Examine Karl Marx's views on 'class-in-itself' and 'class-for-itself' with reference to proletarians.

Breaking down the question

The verb examine asks for a careful exposition and appraisal of a specific conceptual pair in Marx's thought — class-in-itself (Klasse an sich) and class-for-itself (Klasse für sich) — and the phrase with reference to proletarians fixes the illustration firmly on the industrial working class. The examiner is testing whether you grasp the distinction between the objective existence of a class and its subjective self-awareness, and whether you can trace how Marx expected the proletariat to travel from one to the other.

The distinction is central to Marx's whole theory of class and revolution. A class-in-itself is a category defined by its common position in the relations of production, whether or not its members recognise their shared situation. A class-for-itself is that same aggregate transformed into a self-conscious, organised collective actor, aware of its interests and prepared to pursue them against its antagonist. The question, in effect, asks you to explain the making of the proletariat as a revolutionary subject — and, in a full answer, to assess whether that transformation actually occurred.

How to approach it

Begin by locating the concepts within Marx's materialist theory of class, where class is defined by relationship to the means of production. Then define each term precisely — Marx uses the formulation most explicitly in The Poverty of Philosophy — and explain the passage from one to the other.

Apply this squarely to the proletariat: describe its objective condition as a class-in-itself, then set out the factors Marx believed would forge it into a class-for-itself — concentration in factories, communication, immiseration, polarisation, struggle, and the role of organisation and ideology. Introduce the barrier of false consciousness and the function of the party. Finally, examine critically — note that the predicted transformation has been contested by Dahrendorf, Weber and theorists of embourgeoisement, and refined by Lenin. Support is available in our notes on Marx, historical materialism and class and in the encyclopedia entry on Karl Marx.

Model answer

For Marx, class is not a matter of income or status but of relationship to the means of production. In capitalist society two great classes confront each other — the bourgeoisie, who own capital, and the proletariat, who own only their labour power and must sell it to survive. The distinction between class-in-itself and class-for-itself describes the process by which such an objectively defined class becomes a conscious historical agent.

Class-in-itself

A class-in-itself exists when an aggregate of people share the same objective position within the relations of production but have not yet become aware of their common situation or interests. They constitute a class by virtue of their structural location, but only as a passive category. The proletarians, at this stage, are — in Marx's image from The Poverty of Philosophy — a mass united against capital, but not yet for itself. They compete with one another, disperse their energies, and endure exploitation without recognising it as a shared and remediable condition. Objectively they form a class; subjectively they do not yet act as one.

Class-for-itself

A class-for-itself comes into being when the members of a class become conscious of their common interests, recognise their antagonist, organise collectively and act politically to advance those interests. Here the proletariat is transformed from a mere economic category into a self-aware, solidary and revolutionary force. Marx wrote that in the course of struggle the mass becomes united and constitutes itself as a class for itself, whose interests it defends. Consciousness, organisation and the will to act distinguish this stage; the class now makes history rather than merely suffering it.

The proletariat's passage from one to the other

Marx believed the very logic of capitalism would drive the proletariat from an in-itself to a for-itself condition. Several mechanisms would accomplish this.

First, concentration. Large-scale industry gathers workers together in factories and cities, breaking their isolation and enabling them to perceive their shared plight.

Second, communication and organisation. Improved means of communication link workers across localities; trade unions and combinations form, converting scattered grievances into collective action and generalising local struggles into a national one.

Third, immiseration and polarisation. Marx predicted that competition would ruin the middle strata and push them into the proletariat, while accumulation concentrated wealth at one pole and misery at the other. As society split into two hostile camps, the objective interests of the workers would become unmistakable.

Fourth, struggle itself. Through recurring conflict with employers over wages and conditions, workers acquire consciousness in practice. Class struggle is the school in which the proletariat learns who it is; theory and organisation crystallise what experience teaches.

The culmination is revolutionary class consciousness — the recognition that the workers' interest lies not merely in better wages but in overthrowing the capitalist mode of production itself and abolishing private property. Only as a fully formed class-for-itself can the proletariat perform its historic role of expropriating the expropriators.

The barrier of false consciousness

The transformation is not automatic. The dominant ideas of any epoch, Marx and Engels held, are those of its ruling class; through religion, law and morality the bourgeoisie propagates a worldview that masks exploitation and presents the existing order as natural and just. This false consciousness keeps the proletariat in an in-itself condition, mistaking its real interests. Overcoming ideological mystification is therefore a precondition for the class becoming for-itself, a task in which revolutionary theory and, in Lenin's later development, the vanguard party play a decisive part.

Critical examination

Marx's schema is a powerful account of collective agency, but its prediction has been widely questioned. The advanced proletariat has, in most industrial societies, not become the unified revolutionary class-for-itself Marx anticipated. Ralf Dahrendorf argued that the decomposition of both capital and labour, and the institutionalisation of class conflict through unions and collective bargaining, blunted revolutionary consciousness. Theories of embourgeoisement held that rising living standards drew workers into middle-class aspirations. Weber, more broadly, denied that a shared market position must generate communal class action, insisting that status and other cleavages fragment class solidarity.

These criticisms do not dissolve the distinction; they qualify Marx's confidence in its inevitable resolution. The concepts remain analytically valuable for asking why an objectively exploited class may or may not become a conscious political actor — a question central to the study of labour, movements and revolution.

Conclusion

Marx's contrast between class-in-itself and class-for-itself thus captures the movement from objective structural location to subjective revolutionary agency. With reference to the proletarians, it describes how a dispersed mass of wage-labourers might, through concentration, organisation and struggle, become the self-conscious gravedigger of capitalism. That the predicted transformation has proved uneven and contested makes the distinction not less but more useful — it directs attention precisely to the conditions under which a class does, or does not, awaken to itself.

Examiner's perspective

Examiners reward a candidate who defines the pair with precision — objective position versus subjective consciousness — and who anchors the definition in Marx's own formulation before applying it to the proletariat. The strongest scripts explain the mechanisms of transformation (concentration, communication, polarisation, struggle) rather than merely asserting that consciousness arises.

Two further moves lift the answer. First, integrating false consciousness and the role of ideology and organisation as the barrier and the solvent between the two stages. Second, a genuine critical examination — invoking Dahrendorf, embourgeoisement and Weber to show that the proletariat's passage to a class-for-itself has been historically contested. Weak scripts define the terms and stop; the discriminating answer connects them to Marx's theory of revolution and closes with a reasoned judgement on why the concepts endure despite the failure of the prophecy.