Class Analysis and Pluralism

Last Updated on Friday, 21 October 2011 00:56 Friday, 21 October 2011 00:50

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Pluralism and class analysis, on the other hand, focus in the concept of interest among individuals, groups, and the state. Another approach is neo-institutionalism, which views the state is influenced by big corporations, bureaucracies, legislatures and courts. Although proponents of these theories claims one is superior over another, the best policy analysis, from the perspectives of policy studies, is a combination of these theories depending on the surrounding political, social and cultural environments. In this paper, the strength and weakness of two well developed theoretical approaches, Class Analysis and Pluralism, will be discussed.

According to Class Analysis, society is made up of two classes competing for political and economic power. This two-model class approach emphasizes on the conflict between two rival social classes, the capitalist and the working class[3]. The characteristics of group or individuals define this class identity, whether or not the individuals involved see themselves in these terms. Those characteristics are usually, but not only, related to the economy. The best known class theory was developed by a German political economist, Karl Marx, and his comrade, Friedrich Engels, in the Manifesto of the Communist Party[4]. Known as Marxist variant of class analysis or Marxian, this approach is by far the best known and theoretically well developed. Marx and Engels pointed out the nature of “means of production” and “mode of production” in related to class structure in society throughout history.

The two classes’ examples, in this approach, are land owners and farmers, slaves and owners in slave-holding societies, or workers and business in the capitalist society.  The dominant classes who have economic powers are in a position to influence the government and the government developed policy in favor of the dominant group. Marx argued that “the state is merely an instrument in the hands of capitalist, who use it for the purposes of maintaining the capitalist system and increasing (‘surplus value’), necessary at the expense of labor”[5]. This approach is reasonable in a sense that various governments during the colonial periods were working with the capitalists for the benefits of capitalists in the ninetieth and early twentieth centuries.

Another assumption of Marxist theory is that society will change in a way that the oppressed will struggle against the dominant class and the dominant class or capitalist will compete against each other, and society will change in a new direction. Based on this theory, Ted Goertzel asserted that “Marxist theory expects conflicts, tensions and changes a necessary for human progress”[6].  However, conflict is not always a necessary mean for change.  Geortzel argued that conflicts are accepted as a normal cause of events, instead of resolving it by confrontations”[7]. This assumption proved to be true to a certain level. For example, employees and capitalists compromise in the face of disagreement, rather than a dominant group imposing certain demands. This is due to the fact that confrontation isn’t always the best solution where competing interest can be negotiated and resolved for the benefits of both sides of the conflict. The conflicts may arise from conflicting interest; other completed social matters can cool down any tension between the two classes. As mentioned before, the two-class model approach of state power based on economic term per se neglected other complicated social issues in society. Therefore, this approach had little appeal in North America.

Pluralism is another popular approach to policy making which is originated in the United States. Pluralists’ view of governments is that it serves as a referee between competing interest groups who strive to shape public policies through their influences. They view politics as the means by which these competing interests are reconciled. According to this approach, the chief actors are private interest groups including the government itself and the general public or citizen who pays taxes to the state[8]. Interest groups, in this pluralists view, are civil societies, cooperate interest groups, unions and any organizations that are freely associated in a democratic society. Membership in these interest groups is not restricted to one group only and individual may have memberships in more than one interest groups.

Overlapping membership paves the way for co-operation among groups and it is the key mechanism for resolving conflicts[9]. In this way, the role of government is limited to be an ‘umpire” of the group struggle, where government is a neutral body ensuring there is fairness among competing groups. Ted Goertzel, a political sociologist asserted that:

Government is a differentiated, representative group which performs governing functions for the rest of society. Thus, the government has relatively little freedom of action; it is more often in a position of reacting to initiatives and pressures from other groups[10].

This assumption of government’s role in the state, however, fails to address the fact that state often has special ties with a certain interest group with whom the state may be sided with in the policy process making. Furthermore, interest groups with special ties to the government and those who can exert pressure to government will be able to influence state policy for the collective interest of their own group.

In the pluralists view, interest groups do not have the same influence, the ability to exert pressure to the government, and equal access to government. However, individuals have freedom to form a group or to join association to represent their interests. This allows citizens to raise their concerns or interests to the government through their group. Therefore, government policy may rightly be for the interest of the most influential group, interest groups with the highest organizational skills and resources are the one that can best represent the interest of citizens.  On a closer look at these assumptions, one can understand government and interest groups are not always moving in the same direction. State institutions are employed by combination of individuals who have different interests and associations. They may have different priorities for programs and policies to be adopted that contravenes with the interest groups’ agenda. Moreover, various bureaucracies under the government agencies also have their own interest in policy making, as the government itself is an interest group in this context.

Proponents of these approaches believe that pluralism is the best policy system to maintain peace and harmony in society compared to other theoretical approaches. They argued that there is a conflict and clashes between government and various interest groups. Interest groups also form coalitions for common interest and influence public policy. Class analysis emphasize on two social classes, the working class and the capitalist class. The two-class modal approach, perhaps, weakness lies in the fact that empirical datas show failures of Marxism in many countries around the world, which often lead to wars and instability. It proved to be unrealistic approach, as one can argue, based on world political events in the past twentieth century.

Although the two theories are different from each other, in some cases, they have similarities in some areas. Marxism theorists hold a view that there are segments within the working class and conflict of interest may arise within itself. Similarly, pluralists’ assumption of various interest groups reflects different segments in working class of class analysis theory. The class analysis, as opposed to pluralist approach, had been understood to be counterproductive in the political areas due to the concept of class based approach[11]. In the pluralist views, interest groups are formed with individuals who are free to judge what the best interest is for them and influence state policy through a coalition of interest groups[12]. Both the pluralist approach and class analysis have their own inadequacies and are far from perfection. In summary, the two theories, depending on other factors such as social, cultural, economic and political environment, each approach can be more efficient and superior than the other.