Can Marxist Class Analysis Be Applied to Contemporary Western Societies such as Britain?

This essay will explore the Marxist perspective of class and answer questions as to it's relevance in today's societies. It will look into whether the assumtions made by Marx are outdated and show their relevance to today's modern society.
Firstly it is important to remember that there is no single Marxist perspective. Marx attached great importance to economic process. He thought that every social group must satisfy its material needs, for example, food, shelter and clothing, and it does this by harnessing natural resources, producing goods, developing new technologies and establishing a division of labour in the workplace. As people band together to perform these economic tasks, they enter into class relationships. Early hunter gatherer societies were an example of primitive communism because everyone chipped in and did multiple tasks. But social class started to develop as societies began to create specialised divisions of labour and the idea of private property was introduced
In all stratified societies, there are two major social groups, a ruling class and a subject class. …