DISCUSS THE HISTORY OF ALL HITHERTO EXISTING SOCIETY IS THE HISTORY OF CLASS STRUGGLES

ASSIGNMENT ON POLITICAL ECONOMICS. TOPIC: DISCUSS THE HISTORY OF ALL HITHERTO EXISTING SOCIETY IS THE HISTORY OF CLASS STRUGGLES INSTRUCTION: NOT LESS THAN 2 PAGES BY: MRS. ROSE N. EJIOFOR LEVEL: 300L. COURSE CODE: GS 324 SUBMITTED TO: HENCHMAN OPARA Firstly, before delving into the discussion on “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles" let me unravel the meaning of class struggle. Class struggle is the tension or antagonism which exists in society due to competing socioeconomic interests and desires between people of different classes. The view that the class struggle provides the lever for radical social change for the majority is central to the work of Karl Marx. Secondly, this statement "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles". Entail that Society have always taken the form of an oppressed majority living under the thumb of an oppressive minority. In capitalism, the industrial working class, or proletariat, engage in class struggle against the owners of the means of production, the bourgeoisie. As before, this struggle will end in a revolution that restructures society, or the "common ruin of the contending classes". The bourgeoisie, through the "constant revolutionizing of production [and] uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions" have emerged as the supreme class in society, displacing all the old powers of feudalism. The bourgeoisie constantly exploits the proletariat for its labour power, creating profit for themselves accumulating capital. However by doing so the bourgeoisie "are its own grave-diggers"; the proletariat inevitably will become conscious of their own potential and rise to power through revolution, overthrowing the bourgeoisie. Thirdly, in Marx & Engels: Library: 1848: Manifesto of the Communist Party, it is view as; Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations. Lastly, in my own understanding the above statement means: All history shows that society has constantly been a struggle between the well off and the have not's. The working classes have always had to struggle in order to merely survive. Religion, while not true, gives the downtrodden and poor and workers, something to hold on to. Since this life is so bad, there must be an afterlife that will make all our suffering worthwhile.