During the struggle to gain livelihood, people created institutions, which were very much production centric. All those institution except which existed in primitive communism, gave birth to social inequality. All the societies which emerged after the primitive communism introduced division of labor, which lead to the stratified classes of men in the society. These classes are differentiated in the society by their ownership or access to the means of production and their possession of power in the society. Whatever economic surplus is accumulated will be taken by the class who obtain power and own means of production.

History has witnessed confrontation between the different classes, the dominance of one strata over other is often challenged. The history of all the societies which existed until now is the history of class conflict. Following are the some example of class conflict which existed in different society, free man and slaves, aristocrat and commoner, landlord and peasant, bourgeoisie and proletariat and exploiters and exploited.

According to “Karl Marx”, he was never dependent on the contemporary conditions of society. He believed that world is always in changing state, it is not static. However his social change theory is based on economic factors of society, which results in development of different classes and class struggle.                     

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To study society via Karl Marx concept of historical materialism, sociologists have to look in to the structure of society, the concept is known as, base and super structure frame-work. Furthermore, Karl Marx has divided the structure of society into two parts in his frame-work, base and superstructure. The base explains the economic structure of society, which includes, the means of production in a society, relationship between owner and worker, work conditions and division of labor. Furthermore, base influences the other part of the social structure which is known as superstructure, it includes, institutions of society, culture, Art and politics.
Marx and Engels explained “five stages of development of society” which are as follows.

Primitive Communism or Tribal Society

In primitive society, means of production was hunting, people in such society produce just enough to keep themselves alive or survive, and there was not a surplus in the production. Therefore, no one owned property and there were no institutions to exploit the people of primitive society. Furthermore, there were equal distribution of goods among the members of society and the division of labor was based on age. Karl Marx and Engels refer to such society as, primitive communism.

Slave Society

In this stage nomadic communities, whose survival was dependent on hunting gradually changed in to agricultural settlement. Increase in the development of labor and production of agriculture goods opened the possibility of slavery. Due to the conquest and war large number of slaves were acquired by the ancient cities. Slaves were made to work in the fields to extract the surplus from their labor.

Feudal Society

After the collapse of slave society, feudal society came in to being. Due to the increase in production or surplus the probability of external threats was increased, which resulted in the increase in division of labor and classes. Peasants were exploited by the aristocracy, soldiers, kings and religious leaders. Share of property and production had been distributed among people according to their position not by their work.

Capitalist Society

After the feudal society, emerges the capitalist society as the result of industrial revolution. Its social structure is based on the commodities and profit. In capitalist society means of production is owned by few people which leads to the exploitation of a working class. Marx and Engels refer to the working class as; “proletariat” and to the owners of factories as; “bourgeoisie”. Bourgeoisie exploit proletariat by making them believe, they are receiving the fair share of their work in the shape of wedges. However, in reality employers are robbing the working class from their actual share of work legally, in the name of profit.

Communist Society

According to Karl Marx, communist society is the last level of social development. Such society emerges, when the proletariat take over the means of production after realizing that, they are being exploited by the bourgeoisie. Which will results in overthrowing of capitalist society and emerging of a new society where mode of production is based on social ownership. Every individual in communist society will get equal share of production and the class system will be abolished from society.

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