Abstract

Marx’s analysis of modern society is based on class relations: the ruling class comprises those who own the means of production and exchange. He also discerns another principle of domination, which is not founded on a market logic, but on an organizational logic. This point must be further considered. As, beyond discursive cooperation, the rational coordination of production presents only these two primary possibilities, market and organization (intersecting with each other in multiple ways), the modern dominant class divides into two fractions: that of the capitalists, masters of the market, and that of the “competentµ (the holders of the competent authority), masters of the organization. The other class, I call the fundamental class, includes the largest part of the population, which does not have any property privileges on the market, nor “competenceµ privileges in the organization, but nevertheless holds both an immense knowledge and a powerful social force.