Marx And Bourdieu Analysis

Essay option 1: The concept of class

One single word which solely defines our place within society: class. Class describes the hope or the despair for our futures. It is what dictates your anticipated success or failure in life. It decides your friend circle; your hobbies; your interests; your clothing style; your attitude….ultimately; it decides you. Class ideology has existed throughout the ages thus before exploring the concept of class through the writing of Marx and Bourdieu it is vital to firstly establish exactly what class is and what it means to individuals in societies. Firstly class can be described as a form of social ranking; in other words, where one places on the ladder of inequality. This form of class judgement is based

Both emphasize that we do not act purely as robots but emphasize that we are in fact not really free. For Marx this is because our class confines our consciousness to certain limits set by our environment and for Bourdieu, his term of habitus entails that we are preconditioned to believe certain things subliminally which influences our conscious notions of our abilities and place in society. Both Marx and Bourdieu highlight the fact that through our actions we are guilty of continuing the class production and the struggles which come along with it. Bourdieu however does view the human as reflexive and able to think about actions and not merely follow blindly thus with this difference Marx perhaps missed that people may rise up against a particular conscious idea. For example, revolutions occur due to people rising up and reflexively realizing and influencing others that a situation is unfair; i.e.: the freedom struggle from

The violence erupted from the desperate strikers who were faced head on with the class gap between management, their trade union, the state and themselves. Continued dismissed attempts to negotiate with workers and even by dismissing workers’ demands, here Marx’s words of exploitation of the poor become seen. The rich minority at the top refusing to take care of their employers of a lower class below them awakens the reflexive thinking of the exploited miners. Starting discussions and disputes about unfair and unjust working conditions slowly changed the consciousness of the miners. They now view management as power hungry and selfish and view the trade union as one in the same with management. This consciousness amongst strikers allowed for a unified bond amongst them and their sheer desperation allowed them to become such a powerful force that the state had to intervene. The state’s militant action serves as a very provocative statement of class and class power. The strikers’ inability to reach those in power, to lay before them their case, due to being bound by a status of low class, resulted to their detriment in the death of multiple individuals. The message sent by this massacre creates a new consciousness, one where those in lower class occupations are now fearful to strike and to discredit the laws set in place to keep them locked