Class and Literary Texts - Essay Example

As such, society follows the dictates and whims of the ruling class. Swenson (2011) discerned that man is characteristically ego centered, with a desire to further dominance over another. Therefore, there is no permanent idea among men. Societal ideology changes when the prevailing ruling class is displaced by a new emerging class, overpowering the existing ideas of old by new ideals espoused by the new emerging class. As it is stated in The German Ideology, “[t]he ideas of the ruling class are in (every) age (how they perceive) the ruling idea (to be)”.

This being the case, the relationship between the ruling class and working class constantly change with the introduction of new ideas (Marx and Engels, part I). Marx and Engels described the history of man’s struggle of fighting for control from landlords in the Middle Ages. As time passed, towns came into alliances with similar production systems. From these alliances, new social classes were formed, and as production systems need capital, the new ruling class, the capitalists emerged (Marx and Engels).

The relationship between the common citizen and the ruling class is simple, and production systems are controlled by the ruling class as they have the necessary resource needed for production. Thus, the working class is dependent on the systems and methods of production being imposed by the ruling class. . (Marx and Engels 64) With a class controlling production systems, “relations among themselves depend upon the extent to which each has its productive forces” (Marx and Engels, “Division of Labour and Form of Property”).

To put it simply, the class who control resource depend and make money on the labor of others in the working class. This is how production systems are divided. The film V for Vendetta distinctly shows a difference between the ruling and working class. Set in the year 2030 with the world in environmental peril, the film was set in the United Kingdom controlled by a totalitarian government. With the government controlled by the strongest and most powerful, the citizens are in total servitude and are forced to follow the rules set upon them without question.

In the Philippines, the Marcos government was controlled by the oligarchs, or a chosen few close to then President Marcos. Laws and policy were centered for the benefit and profit of these limited few with disregard to people’s and workers’ right and interests. The 20 year regime was finally toppled through a popular uprising by the working class (“EDSA People Power…”). Both examples are similar to Marx and Engels’ theory that the working class is dictated upon by the ruling class.

Only upon the rise of the working/common citizens against the government, the ruling class was toppled. Marx and Engels postulated that “an alteration (in the system) can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution; …necessary, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew”