Online Education Blog

Citizenship

Citizenship is one of the most commonly used terms in a democracy. It is used at all levels of politics; in formal legal documents, in laws, in constitutions, in party manifestoes and in speeches. But what is citizenship? Or, who is a citizen? A citizen is not anyone who lives in a nation-state. Among those who live in a nation-state, there are citizens and aliens. A citizen is not just an inhabitant. He or she does not merely live in the territory of a state. A citizen is one who participates in the process of government. In a democratic society, there must be a two-way traffic between the citizens and the government. All governments demand certain duties from the citizens. But, in return, the state must also admit some demands on itself. These are called rights. A citizen must have political rights. A person who is ruled by laws but who has no political rights is not a citizen.

Since antiquity, citizenship has been defined as the legal status of membership in a political community. Under Roman jurisprudence, citizenship came to mean someone free to act by law, free to ask and expect the law’s protection. This legal status signified a special attachment between the individual and the political community. In general, it entitled the citizenship to whatever prerogatives and responsibilities that were attached to membership. With the creation of the modern state, citizenship came to signify certain equality with regard to the rights and duties of membership in the community. The modern state began to administer citizenship; it determines who gets citizenship, what the associated benefits are, and what rights and privileges it entails. As a legal status, citizenship has come to imply a unique, reciprocal, and unmediated relationship between the individual and the political community. Citizenship, in short, is nothing less than the right to have rights.

Class Struggle

Competition, strife, conflict, and struggle are inherent among classes in society. Marx propounded that inherent in the structure of classes was the identification of a common ‘class enemy’ as an entity against which all the members of a class would unite. If there was no class enemy, the people of a class would compete with each

other fiercely and there would be no class solidarity or class cohesion. Marx maintained that when a large-scale industry is set up, scores of people come together in the search of avenues for subsistence. Naturally, they compete with each other on several counts. But, their common wages, common interest against their superiors and other similar conditions keep them united and curtail competition among themselves. The capitalists on the other hand unite in the idea of repression. In the event of united capital, the working class forms associations. The interests that they define are class interests but the struggle of a class against another class is a political struggle. It may be appreciated that the conflict between classes is restricted to the race for economic rewards and resources. It also develops because of psychological suffering that accompanies alienation of labor.

Weber, on the other hand believed that relative control over goods and services (that constitute the groundwork for the conception of class), produces income, opens up the possibility of procuring other goods, provides social position, and provisions a certain style of life. Those in common class situation are often led to similar sentiments and ideas but not necessarily to concerted action (Bendix, 1974). Class organization emerges when there is an economic opponent. Weber (1968) proposed that it becomes important to curtail the competition when the number of competitors increases with respect to the profit span. For doing this, one group of competitors adopts some characteristics of its actual or potential group of competitors. The characteristics are externally identifiable such as language, religion, descent, residence and others. Sometimes associations are formed with rational regulations.