SOCI370/MarxEstranged

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Karl Marx states that every existing society is the “history of class struggles” and that the “oppressor and oppressed always stood in constant opposition to one another.”(pg34) Through the era of the Rome Empire, Middle Ages and now the modern bourgeois society, Marx illustrates that there is always conflict and oppression in each of the progressing era.

We can tie this in our modern society where socially, there is the constant conflict between the lower half of the social ladder and the upper. The privileged, a small amount of people with high social status, have more options than people of the lower and middle social ladder. For instance, they have higher chances of entering and finishing prestige universities, having better career opportunities and eventually lead to the ability to control the economy and politics. The privileged uses their power to make rules that benefits only them and oppresses the population that is from other social status. An example would be that the higher the position in a work place is, the higher the education that is required. However as stated before, the privileged have a higher chance of receiving better education, because of the high tuition that only a certain amount of population can afford, this requirement is set up in order to keep each of the social rank in place.

Marx also describes how the demand for manufacture paved path for the rise of modern bourgeois. Because the demands for production were gradually increasing, companies with the newest machinery and a well divided labour within the company benefited the most and thus, the birth of modern bourgeois. Nowadays, big global companies such as Nike have branches all around the world; from high end stores to factories, the division of labour is very clear. With the best machinery and cheap labour that minimized the cost of production, while having elites from the society to take charge of the management, Nike is able to stand firmly in the global market.