Institutionalists, Radical Economists, and Class
For Marx, there were but two significant classes: the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The Communist Manifesto declares: It... society as a whole is more and more splitting into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat" [Marx and Engels 1972, 336]. The critical characteristics of the Marxist view of class are, first, that the two classes are totally defined by their relation to the means of production, and second, that the antagonism between the two classes is both inevitable and the source of all change in the system. Class antagonism thus drives the system. The bourgeoisie own the means of production and employ wage labor. The proletariat sell their labor power to the bourgeoise in order to live. They create all "surplus value," but get only a subsistence wage. Unlike labor, "constant capital"