Monsieur le Travail, Monsieur le Capital and Madame la Terre: Critical notes on the Marxist notion of class

Abstract

The Marxist concepts of class and class struggle have been criticized from various perspectives, and Marxists themselves have acknowledged their inconsistencies. Through the discussion of two classic problems—the middle classes and the characterization of the French smallholding peasants in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte—this article seeks to contribute some elements to the construction of a theoretically consistent Marxist concept of class. It also critically revisits the contributions of authors who suggest certain lines of solution to the problem.