¿Clases sociales o status? Las relaciones sociales en la Antigüedad desde Karl Marx

Blanco Zúñiga, Alejandro | 2015-01-01

The struggles in the interpretation of ancient societies from the materialistic conception of history are related to the misunderstanding of Marx’s method. The author understood that economic categories of capitalist society could not be applied directly to previous societies, as in the case of the concept of capital, since this leads to a distortion of the historical relations. Regarding the concept of social class, Marx analyzed it according to levels of abstraction, closely linked to the dialectical method. Thus, when analyzing ancient societies using the concept of social class, it is of great importance to remember the levels of abstraction that will reveal the social relationships from the point of view of totality. In this sense, alternative concepts of Moses Finley (orders and status) are not out of the concept of social class but specificities of the analysis.