this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2026
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It only refers to how we engage with societal production in a handful of belief systems such as Marxism. These are different from how Anthropologists view class which is different from how sociologists view class and all of the above are different from how many older societies viewed class.
Marxism did not invent that class previously meant things like "serf, lord, slave, merchant, etc," this was something Marx just used that everyone else was using. Marx developed class struggle further by developing dialectical and historical materialism, but did not invent this conception of class.
Marx overly focused on one criteria to describe class. It's ok to accept ownership/working classes as a useful tool for understanding the world but other systems also offer useful lessons for understanding the world in different ways and contexts.
Marxism does not limit one's understanding purely to production and distribution, though, I'm not sure what you're getting at. Domenico Losurdo's Class Struggle is a good read.