia.edu/29300010 |title=Egyptian Revolution: A Demographic Structural Analysis |journal=Entelequia. Revista Interdisciplinar |volume=13 |year=2011 |pages=139–165 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161020144003/https://www.academia.edu/29300010/Egyptian_Revolution_A_Demographic_Structural_Analysis |archive-date=20 October 2016 }}</ref><ref name="Mason 2013">{{cite web | last=Mason | first=Paul | title=From Arab Spring to global revolution |website=the Guardian | date=2013-02-05 | url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/05/arab-spring-global-revolution | access-date=2021-10-11}}</ref> such as a large percentage of educated but dissatisfied youth within the population.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=arab+league+demographics|title=Demographics of the Arab League, computed by Wolfram Alpha|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110302053128/http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=arab+league+demographics|archive-date=2 March 2011}}</ref> but class conflict is also a key factor. The catalysts for the revolts in all [[North Africa|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.<ref>{{cite web|last=Ecker, Al-Riffai, Perrihan|title=Economics of the Arab awakening|url=http://www.ifpri.org/publication/economics-arab-awakening|publisher=International Food Policy Research Institute|access-date=25 May 2012|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120415185102/http://www.ifpri.org/publication/economics-arab-awakening|archive-date=15 April 2012}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/opinion/sunday/friedman-the-other-arab-spring.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161129012246/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/opinion/sunday/friedman-the-other-arab-spring.html|url-status=dead|title=Opinion | The Other Arab Spring|first=Thomas L.|last=Friedman|date=7 April 2012|archive-date=29 November 2016|via=NYTimes.com}}</ref>
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| == Socialism ==
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| {{main|Socialism}}
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| === Marxist perspectives ===
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| [[File:Karl Marx.jpg|thumb|upright|Karl Marx, 1875]]
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| [[Karl Marx]] (1818–1883) was a German born philosopher who lived the majority of his adult life in London, England. In ''[[The Communist Manifesto]]'', Karl Marx argued that a [[Social class|class]] is formed due to changes in the [[mode of production]]. Members of a class may become aware of their position within it, achieving what is known as [[class consciousness]].<ref name="Blackwell">Blackwell Reference Online.''[http://www.blackwellreference.com./subscriber/uid=834/tocnode?id=g9781405124331_chunk_g97814051243319_ss1-50]{{Dead link|date=July 2019|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}}''. Retrieved 24 November 2008.</ref> For the working classes this happens when their members become aware of their [[Exploitation of labour|exploitation]] at the hands of the ruling class. According to Marx, the working class then takes action against the ruling class, and vice versa.
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| 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.
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| Marxist analysis of society identifies two main social groups:
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| * ''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.
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| * ''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 (Marxism)|exploitation]] of the workers (proletariat).
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| 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 and hoarding 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.
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| 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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| Marx largely focuses on the capital industrialist society as the source of [[social stratification]], which ultimately results in class conflict.<ref name="Blackwell" /> 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.<ref name="Blackwell" /> 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.<ref name="Blackwell" /> The mode of [[Production (economics)|production]] would remain, but [[Communalism (Bookchin)|communal ownership]] would eliminate class conflict.<ref name="Blackwell" />
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| 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 society|classless]], stateless [[communist society]].
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| === Soviet Union and similar societies ===
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| A variety of thinkers, mostly [[Trotskyist]] and [[anarchist]], argue that class conflict existed in [[Soviet-type economic planning|Soviet-style societies]]. Their 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]]",<ref>{{cite book | first = Milovan | last = Đilas | author-link = Milovan Đilas | year = 1983 |origyear = 1957 | title = The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System | edition = paperback | publisher = Harcourt Brace Jovanovich | location = San Diego | isbn = 015665489X}}</ref> that controls and guides 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 by them as [[state socialism]], [[state capitalism]], [[bureaucratic collectivism]] or [[new class]] societies. Marxism was already a powerful ideological power in Russia before the Soviet Union was created in 1917, since a Marxist group known as the [[Russian Social Democratic Labour Party]] existed. 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]].
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| However, many Marxists argue that unlike in capitalism, the Soviet elites did not own the [[means of production]], or generated [[surplus value]] for their personal wealth like in capitalism as the generated profit from the economy was equally distributed into Soviet society.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Harpal|first1=Brar|title=Trotskyism or Leninism?|year= 1993|location=London|isbn=1874613036|pages=647}}</ref> Even some Trotskyist like [[Ernest Mandel]] criticized the concept of a new ruling class as an [[oxymoron]], saying: "The hypothesis of the bureaucracy’s being a new ruling class leads to the conclusion that, for the first time in history, we are confronted with a 'ruling class' which does not exist as a class before it actually rules."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Ernest|first1=Mandel|title=Why The Soviet Bureaucracy is not a New Ruling Class (1979)|url=https://www.ernestmandel.org/en/works/txt/1979/soviet_bureaucracy.htm|access-date=26 April 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170522081826/http://www.ernestmandel.org/en/works/txt/1979/soviet_bureaucracy.htm|archive-date=22 May 2017}}</ref>
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| === Non-Marxist perspectives ===
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| {{expand section|date=November 2010}}
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| One of the first writers to comment on class struggle in the modern sense of the term was the [[French revolution]]ary [[:fr:François Boissel|François Boissel]].<ref name="Guthrie1907">{{cite book|author=William Buck Guthrie|title=Socialism Before the French Revolution: A History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4DJJAAAAIAAJ|year=1907|publisher=Macmillan|page=283}}</ref> Other class struggle commentators include [[Henri de Saint-Simon]],<ref name="Blake1939">{{cite book|author=William James Blake|title=An American Looks at Karl Marx|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iPnTAAAAMAAJ|year=1939|publisher=Cordon Company|page=622}}</ref> [[Augustin Thierry]],<ref>Augustin Thierry: [https://web.archive.org/web/20180501215641/https://books.google.com/books?id=c5A1lIZb5H8C&dq=Histoire+du+Tiers+%C3%89tat&source=gbs_navlinks_s Recueil des monuments inédits de l'histoire du Tiers état]</ref> [[François Guizot]],<ref name="Blake1939" /> [[François-Auguste Mignet]] and [[Adolphe Thiers]]. The [[Physiocrat]]s, [[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 J. 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.<ref>{{cite book|last=Toynbee|first=Arnold|title=[[A Study of History]]: Abridgment of Volumes I–VI|year=1947|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn=0195050819|editor=Dorothea Grace Somervell|page=365|chapter=The Nature of Disintegration}}</ref>
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| [[Pierre-Joseph 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."<ref>Pierre Proudhon, ''What is Property?'', chapter 2, remark 2.</ref> While Proudhon saw the solution as the lower classes forming an alternative, solidarity economy centered on cooperatives and self-managed workplaces, which would slowly undermine and replace capitalist class society, the anarchist [[Mikhail Bakunin]], while influenced by Proudhon, insisted that a massive class struggle by the working class, peasantry and poor was essential to the creation of [[libertarian socialism]]. This would require a final showdown in the form of a social revolution.
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| One of the earliest analyses of the development of class as the development of conflicts between emergent classes is available in [[Peter Kropotkin]]'s ''[[Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution|Mutual Aid]]''. In this work, Kropotkin analyzes the disposal of goods after death in pre-class or [[hunter-gatherer]] societies, and how inheritance produces early [[class division]]s and conflict.
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| [[Fascists]] have often opposed 'horizontal' class struggle in favour of vertical national 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]].
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| === Noam Chomsky ===
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| [[File:Noam Chomsky, 2004.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Noam Chomsky]], 2004]]
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| [[Noam Chomsky]], American [[Linguistics|linguist]], [[Philosophy|philosopher]], and [[political activist]], has criticized class war in the United States:<ref name="Chomsky">{{Citation|last=Chomsky|first=Noam|title=Occupy: Class War, Rebellion and Solidarity|edition=Second|date=November 5, 2013|url=http://www.alternet.org/economy/chomsky-business-elites-are-waging-brutal-class-war-america-0?paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141016043703/http://www.alternet.org/economy/chomsky-business-elites-are-waging-brutal-class-war-america-0?paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark|publisher=Zuccotti Park Press|access-date=14 October 2014|archive-date=16 October 2014|url-status=live}}</ref>
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| {{blockquote|Well, there’s always a class war going on. The United States, to an unusual extent, is a business-run society, more so than others. The business classes are very class-conscious{{snd}}they’re constantly fighting a bitter class war to improve their power and diminish opposition. Occasionally this is recognized... The enormous benefits given to the very wealthy, the privileges for the very wealthy here, are way beyond those of other comparable societies and are part of the ongoing class war. Take a look at CEO salaries....|author=Noam Chomsky|title=|source=''Occupy: Class War, Rebellion and Solidarity'', Second Edition (November 5, 2013)}}
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| == Libertarianism ==
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| [[Charles Comte]] and [[Charles Dunoyer]] argued that class struggle came from [[Political faction|factions]] that managed to gain control of the [[State (polity)|State]] power. The [[ruling class]] are the groups that seize the power of the State to carry out their political agenda, the ''ruled'' are then taxed and regulated by the State for the benefit of the Ruling classes. Through [[taxation]], state power, [[subsidies]], [[Tax code]]s, laws, and privileges the State creates class conflict by giving preferential treatment to some at the expense of others by force. In the [[free market]], by contrast, exchanges are not carried out by force but by the [[Non-aggression principle]] of cooperation in a [[Win-win game|Win-win scenario]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://mises.org/library/james-mill-and-libertarian-class-analysis|title = James Mill and Libertarian Class Analysis|date = 28 March 2012}}</ref>
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| == Relationship to race ==
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| {{main|Intersectionality}}
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| [[File:NORTH PHILADELPHIA JOBLESS BLACKS. MAN STANDING AT RIGHT IS GERALD "HEAT WAVE" JONES, WHO WORKS FOR "THE NETWORK", A... - NARA - 552754.jpg|thumb|left|Jobless black workers in the heat of the [[Philadelphia]] summer, 1973]]
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| Some historical tendencies of Orthodox Marxism [[No War but the Class War|reject]] [[racism]], [[sexism]], etc. as struggles that essentially [[false consciousness|distract]] from class struggle, the real conflict.{{Citation needed|date=September 2018}} These divisions within the class prevent the purported antagonists from acting in their common class interest. However, many Marxist internationalists and anti-colonial revolutionaries believe that [https://libcom.org/library/sex-race-class-james-selma sex, race and class] are bound up together. Within Marxist scholarship there is an ongoing debate about these topics.
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| According to [[Michel Foucault]], in the 19th century, the [[essentialist]] notion of the "[[Race (classification of human beings)|race]]" was incorporated by [[racism|racists]], [[biologist]]s, and [[Eugenics|eugenicists]], who gave it the modern sense of "biological race" which was then integrated into "[[state racism]]". On the other hand, Foucault claims 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". Quoting a non-existent 1882 letter from Marx to Friedrich Engels during a lecture, Foucault erroneously claimed 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."<ref>Quoted in ''Society Must be Defended'' by Michel Foucault (trans. [[David Macey]]), London: Allen Lane, Penguin Press (1976, 2003), p. 79</ref>{{Citation needed|reason=original source not listed|date=October 2016}} For Foucault, the theme of social war provides the overriding principle that connects class and race struggle.<ref>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</ref>
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| [[Moses Hess]], an important theoretician and [[Labor Zionism|labor Zionist]] 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."<ref>quoted in ''Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews'' by [[Jonathan Frankel (historian)|Jonathan Frankel]], Cambridge University Press (1981), p. 22.</ref>
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| [[W. E. B. Du Bois]] theorized that the [[intersectional]] paradigms of race, class, and nation might explain certain aspects of black political economy. [[Patricia Hill Collins]] writes: "Du Bois saw race, class, and nation not primarily as personal identity categories but as social hierarchies that shaped African-American access to status, poverty, and power."<ref name="Collins 2000">{{Cite journal | last = Collins | first = Patricia Hill | author-link = Patricia Hill Collins | title = Gender, black feminism, and black political economy | journal = [[Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science]] | volume = 568 | issue = 1 | pages = 41–53 | doi = 10.1177/000271620056800105 | date = March 2000 | s2cid = 146255922 }}</ref>{{rp|44}}
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| In modern times, emerging schools of thought in the U.S. and other countries hold the opposite to be true.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Eastwood|first1=John H.|author-link1=John H. Eastwood|title=The Wonder of Grace|year=1995|publisher=Companion Press|location=Shippensburg, PA|isbn=1560435720|page=18|chapter=Chapter 3: Ye Are the Salt of the Earth|quote=The system that was supposed to treat all men equally actually created a class society.}}</ref> They argue that the race struggle is less important, because the primary struggle is that of class since labor of all races face the same problems and injustices.
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| == Chronology ==
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| Riots with a nationalist background are not included.
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| === Classical antiquity ===
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| * [[Gracchi|Gracchi Tribuneship]]
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| * [[Social War (91–88 BC)|Social War]], 91–88 BC
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| * [[Gallic Wars]] and the assassination of [[Julius Caesar]], according to [[Michael Parenti]]
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| * [[Conflict of the Orders]]
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| * [[Roman Servile Wars]]
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| * [[Yellow Turban Rebellion]], 184–205 AD
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| === Middle Ages ===
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| * [[Ciompi]] in Florence, 1378
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| * [[Peasants' Revolt]] in England, 1381
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| * [[Jacquerie]] in 14th-century France
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| * [[Saint George's Night Uprising]]
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| === Modern era ===
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| [[File:GeorgheDoja.jpg|thumb|upright|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.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Dozsa-Rebellion |title=Dózsa Rebellion |website=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |access-date=25 July 2020 }}</ref>]]
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| * [[German Peasants' War]] since 1524
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| * [[Shimabara Rebellion]], 1637–1638
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| * [[English Civil War]], 1642–1651 ([[Diggers]])
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| * [[French Revolution]] since 1789<ref>see Daniel Guérin, Class Struggle in the First French Republic, Pluto Press 1977</ref>
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| * [[Old Price Riots]], 1809
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| * [[July Revolution]], 1830
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| * [[Canut revolts]] in [[Lyon]] since 1831, often considered as the beginning of the modern [[labor movement]]
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| * [[June Rebellion]], 1832
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| * [[Galician slaughter]], 1846
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| * [[Revolutions of 1848]] in France et al.
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| * [[Newport Rising]], political revolt in 1839 led by Chartists
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| * [[Paris Commune]], 1871
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| * [[Johnson County War]], 1889–1893
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| * [[Coal Wars]], 1890–1930
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| * [[Donghak Peasant Revolution]] in Korea, 1893/1894
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| * [[1905 Russian Revolution]]
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| * [[1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt]]
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| * [[Mexican Revolution]], 1910-1920
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| * [[October Revolution]] in 1917
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| * [[Limerick Soviet]] in Ireland, 1919
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| * [[Spartacist uprising]] in Germany, 1919
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| * [[Seattle General Strike of 1919]] in [[Seattle]]
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| * [[Anarchism in Spain#General Strike of 1919|General Strike of 1919]] in [[Spain]]
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| * [[Winnipeg General Strike]], 1919
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| * [[Ruhr Uprising]] in Germany, 1920
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| * [[Kronstadt rebellion]], 1921
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| * [[Battle of Blair Mountain]], 1921
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| * [[Hamburg Uprising]], 1923
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| * [[1926 United Kingdom general strike]]
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| * [[1934 West Coast waterfront strike]]
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| * [[Spanish Civil War]], 1936–1939
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| * [[Land Reform Movement (China)]], 1947–1950
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| * [[Communist insurgency in Myanmar]], 1948–1988
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| * [[Uprising of 1953 in East Germany]]
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| * [[Telangana Rebellion]]
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| * [[Cuban Revolution]], 1953–1959
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| * [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956]], foundation of [[worker's council]]s
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| * [[Poznań 1956 protests]]
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| * [[Naxalite-Maoist insurgency]], 1967–present
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| * [[May 1968 events in France|May 1968]] in France
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| * [[Battle of Valle Giulia]] in Italy, 1968
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| * [[Communist rebellion in the Philippines]], 1969–present
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| * [[Wildcat strike action|Wild cats]] in Western Germany, 1969
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| * Several strikes by coal miners in the United Kingdom
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| ** [[UK miners' strike (1969)|1969]]
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| ** [[UK miners' strike (1972)|1972]]
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| ** [[UK miners' strike (1974)|1974]]
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| ** [[UK miners' strike (1984–1985)|1984–85]]
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| * [[Winter of Discontent]] 1978/1979
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| * [[Nicaraguan Revolution]]
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| * [[1993 Russian constitutional crisis]]
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| * [[1999 Seattle WTO protests]]
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| * [[2006 Oaxaca protests]] in Mexico
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| * [[Bolivarian Revolution]]
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| * [[2008 Greek riots]]
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| * [[Kyrgyz Revolution of 2010]]
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| * [[Egyptian Revolution of 2011]]
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| * [[2011 England riots]]
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| * [[World Social Forum]]
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| * [[World Economic Forum]]
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| * [[Occupy Wall Street]], 2011
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| * [[Jasic Incident]]
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| * [[Rojava Revolution]]
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| * [[Protests against Rodrigo Duterte]] in the Philippines, 2016-2022
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| * [[Protests against Bongbong Marcos]] in the Philippines,2021-present
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| * [[Yellow vests movement]] in France, 2018–present
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| * [[2019–2020 Chilean protests]]
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| * [[2019-2020 Hong Kong protests]]
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| == See also ==
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| {{div col}}
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| * [[Classicide]]
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| * [[Classism]]
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| * [[Critique of political economy]]
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| * [[Critique of work]]
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| * [[Deformed workers state]]
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| * [[Degenerated workers state]]
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| * [[Economic stratification]]
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| * [[Johnson County War]]
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| * [[No War But The Class War]]
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| * [[Master–slave dialectic|Master-slave dialectic]]
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| * [[Occupy movement]]
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| * [[Popular revolt in late medieval Europe]]
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| * [[Propaganda of the deed]]
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| * [[Sharecropping]]
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| * [[Slave rebellion]]
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| * [[Socialist Harmonious Society]]
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| * [[Industrial Workers of the World]]
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| {{div col end}}
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| == References ==
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| {{Reflist}}
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| == Further reading ==
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| * {{cite book |title=Class & Class Conflict in Industrial Society |url=https://archive.org/details/classclassconfli0000dahr |url-access=registration |first=Ralf |last=Dahrendorf |publisher=Stanford University Press |date=1959 |isbn=0804705615}} (also available in hardback as {{ISBN|0804705607|1131155734}}).
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| * {{cite book |title=The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future and What It Will Take to Win It Back |first=Jeff |last=Faux |publisher=John Wiley and Sons |date=2006 |isbn=978-0471697619 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/globalclasswarho0000faux }}
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| * {{cite book |author=Li Yi |date=2005 |title=The Structure and Evolution of Chinese Social Stratification |publisher=University Press of America |isbn=0761833315}}
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| * {{cite book |editor-last= Abidor|editor-first=Mitchell|date=2016 |title=Death to Bourgeois Society: The Propagandists of the Deed|url=https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=732|publisher=[[PM Press]] |isbn=978-1629631127}}
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| * ''The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present'', ed. by Immanuel Ness, Malden, MA [etc.]: Wiley & Sons, 2009.
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| * {{cite book |last1=Klein |first1=Matthew C.|last2= Pettis |first2=Michael |date=2020 |title=Trade Wars Are Class Wars: How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International Peace |url=https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300244175/trade-wars-are-class-wars |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=978-0300244175 }}
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| * [[Louis Adamic]], ''[[Dynamite: The Story of Class Violence in America]]'', Revised Edition (1934)
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| * Leo Zeilig (Editor), ''Class Struggle and Resistance in Africa'', New Clarion Press, 2002.
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| * Gerson Antell/Walter Harris, "Economics For Everybody", Amsco School Publications, 2007
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| * Mathew Maavak, "[https://web.archive.org/web/20171019140804/http://www.jfs.tku.edu.tw/17-2/A02.pdf Class Warfare, Anarchy and the Future Society]", Journal of Futures Studies, December 2012, 17(2): 15–36
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| * {{cite book |last=Ness|first=Immanuel|date=2014|title=New Forms of Worker Organization: The Syndicalist and Autonomist Restoration of Class-Struggle Unionism|url=https://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=628|publisher=PM Press|isbn=978-1604869569|author-link=Immanuel Ness}}
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| * {{cite book |last=Tranjan|first=Ricardo |author-link= |date=2023 |title=The Tenant Class|url= |location= |publisher=Between the Lines|page= |isbn=978-1771136228}}
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| * {{cite journal |last1= Vasudevan|first1=Ramaa |date=2019 |title=The Global Class War |url=https://catalyst-journal.com/2019/07/the-global-class-war/|journal=Catalyst |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=110–139}}
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| == External links ==
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| * [http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/3/study_ceos_who_fired_most_workers 2008-2010 Study: CEOs Who Fired Most Workers Earned Highest Pay] – video report by ''[[Democracy Now!]]''
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| * [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3qqpk/how-a-real-class-war-like-with-guns-could-actually-happen How a Real Class War, Like with Guns, Could Actually Happen]. ''[[Vice Media|Vice]]'', 26 November 2018.
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| {{anarchism}}
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| {{Marxist and communist phraseology}}
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| {{communism}}
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| {{socialism}}
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| {{Social class}}
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| {{authority control}}
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| [[Category:Anti-capitalism]]
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| [[Category:Anti-fascism]]
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| [[Category:Conflict theory]]
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| [[Category:Political science]]
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| [[Category:Social classes]]
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| [[Category:Social conflict]]
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| [[Category:Socialism]]
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