You see in revolutionary socialist propaganda constant references to ‘the ruling class’, ‘the bourgeoisie’, ‘the capitalists’, ‘the capitalist class’ and the like, yet I know of no study or investigation that goes into the question of who exactly these people are. Academic Marxist-influenced sociological studies that investigate the concept of social class in Marxist theory, almost invariably focus on the difficulties of conceptualising the *working class* theoretically and empirically, and also concentrate on identifying and categorising ‘the middle class(es)’. There is also abundant Marxist sociology that tries to look at the structures and institutions of capitalist rule at the level of the state, including ideological mechanisms of rule, but I know of not one, but I mean *not one*, study of the *bourgeoisie* as a social class within the framework of historical materialism at the level of the social structure of production relations. (Literally the only thing I’ve found is this comment on David Ruccio’s blog: <https://anticap.wordpress.com/2016/02/24/who-are-the-capitalists/>). This is surprising, apart from the obvious point that, given these people are supposed to be the class enemy, it would be handy to know who they are, because, if the whole notion of social class in Marxist theory is problematic (and I think it is, not because either the notion or Marxist theory are wrong – I don’t think they are – but because, given that Marx left no unambiguous definition of the concept, people have subsequently had to construct one inferring from what Marx did say and they don’t agree with each other), then measuring the concept against the empirical reality of the ruling class as a conceptual heuristic should be simpler than measuring it against the working class because one would expect less social variegation amongst the ruling class, in part because, almost by definition, there can’t actually be that many of them.
So my question is, have I missed something? Does anyone here know of any serious theoretical/empirical studies of the actual contemporary bourgeoisie from the optic of Marxist theory? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#7837): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/7837 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/81962865/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
