Contemporary Research On Marx’s Class Theory

The research theme of the paper is the contemporary challenges facing Marx’s class theory and corresponding responses. The revelation of this issue is based on the study of the relationship between "class destratification" phenomena in contemporary society and Marx’s class theory. The basic idea and general structure of this paper are as follows:The introduction part explains the situation and challenges Marx’s class theory is faced with contemporarily, and analyzes the possible resolving approaches.The text part is composed of four chapters. The first two chapters mainly discuss the main content of Marx’s class theory and its practice in Eastern and Western societies, with the titles as "Marx’s Class Theory" and "Marx’s Class Theory Promulgation and Practice". The last two chapters mainly discuss the challenges to Marx’s class theory posed by "class destratification" and the corresponding responses to the challenges, with the titles as "Challenges to Marx’s Class Theory Posed by Class Destratification Phenomena" and "Contemporary Development of Marx’s Class Theory". As stated above, the paper makes an all-around survey of contemporary Marx’s class theory development from two major parts and four aspects. Chapter 1 (Marx’s Class Theory) introduces the main content of Marx’s Class Theory from the angles of theory sources and textual study, history and logic. Section 1 expounds the main sources of Marx’s Class Theory, i.e. the class views from ancient Greek scholars to scholars in modern times, showing that Marx’s Class Theory drew nutrition from previous class theories on one hand, and varied from the previous class theories on the other hand, which emphasizes the historical origins and significance of Marx’s Class Theory. Section 2 dissertates the Marx’s theory about class formation. It first introduces Marx’s concept of class, indicating that class belongs to economic category in essence, which is the basic point and starting point of Marx’s class theory. Subsequently, it abstractly and concretely expounds Marx’s view of class formation in three respective aspects:class origin, from "class in itself" to "class for itself", and class structures in different social forms. Section 3 dissertates Marx’s theory about class existence. It first discusses the connotation of class existence, differentiates class existence from class struggle, and indicates that the existence of classes isn’t always accompanied with class struggle. Then it discourses on the forms of class existence-economic existence, political existence and cultural existence, and indicates that the substance of class existence is human alienation. At last, it shows Marx’s description of the class composition in different class societies, especially the characteristics of the various classes and strata in capitalist society. Section 4 dissertates Marx’s theory about class struggle, mainly including the connotation and effect of class struggle as well as the relationship between class struggle history and human civilization history. The theory of class struggle is one of the most characteristic Marx’s class theories. This section explicates the position and effect of class struggle throughout the history of human society development. Section 5 dissertates Marx’s theory about class elimination, which is the end point of Marx’s class theory and the social idea of Marx himself. This section expounds the connotation, substance and approach of class elimination in turn, in particular, points out that class elimination is to eliminate private ownership and social division of labor, but not the individuals of ruling class; and the essence of class elimination is unification of alienation discarding and human reversion.Chapter 2 (Marx’s Class Theory Promulgation and Practice) explicates the approaches and influences of Marx’s class theory in Eastern and Western societies after its generation. Section 1 dissertates the proof and development of Marx’s class theory to revolutionary practices in the western world,mainly taking the European Revolution of 1848 and Paris Commune as examples. The European Revolution of 1848 was a capitalist democratic revolution, but it cleared the way for socialist revolution, and became the first proof and development in Western revolutionary practice since the naissance of Marx’s class theory. Paris Commune was the first regime of working class dictatorship. Though failed eventually, it left abundant experience for enriching and developing Marx’s class theory. Section 2 dissertates the promulgation and development of Marx’s class theory in the eastern world, mainly taking Russia and China as examples. It expounds the positive and negative experiences from the two nations’ practices in class theory that were the detailed application and development of Marx’s theory of oriental societies. Section 3 compares Marx’s class theory and practice. It first makes a comparison between Eastern and Western revolutionary practices in class theory, namely comparing the period of European Revolution of 1848 and Paris Commune and that of Russian October Revolution and China’s New Democratic Revolution. Next, it compares the class theories during revolution and construction periods in 1970s. The features of practices in Marx’s class theory under different circumstances are reviewed through comparison so as to better reveal its development rules.Chapter 3 (Challenges to Marx’s Class Theory Posed by Class Destratification Phenomena) shows the contemporary plight and perspective on future development of Marx’s class theory through studying the relationship between "class destratification" phenomena and Marx’s class theory. Section 1 dissertates the historical background of "class destratification" phenomena, that is, peace and development, economic foundation provided by new technological revolution, and the political, economic and cultural environment in an age of "globalization". Section 2 dissertates the connotation, content, substance and formation of "class destratification", which refer to the phenomenon that "class opposition diminishes, class relations tend to ease" in contemporary social life and making comments on the phenomenon. Section 2 dissertates the main content and essence of "class destratification" in Eastern and Western societies. In western countries, "class destratification" witnessed such stages of development as people’s living standard improvement, impairment of class consciousness, growing middle class, theoretically proletariat being "assimilated" by bourgeoisie, "middle class" not belonging to the working class, and "class destratification". In eastern countries, the phenomenon of "class destratification" is based on socialist system; Soviet Union’s theory of "peaceful coexistence, peaceful competition, peaceful transition" and "party of the people and country of the people" was a variation from "class destratification", while the "class destratification" in China was mainly manifested in the improvement of people’s living standard after reform and opening as well as the social stratum analysis theory in current theory circle. The essence of "class destratification" phenomena is that the development of productivity leads to changes in economic structure, thereby resulting in changes in class structure. Finally, it discusses different ways of "class destratification" formation in Eastern and Western societies, arguing that "class destratification" phenomena demonstrate the effectiveness of Marx’s class theory in reversed form. Section 3 dissertates the challenges posed by "class destratification" phenomena to Marxist class theory realistically and theoretically. Realistically speaking, the emergence of "class destratification" is in conflict with some of Marx’s predictions for social class condition in future. Theoretically, the emergence of "class destratification" raises doubts about the practicability of Marx’s class theory. The expatiation of these challenges is to reveal the contemporary impact on Marx’s class theory and the possible paths for its future development.Chapter 4 (Contemporary Analysis of Marx’s Class Theory) discourses on how Marx’s class theory responds to the challenge of "class destratification" and its development in contemporary times. These are two sides of one problem. Section 1 dissertates the global vision for contemporary class problems. Globalization is a double-edged sword, promoting the cooperation between two major systems and two major classes on one hand, while deepening worldwide polarization and class opposition on the other hand. All in all, to correctly observe and realize contemporary social class problems, "globalization" is an indispensable perspective. Section 2 discusses the class problems lying behind "class destratification" phenomena. This section not only responds to the challenges Marx’s class theory is in face of, but also objectively analyzes contemporary social class problems. The paper gives a response to the challenges posed by "class destratification" to Marx’s class theory in terms of revolutionary body, class struggle, class structure, class analysis, class division, etc. of contemporary society which is still a class society. Meanwhile, the existence of class problems in contemporary society is also the realistic foundation for innovation and development of Marx’s class theory. Section 3 discusses the innovation and development of Marx’s Class Theory. First of all, it compares the similarities and differences between Marx’s class theory and the theory of stratification in sociology. Next, it elaborates on the principle of Marx’s class theory innovation is carried out; that is "righteousness" (namely "fairness"). On this basis, it makes analysis of Marx’s stratification theory and its relationship with the theory of stratification in sociology, considering that Marx’s stratum analysis is actually the analysis of class and stratum; it emphasizes important historical event changes and social changes, dependence of social stratum on class, and adopting Marx’s stratum analysis theory in case of stratum and class conflicts. It reorients Marx’s stratum analysis and sociological stratum analysis, clears up the confusion, and expands the theoretical space and development direction of Marx’s class theory in contemporary society.The conclusion part puts forward the concept of "stratification" corresponding to "class destratification" and makes dialectical analysis of their relationship, considering that the realization of "class destratification" is actually the target Marx’s "world history" theory proposes. It also discusses the path from "class stratification" to "class destratification", and advocates creating conditions so as to accelerate transformation from "class stratification" to "class destratification".