For classical liberals and libertarians, class is a social phenomenon marked by largely artificial distinctions between people based mainly on their access (or lack of access) to raw physical force and a willingness to use force against other people. Classes do not form in society simply because some people have more material wealth racked up than others, nor because some people are better at drawing or sewing or rollerblading than others. Even ideological content of the mind is not really the stuff of class. Sure, plenty of societies have divvied up rights and privileges based on religious or political adherence to one kind of orthodoxy or another, but even in those cases, the ideas do not create the classes. 

Who is the ruling class? How were they viewed in Jacksonian America? What is a tyrant? Who are the parasites of the class system? How would you define the class struggle?

Further Reading:

Class and Class Struggle, written by Henry Heller

Class Struggle Analysis: A Critique of Class Structure, written by Alvin Y. So

Bastiat’s Theory of Class: The Plunders vs. the Plundered

Related Content:

Class for Classical Liberals, written by Jason Kuznicki

Equality: The Meaning of Class, written by R. H. Tawney

Adam Smith, Class Warrior: A Contentious Legacy, written by David S. D’Amato

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