April 25, 2018 / C H Thompson

Marxist explanations for social inequalities in wealth, income and poverty

Marxists argue inequalities are an outcome of the ruling-class owning the means of production (the factories) who exploit their position when employing the working-class.
By owning the means of production the ruling-class capitalise on the profits generated by their working-class employees
The ruling-classes exploit the working-classes by getting them to work as hard as possible for lowest wage possible.
The ruling-class then invest their profits in more plant and machinery to generate even more profits. The outcome of such a process is social class inequality

Evaluation

The weakness of the Marxist explanation ignores the upper middle-classes as they don’t own the means of production but earn incomes large enough to earn vast amounts of wealth like Elton John
It ignores wealth won on lotteries such as Euro Millions
Marxists never identify what amount is too much wealth or too high an income therefore many middle-class occupations can be seen as giving people too large an income and making someone too wealthy

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