5 - The Constitution of Class in Capitalism: From the Relations of Production to Collective Agency

Summary

Choosing an entry point

From what I discussed in the last chapter, it follows that the overall aim of Marxist class theory is to identify features of the capitalist mode of production with class effects. Any conceptualization of class in capitalism based on a critical- realist, materialist ontology needs to have a specific entry point – a vantage point from which it is possible to discern how class relations are produced and reproduced. If we follow Marx's line of argument in the first volume of Capital (1976: 90), there are, at the heart of each mode of production, distinct relations of production, which concern how ownership of ‘the object and the means of labour’ also conditions people's relations with each other (Poulantzas, 1974: 18). Accordingly, it makes sense to start one's theorization of class from here. The capitalist relations of production entail a specific division of labour that is the foundation of class relations in any capitalist social formation (Poulantzas, 1974: 18; Marx, 1976: 415; Carchedi, 1977: 1). In a nutshell, the capitalist organization of work determines, in the first instance, how class is lived and experienced. It creates a force field that conditions people's lives. We can call this the class structure – a term that points to pre- existing social conditions under which people encounter each other, and under which they act, which is located in the ontological domain of the ‘deep’. Starting from the relations of production, I explain, in what follows, how class in capitalism can be conceptualized, that is, what the capitalist class structure looks like, and why the state plays an important role in its constitution.

The capitalist relations of production and class

Capital and labour as class locations

The capitalist relations of production can be seen as relations between two distinctive class locations, which can be called ‘capital’ and ‘labour’. They emerge thanks to a divide reflecting the ownership and non- ownership of means of production, that is, work equipment and raw materials. If there is a capitalist mode of production, the reasoning goes, there are also people who own means of production and people who own nothing but their labour power – in brief, capitalists and wage workers (Poulantzas, 1974: 18; Marx, 1976: 272–3; Carchedi, 1977: 46).