Is there still a class system In Britain?

Essay by llollipoppi March 2006

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Class in British society has been a major factor on how society has developed throughout history. Society in the United Kingdom has stereotyped individuals into class categories and Marx claims that class struggle has been the basis of British history for years, but is class still an issue today? This essay will explore Class in the past, its evolution, and compare it within modern day society. Classes have changed within society. Today Britain is a country that shows more equality and the social structure has changed.

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."(Marx, 1848)

Karl Marx believed that as soon as civilisation began to form, so did the division of the classes. In Britain, social classes formed as the following:

"Landowners, who drew their unearned income from their estates as rents; bourgeois capitalists, who obtained their income from their business in the form of profit; and proletarian workers who made their money by selling their labour to their employees for weekly wages "(Cannadine, 1998, pg 3).

Marx also believed that class conflict amongst these classes would arise; there would be a revolution of one class overthrowing the other. The Industrial revolution, which began in the late 18th century brought about the landowners starting to lose control of the state as the bourgeois, began to take control owning factories and businesses, yet there has been no revolution to overthrow the capitalistic view. Marx did predict that the proletarians would rise and revolt against the ideology of the bourgeois but over 100 years on it has still not happened. Does this mean that the proletarians are quite content to be wage slaves? On the other hand, has Society changed that much that there will be no need for a revolution? In the late 1800's, the division...