Representation Of Class And Class Struggle

Society has always needed to take a certain initiative; to put an halt or at least tone down a certain persisting enduring. An example of such is the imbalance in power. For long since, into the very depths of history, there has been a issue in power distribution. This is true for numerous civilizations that date back all the way to the B.C time period. A example, in specific, is the reformation. Classism was too, reflected during the Reformation. The reformation was an instance in time where a man by the name of Martin Luther, proceeded to put forth opposition toward the Catholic ideology. He wished to remove the catholic church, so he organized an organization to take down the church. Whilst the war waged on, it could be noted that some degree of classism was apparent. As said before, classism is a major, recurring issue.

1. Video One - Employees work for the employers to make their product so they make a profit off of it. Class is most repressed discourse in our country. Many of us insist that we are all in the middle class, that if there are very little poor people, some rich and a lot of middle class. But major of the people has to go to work five days a week and have to live off of the little income that they work provides. Very little small protion of Americans can live off of their wealth. The richest 10 or 20% of our country which owns half the wealth, that 's why they 're richest. Class is the way society divides up the output then leaves employers up to decide what to do with the profits.

Michael Omi and Howard Winant’s arguments from “Racial Formations” are about how race is socially constructed and is shown in Caucasia by Danzy Senna. Michael Omi and Howard Winant believe that race is socially constructed in society; therefore, the meaning of race varies within different cultures and societies. According to Omi and Winant, influences such as, media, school, politics, history, family and economy create society’s structure of race. In Caucasia, media, family and school are forces that create race by stating how one should conform to social norms for different racial groups.

Gentrification is the term that explains the process of renovating and improving homes, or a district to conform to middle-class preferences. As viewed in the documentary Class Divide, a neighborhood in Manhattan, New York called West Chelsea has already undergone a major shift in their community. The addition of schools such as The Avenues, and tourist attractions like the High Line has generated a new identity for the community. Children who are born in poverty in the United States have a harder time getting out of poverty than those children who come from other developed countries. This is due to various institutions such as The Avenues that have created a gap between social classes, making it harder for the lower class to achieve success. Throughout the documentary, the storyline constantly shifts to represent two different point of views: the upper class and the lower class. Within these different points of views, the central themes become evident: income inequality, opposing views of privileged and underprivileged students, and the gentrification of a community.

In Charles Mills The Racial Contract, his main argument is declaring the global white supremacy as the core of today’s political system. Mills opens with mentioning how other political philosophers in history have neglected to discuss race because of their own racial privileges. However, this is ironic given the significant of race and what social and political constraints race has put on certain groups of people. At the same time, race provides superiority for whites in the political and social spheres. Mills explains, “A Racial Contract might be more revealing of the real character of the world we are living in, and the corresponding historical deficiencies of its normative theories and practices…” (7). The Racial Contract is grounded on three claims, which are the existential claim where white supremacy exists, the conceptual claim where white supremacy exists in the political system, and the methodological claim where the contract supports a theoretical framework. Then, Mills outlines his argument with ten theses although this paper will only touch on the first seven theses. Although Mills omits some of the origins of race thereby weakening his historical actuality theses. Still, Mills is able to counter with examples of race that demonstrates its presence in society and a critique on social contract theorists who underestimate race’s impact on society. Overall Mills argument is sound in formulating race as a central aspect in the political system, but lacks in

Race is rarely mentioned by the three early proponents of the field of sociology, Karl Marx, Emiele Durkheim and Max Weber. However, when it is cited, these sociologists voiced very diverse opinions on the matter of race and oppression. Marx regarded race as vestige of the pre-industrial era and thus, would be superseded by “reductionism” (Cite). Emiele Durkheim believed race, which he referred to as “ethnicity,” was a factor in connecting an individual to a subgroup of society, but played little importance in the overall functional social structure (Cite). In contrast, Max Weber thought that the subject of race was much more complicated, and suggested that the oppression of ethnic minorities exists due to the “followers of the traditional authority structure (believing) they are legitimate” (Jackson 14). THESIS?

Karl Marx, in the Capital, developed his critique of capitalism by analyzing its characteristics and its development throughout history. The critique contains Marx’s most developed economic analysis and philosophical insight. Although it was written in 1850s, its values still serve an important purpose in the globalized world and maintains extremely relevant in the twenty-first century.

Marx's ideas on labor value are very much alive for many organizations working for social change. In addition, it is apparent that the gap between the rich and poor is widening on a consistent basis. According to Marx, the course of human history takes a very specific form which is class struggle. The engine of change in history is class opposition. Historical epochs are defined by the relationship between different classes at different points in time. It is this model that Marx fleshes out in his account of feudalism's passing in favor of bourgeois capitalism and his prognostication of bourgeois capitalism's passing in favor of proletarian rule. These changes are not the reliant results of random social, economic, and political events; each follows the other in predictable succession. Marx responds to a lot of criticism from an imagined bourgeois interlocutor. He considers the charge that by wishing to abolish private property, the communist is destroying the "ground work of all personal freedom, activity, and independence". Marx responds by saying that wage labor does not properly create any property for the laborer. It only creates capital, a property which works only to augment the exploitation of the worker. This property, this capital, is based on class antagonism. Having linked private property to class hostility, Marx

The idea of social inequality dates back since the time of our founding fathers. The mistreatment and unlawful equality and opportunity that these foreigners received became embedded into our history—this endless list includes, just to name a few, the Irish, Chinese, Jews, and most notably the African Americans (Blacks), who became slaves to the American people. Here in the United States, the current social class system is known as the class system, where families are distributed and placed into three different existing class—the upper class (wealthy), middle class (working), and lower class (poor). Since then, improvisations have been worked on into the class system, establishing now roughly six social classes: upper class, new money, middle class, working class, working poor, and poverty level. Social stratification is a widely common topic of debate because there have since been many arguments and debates on this controversial situation of social inequality and how it relates to social class and social mobility. According to Economist Robert Reich, he states that "The probability that a poor child in America will become a poor adult is higher now than it was 30 years ago..." (Reich, par. 5), meaning the given amount of equality, opportunity, and support that these struggle families obtain have gone mainly unnoticed by the government that it has gotten worst. The constant uproar of social inequality and injustice that these middle and lower working class families stem

At first glance it might appear that a study of first generation students would naturally reflect a racial relationship and race would be the “ism” that is most influential on first generation students’ university attrition. This is especially true when the focus of the study is turned toward historically black colleges and universities. Additionally, a case could be built for the racial “ism” aspect of the study by focusing on the history of HBCU and the large concentration of first generation African Americans that attend predominately Black schools. However, in developing the idea for the proposed research, the “ism” which has the most meaning and connectivity to the topic is classism.

In their materialist reading of history, Marx and Engels proclaim that with the necessity for survival driving history/ and man to the development of social interaction and thus the establishment of the economy, staged progressions will come forth as a result. To Marx the economy will ultimately be responsible for all aspects of society. It will be from the development, and circumstance stemming forth from such development of the economy, that the stages of history will progress. And as such to Marx and Engels Capitalism will be a stopping point upon this staged progression route of history. In this way it is concluded that Capitalism is a mode of production stemming from the economy [means and relations of production], which in itself is a result of the history of materialism [the innate struggle for survival and the social relations built upon this struggle].

Walter Adamson wrote Hegemony and Revolution: A Study of Antonio Gramsci’s Political and Cultural Theory; it is a critical overview of Gramsci’s life and his theories. The author’s overall intent was to educate the reader about the political theorists involved in Marxism and it surrounding beliefs such as Western Marxism. The book is outlined using the life of Gramsci, but it also includes information on many theorists including Georg Lukács, Karl Korsch, Herbert Marcuse, and many others. Adamson’s book describes Gramsci and the development of his theories and how they contrast the other great thinkers of his time.

In The Communist Manifesto, Marx famously claimed that “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle (Marx, p.219).” For Marx, the engine of history is the productive power. In every society, there

This crucial opening to The Communist Manifesto holds the key to understanding Karl Marx's conception of history. Marx outlines history as a two dimensional, "linear" chain of events. A constant progression of class divisions being created and overthrown, one after the other, until the result is the utopian endpoint, otherwise known as communism.

In literature, themes are carefully interwoven with other aspects of the story and are slowly unraveled as the plot advances to reveal to bigger picture. Authors use themes as a method to connect with their audience on a personal and relatable level. Each individual interprets the theme in their own manner depending on the past experiences they have had. Similarly, each author brings a sense of individuality and authenticity to their works, impacting their subject matter and area of focus, in this case specifically the theme. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells is a science-fiction novel in which the Time Traveller traverses the time dimension to the year 802,701 AD. He then encounters the