The main ideas behind Marxism - 3. The class struggle

Since the breakup of tribal society in the Dark Ages society has always been dominated by the class struggle between the exploiters and the exploited (the rulers and the oppressed).

• Bourgeoisie = capitalist class, the ones who control the forces of production, distribution and exchange. They will always pay the lowest wages possible especially when there is a good supply of labour and they live off the surplus profits made on goods made by the workers.

• Proletariat = oppressed or exploited class. The class who have no means of production of their own so are reduced to having to sell their labour in order to survive.

Marx believed that history is moved along by these two classes always fighting each other and the ruling class has to adapt and find new ways to exploit the proletariat. It is wrong that profit from a product should go to the bourgeoisie; the value of a product is determined by the amount of effort that has gone into making it and the profit should therefore be divided amongst the workers, not the bosses.

The struggle between nations is really only the struggle between the ruling classes of nations.

The main ideas behind Marxism - 4. The classless society

The class struggle will inevitably lead to an overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the creation of a classless society. There will first of all have to be a dictatorship of the proletariat until they have been educated into the ideology of a classless society where everyone is equal and there is no exploitation of anyone by anyone else.

This would happen in two stages with the middle classes overthrowing the aristocracy and then later the working classes overthrowing the middle class until they became one classless society.