ABSTRACT
Marx believed that 'the labour process itself is no more than an instrument of the valorisation process, just as the use-value of the product is nothing but a repository of its exchange-value'. The capitalist was characterised by Marx as merely an agent of capital, its representative in the valorisation process. The capitalist therefore functioned within the production process, and this, according to Marx, affected the ideology of the capitalist. Poulantzas's economic criteria construct a double disqualification of agents in the production process from membership of the working class. Classes are also determined by their role in the political relationships of domination/subordination. The dividing line between the working class and the new middle class at the economic level is defined for Poulantzas by the performance of productive or unproductive labour. The position and roles of the new middle class within it, then the harsher judgments upon Marxism will have been fully justified.
