Marx's Class Theory: Fundamental, Subsumed, and Nonclass Processes

Introduction to Marx's Multifaceted Class Concept

In Marxist theory, class process and class are not the same entity — classes are a different thing altogether. By classes, one understands Marx to mean subdivisions among individuals according to the specific situations they inhabit in the class process and the precise ways in which they personalize those processes. Individuals participate in class processes and, in so doing, occupy class situations or positions. Some individuals perform compulsory and surplus labor — Marx's direct producers — while others appropriate or redistribute that surplus labor. This makes Marx's conceptualization of class genuinely multifaceted.

First, an individual can, and generally does, occupy more than one class position and therefore becomes a participant in multiple classes. Second, Marx identifies more than two class situations defined simply as the performers and extractors of surplus labor. The term "fundamental" opens the way for another category of class process and therefore another set of classes. The complexity of Marx's notion of class also emerges in the process of applying it to social analysis. Society is understood as encompassing different necessary class processes and therefore distinct sets of fundamental classes at any given historical moment.

Marx selects the term social formation primarily to underline society's conceptualization as an ever-changing arrangement of different class processes and the individuals who participate in them. As Resnick and Wolff explain: "Class process is one thing; classes are another. By classes we understand Marx to mean subdivisions among individuals according to the particular situations they occupy in the class development, to the precise ways in which they 'personalize' class processes" (1987, p. 117). The personalization of class processes therefore offers a deeper understanding of the term and ultimately generates a direct approach to the analysis of class structure and class dynamics.

Understanding this, it is important to see how Marx distinguishes the forms and groupings of class. "Marx differentiates the two-class groupings of performers and extractors of surplus labor according to the forms in which the surplus labor is performed. Different forms coexist in varying combinations across human history — primitive communist, slave, feudal, ancient, capitalist — [Marx] terms [these] fundamental classes" (Resnick & Wolff, 1987, pp. 117–118). The five forms or social arrangements that will be analyzed via fundamental, subsumed, and nonclass processes are: (a) communism, (b) feudalism, (c) slavery, (d) capitalism, and (e) ancient society.

Fundamental, Subsumed, and Nonclass Processes Defined

Subsumed classes differ from the fundamental class process and are therefore understood in terms distinct from production. "Subsumed classes refers to persons inhabiting a subsumed class position. Such a position occurs within a subsumed class process. It is unlike the fundamental class process because it is neither the production nor appropriation of surplus labor or its products" (Resnick & Wolff, 1987, p. 118). To better explain subsumed classes, Resnick and Wolff refer to employees of traders, financiers, and other managers of the financial, political, and social processes that encompass the conditions of existence of the capitalist fundamental class process.

Nonclass positions differ from both fundamental and subsumed class positions in that they do not produce capitalist commodities, hire no productive workers, and appropriate no surplus value. Banks can be seen as engaging in a nonclass process insofar as they borrow and lend money. As Resnick and Wolff note, "the nonclass process of collecting taxes does not occur together with the subsumed class process: the tax paid is not an initial distribution of surplus value… members of Congress do not occupy a subsumed class position within those relationships" (1987, p. 241).

Some positions in society can occupy both a nonclass position and a fundamental position simultaneously, as is the case with members of Congress. "Various nonclass positions as receivers of taxes, of borrowings, of interest and rental payments from productive and unproductive laborers. Congresspersons may also occupy a fundamental class position within the state if they serve also on the respective boards of industrial state enterprises" (Resnick & Wolff, 1987, p. 241).

Class Structures in Capitalist Society

To begin the analysis of the five societies, it is useful to start with capitalism, the form most familiar in the contemporary Western world. The main classes in capitalism are the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Other classes also exist within this society — though not primary in relation to capitalism's fundamental dynamics — and must be noted. These include peasants, landlords, the petty bourgeoisie, and the lumpenproletariat.

The capitalists, or bourgeoisie, represent the fundamental class because they are directly engaged in production and directly appropriate surplus labor. Surplus value can take the forms of profit, rent, and interest. The workers, or proletariat, are not owners of the means of production and do not possess the capability to purchase the labor power of others; they sell their own labor power. The nonclass or nonclass processes are associated with the petite bourgeoisie — "smaller capitalists" — who own sufficient means of production but do not purchase additional labor power.

As mentioned earlier, members of Congress can be fundamental or nonclass depending on their activities: they become nonclass if they own an enterprise. The subsumed class includes the proletariat as workers who sell their labor. A clear example of a subsumed class member in capitalist society is a fast-food worker.

References

Resnick, S. A., & Wolff, R. D. (1987). Knowledge and class: A Marxian critique of political economy. University of Chicago Press.