The Marxist Perspective on Society

Last Updated on July 13, 2025 by Karl Thompson

What is the Marxist perspective on society? In sociology, Marxism is a structural conflict theory that sees capitalist society as fundamentally unequal and exploitative. Marxists argue that power is concentrated in the hands of the ruling class, and that key institutions like education, religion, and the media exist to maintain their control. This post outlines the main Marxist view of society, explains key ideas from Karl Marx, and explores how these ideas are applied and evaluated within A-level Sociology.

NB this is a simplified version of Marxist Theory. It is designed for both introductory A level sociology. It also serves as a re-introduction to Marxist Theory as part of the social theory module during the second year.

Karl Marx: Eight Key Ideas

1. Capitalist society is divided into two classes: the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat.
2. The Bourgeoisie exploit the Proletariat by extracting profit from them.
3. Those with economic power control other social institutions.
4. The bourgeoise excerpt Ideological control over the proletariat: they control their minds rather than controlling them through physical force.
5. The proletariat exist in a state of False Consciousness: they think inequality and exploitation, for example.
6. Capitalism causes Alienation – one of the key drivers of revolution
7. Revolution and Communism are necessary to improve the conditions of the working classes.
8. The point of social research is to find the most effective means towards communism.

Karl Marx Theory: Historical Context

Karl Marx (1818- 1883) was alive in the middle of the 19th century, and it is important to realise that his theories stem from an analysis of European societies 150 years ago.

Marx travelled through Europe during the mid and later half of the 19^th century where he saw much poverty and inequality.  The more he travelled the more he explained what he saw through unequal access to resources and ownership of property. He argued that the working class (proletariat) in Britain (and elsewhere) was being exploited by the ruling class (bourgeoisie).

The ruling class paid the working class less wages than they deserved, made them work long hours in poor conditions, and kept the profit from the sale of the goods produced. Thus, the ruling class got richer and the working class became increasingly poor, and had no way of improving their prospects.

Marx argued they only way the working classes could improve their conditions was to come together and overthrow the ruling class in a revolution. Equality for all in the shape of Communism would replace an unequal capitalist system. 

The rest of this post expands on six key ideas of Karl Marx.

Capitalist society is divided into two classes

The two main classes in capitalist societies are the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Their relationship to private property defines them. The Bourgeoisie are the owners of capital, such as land businesses, and the proletariat are the workers. The proletariat own no capital – just their labour power and must sell it the Bourgeoisie.

The Bourgeoisie or the Capitalist class own and control the ‘means of production’. The means of production include land, factories, and machines. These can be used to produce goods, which can then be sold for a profit. These are a tiny majority, but they own the majority of wealth.

The Proletariat do not own the means of production. They can only gain a living by selling their labour power to the bourgeoisie for a price. The proletariat are the largest class, the masses, who own almost no wealth.

Marx recognised that the class structure was a little more complex, with a middle class of small tradesmen, for example. However these two main classes are the important ones.

NB when Marx talked about ‘private property’ he was referring to privately owned capital. This means property meant for investing for profit. He was not talking about someone owning their own tools or even one house in which they lived.

The bourgeoisie exploit the proletariat

Marx argued that the bourgeoisie maintain and increase their wealth through exploiting the working class.

The relationship between these two classes is exploitative because the amount of money the Capitalist pays his workers (their wages) is always below the current selling, or market price of whatever they have produced. The difference between the two is called surplus value.

Marx thus says that the capitalist extracts surplus value from the worker. Because of this extraction of surplus value, the capitalist class is only able to maintain and increase their wealth at the expense of the proletariat.  To Marx, Profit is basically the accumulated exploitation of workers in capitalist society.

Marx thus argues that at root, capitalism is an unjust system because those that actually do the work are not fairly rewarded for the work that they do and the interests of the Capitalist class are in conflict with the interests of the working class.

Those with economic power control other institutions in society

Marx argued that those who control the Economic Base also control the Superstructure – that is, those who have wealth or economic power also have political power and control over the rest of society.

The Economic Base (The Mode of Production): Consists of the forces of production (tools, machinery, raw materials which people use to produce goods and services)and the relations of production (social relations between people involved in the production of goods and services). Together these make up the mode of production

The Superstructure: all other institutions: The legal system, the mass media, family, education etc. These are then used to bring about Ideological Control and ultimately False Consciousness.

During Marx’s day there was some evidence to suggest this was true – Voting was restricted to men with property; Press Barons used their papers to spread propaganda; and only the children of the wealthy could get to university.

Ideological Control

Marx argued that the ruling classes used their control of social institutions to gain ideological dominance, or control over the way people think in society.  Marx argued that the ideas of the ruling classes were presented as common sense and natural and thus unequal, exploitative relationships were accepted by the proletariat as the norm.

One example of how ideological control was achieved in Marx’s time was through religion. Christianty at the time argued that poverty was a virtue because Jesus was poor. The church taught that poor people should should accept their poverty in this life, but be good people and seek their rewards in eternal heaven. Marx argued that religion acted like Opium, making people feel good about being poor, and this helped to maintain the unequal social order.

Ideological control leads to false class consciousness

The end result of ideological control is false consciousness – where the masses, or proletariat are deluded into thinking that everything is fine and that the appalling in which they live and work are inevitable. This delusion is known as False Consciousness. In Marxist terms, the masses suffer from false class consciousness and fail to realise their common interest against their exploiters.

Commodity Fetishism

A fetish is an object of desire, worship or obsessive concern. Capitalism is very good at producing ‘things’. In capitalist society people start to obsess about material objects and money, which is necessary to purchase these objects. Material objects and money are worshipped in capitalist societies. Some people even need material objects to construct identities – this is partly responsible for keeping most of us in ‘false consciousness’

Capitalism causes alienation

Under Capitalism the worker becomes alienated from the process of production, from the people he works with and from the products they produce. This is because he lacks control over his work and becomes a ‘machine’, and thus work appears as ‘alien’ to him.

Marx’s ideas on Capitalism and social change – Competition leads to increasing levels of exploitation – Marx argued that the Capitalism had within it the seeds of its own destruction – it would eventually create the social conditions that would lead to its downfall. In order to stay competitive, Capitalists would have to sell goods at lower prices, which would mean reduced profit.

This would then encourage Capitalists to seek to reduce wages and increase efficiency– making the working conditions of the proletariat ever worse. Marx theorised that increasing numbers of increasingly exploited proletarians crammed into ever expanding cities (where factories were based) would eventually lead to a violent revolution – in which the proletariat would throw off their oppressors.

Revolution and Communism 

As far as Marx was concerned, he had realised the truth – Capitalism was unjust but people just hadn’t realised it! He believed that political action was necessary to ‘wake up’ the proletariat and bring them to revolutionary class consciousness.

Marx argued that following the overthrow of the Bourgeois – society would eventually organise itself along Communist lines – where the means of production are collectively owned (no private property) and everyone has equal wealth.

Marx was vague about exactly what the Communist society would look like but argued that in this society ‘each would give according to their ability and take according to their needs’ and that there would be a lot more free time for all.

The point of ‘Social Research’

Marx spent the last decade of his life sitting in the British Library analysing how Capitalism worked and discovered that over time, the degree of exploitation of workers increased. He thus theorised that Capitalism would gradually lead to an increasing amount human misery and exploitation and that it must, one day come to an end.

As far as Marx was concerned, he had realised the truth, and he believed that political action was necessary to ‘wake up’ the proletariat and bring them to revolutionary class consciousness. He spent much of the middle and later parts of his life engaged in efforts to bring about revolutionary change.

Criticisms of Traditional Marxism 

• Marx’s concept of social class has been criticised as being too simplistic. Today, there are clearly not just two social classes, but several; moreover, most people don’t identify with other members of their social class, so it is questionable how relevant the concept of social class is today.
• Clearly Marx’s predictions about capitalism ending and the ‘inevitable success of communism’ have been proved wrong with the collapse of communism.
• Capitalism has changed a lot since Marx’s day, and it appears to work for more people. Capitalism today is less exploitative, so maybe this explains why it still continues to this day?

Signposting – Other Relevant Posts for second year sociology

✅ For a full overview of Marxist theory in A-level Sociology, including key concepts, thinkers, and how Marxism applies to education, crime and more, see the main Marxist Theory page.

The Marxist Perspective on Society is usually taught as part of the compulsory Theory and Methods module in the second year of study.

After reading this post you should also read:

Eight Ways in Which Marxism is Still Relevant Today

Eight Criticisms of Traditional Marxism

Two specific Marxist thinkers you might like to explore are:

• Althusser’s structural Marxism
• Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony (humanistic marxism)

You might also like this A level sociology marxism revision post.

Related Posts from other Topics Within Sociology

One way to approach Marxist Theory in second year Sociology is to look at what Marxists say about specific areas of society such as the family and education:

• The Marxist Perspective on The Family
• The Marxist Perspective on Education
• Dependency Theory
• World Systems Theory

Find out more about Marxism – Good external sites

The Marx and Engels Archive – This is a comprehensive site which provides access to Marx’s major works, as well as biographies and articles about Marx, and a picture gallery!

The Communist Manifesto – Published in 1848 this is Marx’s most famous work – the one which contains the classic line ‘Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains’.

Marxism 2016 – Ideas for Revolution – This is the homepage of the latest Marxism festival, which is held in London every year over several days, where you can go to hear contemporary Marxists speak and argue amongst themselves.

The Victorian Slum is a BBC recreation of slum life from the 1860s, which was one of the decades when Marx was writing and conveys some of the privations working class slum dwellers had to endure – basically wages just about covered lodging and food. NB – According to this article, the level of squalor was almost certainly worse than in the video. There’s a good level of sociological commentary running through this.

Videos on Karl Marx’s Ideas 

There are a lot of videos on YouTube on basic Marxism, but to my mind the two below are the most useful as introductions. Having said that, they both still contain A LOT of complex information, so don’t worry too much if you find you don’t understand everything in either or both videos!

Crash Course – Karl Marx and Conflict Theory 

This is probably better for a first year university student, but it’s still a reasonably easy introduction.

The School of Life – Karl Mark Political Thought 

This is a little heavier going than the video above, but maybe more accessible as the narrator speaks slower, and it also comes to the firm conclusion that Marxism is still relevant today!