Discuss whether the family is an institution which maintains the power of the ruling class.

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Discuss whether the family is an institution which maintains the power of the ruling class.

Firstly and foremost: this statement is from the Marxist Theory perspective.  

        Marxists are conflict theories.  They see society as based on class conflict.  Capitalist society contains two classes – capitalist class owns the means of production, such as factories, machinery and raw materials, while working class owns nothing but its labour power.

        To survive, therefore, the workers must sell their labour to the capitalists to exploit workers, making profits by paying them less than the value for what they have produced.  This produces conflict between the classes.

        In capitalist society, all institutions – such as education, the media and religion ect – all half to maintain class inequality and exploitation.  The family too serves the interests of capitalism, for example by reproducing the labour power of the workforce.

        Unlike functionalists, Marxists do not see social policies as benefiting all members of society equally.  They see the state and its policies as serving capitalism.  For examples, they see the low level of state pensions as evidence that once workers are too old to produce profits they are ‘maintained’ at the lowest possible cost.

        There are many different Marxists theory perspectives upon the role of the family within a capitalist society.  These perspectives prove the above title/statement as true, these include:

        Early Marxist views on the family come not so much from Marx, surprisingly enough, but from Engels.  Engels believes the family is shaped by the economic structure of society.  This is called economic determinism.  Those who own the means of production (the ruling class) control all else in society, and can control how features of society are shaped.  Engels suggests, in a view that actually crosses over with early feminist writings, that the family was invented at the same time in history as the private property and the state.  Monogamy was invented to control women in order to establish legitimate lines of inheritance for private property.  This was because fathers needed to be as sure as possible that the people they were leaving their property to were in fact there own children.

Where as Althusser believes that the state consists of two elements or ‘apparatuses’, both of which serve to keep the bourgeoisie in power:

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  • RSA.  The repressive state apparatuses which maintain the rule of the bourgeoisie by force or threat of it.  RSA’s include the police, courts and army.  When necessary, they use physical coercion to repress the working class.
  • The ideological state apparatuses (ISA), which maintain the rule of the bourgeoisie by controlling people’s ideas, beliefs and values.  ISAs include religion, the mass media and the education system.  

In his view, he suggests that the family appears to be a private institution, but is really the subject of much state control.  Within the family, ideologies are socialised into each generation, ...

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