Class: A social relationship whereby people who share common relations to labor and the tools and materials they use to produce goods and services (mode of production) are grouped together. The notion of class as a categorization of individuals can only be created within a system where one class benefits by the expropriation and exploitation of another. Wealth and poverty do not determine one’s class, rather they are manifestations of it.
Class consciousness: An awareness of one’s socio-economic class and their common interests and collective struggles.
Labor: The mental and physical capabilities that all humans exercise whenever we produce a good or service. Within the capitalist mode of production, labor-power (the manifestations of one’s labor) is sold for a wage.
Labor organizing: A manifestation of class consciousness, often in the form of unionization, that provides workers with a group to act together and bargain their labor-power. (UCFW: Union 101)
The Anti-Oppression Network, Terminologies of oppression
Marxists Internet Archive Encyclopedia, Glossary of Terms
U.S. Department of Labor, Glossary of Labor Terminology
To suggest a resource to add to this guide, email us at LibraryDEIA@bowdoin.edu
You can also suggest a purchase (Bowdoin community: please include the note "DEIA Resource guide" in the form's Special Instructions field).