Question

Explain Karl Marx’s ‘Class Theory’.

Answer 1

In his book “Das Kapital,” German philosopher Karl Marx introduced “Class Theory” in the late nineteenth century.

According to Karl Marx:

1. History was not about abstract ideas; it was about living people.
2. Human relationships are shaped by people’s fundamental needs and by the ownership and nature of the prevalent means of production used to meet those needs.
3. The accessibility of these means to different strata of society may not be equal. This inequality divides society into classes, leading to class struggle.
4. According to Marx, human history is the history of class struggle, as the class that owns the means of production economically exploits the other classes. ‘Das Kapital’, a treatise written by him, is the most referred to book all over the world.