ABSTRACT
Marxism, which views class conflict as the principal feature of historical change, cannot be said to have operated with a definite conception of what it is that constitutes a class. Class as a socio-economic concept belongs to the bourgeois age, and it is questionable whether it can be made to work under circumstances where property in the means of production is no longer the characteristic line of division between the major groups in society. Social historians in particular can make use of the Marxian notion of class conflict as the dynamic element in history, without thereby committing themselves to any particular orientation. The emergence of new forms of dependence and control, both under corporate management and state-controlled planning, has 'sublated' the historic antagonism of capital and labour, and established a new perspective from which to view the conflict of classes. Social classes are by definition rooted in 'production relations', which in turn give rise to income relations.
