Marx (P,A,S)

Question 1

What did Karl Marx say about Social Stratification?

Answer 1

• Social stratification is the result of differing relations to production (the inequal relationships that economic agents have with the means of production)
• Class is the sole differentiator in society, with the economic ‘base’ its main determinant. Status, honour, or legal order are consequences of class rather than causal factors of stratification
• Class - groups within society whose members have similar relations to production, differentiated by those who make factors of production (most importantly labour) available to market and those who buy it

Question 2

Which Marxist thinkers have expanded on Marx’s theory of social stratification?

Answer 2

Christopher Hill:
The interaction of economics, politics, and social factors as key in illuminating class struggle, concluding that ‘culture’ is a class phenomenon which both explains class situations and is informed by them

Rodney Hilton:
Proposed a Marxist account of class stratification in feudal Europe - concluded that peasants possessed but did not own the means of production