Summary of Marx on Class Struggle
... different classes at different times. At any level in society, this struggle occurs between the “oppressor and the oppressed”. To give examples of social orders that once existed, Marx and Engels cite the “subordinate gradations” of the classes in the societies of ancient Rome and the Middle Ages. The authors then discuss how the bourgeois society developed out of the collapse of feudalism and the ways through which industry and production gave rise to the bourgeois class. Marx and Engels that while the bourgeoisie class, which consists of owners and employers, makes less of a class distinction than previous societies, class division does still exist. However, this division results in only two classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Those of the bourgeois class rely on those of the proletariat class to carry out production. As production increases and industries grow, and the means by which this occurs changes, so does...