- A ‘class in itself’ is where a group (e.g. workers) share the same economic position; a ‘class for itself’ is where they recognise their shared interests as a class, i.e. they become class conscious.
- Both are macro theories focusing on the structure of society; both see society shaping individuals; both arose as a response to growing industrial society.
- The economic base.
- The separation of workers from the ownership of the means of production and control of the work process and what they produce.
- The expanding proletariat; disappearance of the middle class; immiseration; inevitability of revolution by industrial workers.
- ‘Determinism’ means that structural factors determine individuals’ actions; ‘voluntarism’ means that individuals have free will to make their own decisions and choose their course of action.
- Through the domination of ideas and values, via ruling-class control of institutions such as education, the media, religion and the law.
- The organisations that use force or the threat of it maintain the rule of the bourgeoisie, such as the armed forces, the police, the courts, prisons, the secret service.
- Slaves, serfs, wage labourers.
- A classless, stateless society in which the means of production are communally owned and where exploitation and alienation have disappeared.
