Every laboring class in human history has been stamped - imprinted, by the specific state of development of productive forces, expressed in the concrete division of labor in society. Hence, an industrial working class. Class is larger than property - owners and non owners, or the basic groups working the means of production and those owing the means of production. Classes are also large concrete groups in society created by and corresponding to specific means of production and its division of labor. No one dismisses the property aspect or property signature of class. The reason the industrial worker was proletariat is property, bourgeois property or wage labor, but he was "industrial." In an era of revolution in the means of production the material shape of the working class begins transformation. "A class is defined by the ownership of property," treats class in its abstract setting rather than walking on two legs; a). historical -concrete, and b). abstract - property form without regard to division of labor.
Guess, I be around for two more months. WL. II. Lenin "Classes are large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in law) to the means of production, by their role in the social organization of labor, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it. Classes are groups of people one of which can appropriate the labor of another owing to the different places they occupy in a definite system of social economy." -Lenin, LCW 29:421 1). "Classes are large groups of people 2). differing from each other 3). by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, 4). by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in law) to the means of production, 5). by their role in the social organization of labor, 6). and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it. 7). Classes are groups of people one of which can appropriate the labor of another owing to the different places they occupy in a definite system of social economy." -Lenin, LCW 29:421 _______________________________________________ Marxist-Leninist-List mailing list Marxist-Leninist-List@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxist-leninist-list
