ABSTRACT
The concepts of social class and of class struggle bequeathed to us by Karl Marx are crucial to an understanding of the political process in its broadest implications, as the power system and the distribution of wealth and opportunity are interdependent. The pace and order of the admission of new groups and classes to political participation have varied from country to country, having proceeded most rapidly in the Southern Cone countries and most slowly in the Andean and Central American highlands. In order to secure participation in or control over the political process, political groups, or “power contenders,” must demonstrate control of a power capability. Thus, the major political processes that may flow from social change or pressure for additional social change will be labeled, for the purposes of a model that call “the collapsible pyramid,” as evolution, revolution, and counterrevolution.
