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Karl Marx 's Theory Of Class Division And The Feminist Theory

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This essay will compare the effectiveness of social division using Karl Marx’s theory of class division and the feminist theory of patriarchy. I will also link this to ethnicity in black feminism and evaluate how relevant these theories are to society today.
Social division is the discrimination of a group of people in society based on social class, gender or ethnicity. This can then cause disruption within society. The two main theories of social division are Karl Marx’s theory of class division and the feminist theory of patriarchy.

Karl Marx developed his theory on class division by suggesting that all societies have two major classes, a ruling class and a subject class. The ruling class owned a means of production such as land or capital, whereas the subject class did not. Marx argued that this leads to the ruling class exploiting the subject class. The ruling class use a superstructure of the legal and political systems to justify its position and prevent protests by the subject class. In capitalist societies the main classes are the bourgeoisie (capitalist) and the proletariat (working class). In these societies the bourgeoisie exploits the working class through wage labour. The capitalists pay wages to the workers, but make a profit because they pay the workers less than the value of what they produce. Capitalism is the newest type of class society but it will also be the last. Eventually it will be replaced by a communist society in which the means of production
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