ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that conflicts can occur within classes, and examines capitalists, workers and landowners in turn. It explains each one is subject to intra-class conflict because of either a direct, such as working-class segmentation, or an indirect, such as responses by capitalists, discord between the individual and the collective. It examines the intra-class conflict that originates from three types of individual capitalist decision making: the location decision, the decision to introduce technical change, and the decision to specialize and trade. For a spatially extensive economy the chapter shows that the decision to undertake technical change can cause the overall rate of profit to decline, thereby engendering counterfinality and intra-class conflict. It also shows that indirect unintended consequences are a source of conflicts. The chapter also argues that the two points Offe and Wiesenthal raise are central in understanding the two forms in which intra-class conflict among workers is manifested: segmented labour and capitalists' responses to workers.
