Class Theory or Class Analysis? A Reexamination of Marx's Unfinished Chapter on Class

Abstract

Instead of using the "cut and paste" method, this paper adopts an in-depth approach to examine Marx's use of the term "class" in two key writings, The Communist Manifesto and The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. After comparing these two works under the following headings — the number of classes, the linkages between economic interests and political struggles, the relationship between class and state, the impact of class on non-class relations, and the direction of class struggle — this paper argues that in the Manifesto Marx presents a structural "class theory," consisting of a coherent set of testable propositions and predictions. However, this paper also contends that in The Eighteenth Brumaire, Marx develops a different historical "class analysis" that is an interpretive scheme to make sense of changing political events. In the conclusion, this paper discusses how Marx's class theory is related to his class analysis.