Hello everyone,
As you may know, I’ve written some pretty in-depth analyses of Marx’s views about specific social classes [proletariat; bourgeoisie; landowner class; middle classes, petty-bourgeoisie & peasantry; surplus population & lumpenproletariat]. While I plan to write an ultimate part about Marx’s “general” conception of class, his “general” “class theory” (that is, from what we’re able to reconstruct, given that there aren’t any definitive works by Marx himself outlining such a theory…), I needed/wanted to take a break. What’s more, right now I’m reading various more contemporary writings on class, and some will definitely help me for reconstructing Marx’s perspective on this topic.
Throughout the last months, during which I researched this topic/issue, I obviously have read quite a lot of articles and analyses, and here are some of the best…
On Marx’s overall ‘class theory’:
- Paul Mattick Jr.: “Class and Capital”
- Michael Heinrich:
- In his Introduction…, read the section titled “The Fetishism of Social Relations in Bourgeois Society”
- “Individuum, Personifikation und unpersönliche Herrschaft in Marx’s Kritik der politischen Ökonomie”, which I’ve translated (with deepl.com) into English here.
- Søren Mau:
- A short version of his argument (but I’d recommend looking in the book, which contains all the quotes from Marx): The Economic Power of Capital: On Value and Class
- In his book, especially (but not exclusively) p. 120-184.
- Bue Rübner Hansen: Surplus Population, Social Reproduction, and the Problem of Class Formation (Viewpoint Mag, 2015)
Others:
- Neocosmos, M. (1986). Marx’s third class: Capitalist landed property and capitalist development. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 13(3), 5–44. doi:10.1080/03066158608438299. URL:: sci-hub.st/10.1080/03066158608438299
- Bescherer, Peter, “Deklassiert und korrumpiert: Das Lumpenproletariat als Grenzbegriff der politischen Theorie und Klassenanalyse von Marx und Engels”, Ethik und Gesellschaft, 0(1), 2018.
- I have translated (via deepl.com) this into English
- Claudio Katz, Marx on the Peasantry: Class in Itself or Class in Struggle?
