class consciousness
- awareness of one's own social or economic rank in society.
- a feeling of identification and solidarity with those belonging to the same social or economic class as oneself.
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Origin of class consciousness
First recorded in 1885–90
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for class consciousness
Historical Examples
"You're stealing my class-consciousness from me," he called from the gate way.
ThirtyHoward Vincent O'Brien
President Roosevelt himself has declared that class-consciousness is a foul and evil thing.
Labor and FreedomEugene V. Debs
Class-consciousness points out the necessity for working-class action, economic and political.
Labor and FreedomEugene V. Debs
Not merely had he acquired the class-consciousness of the working-man, he had acquired the money-consciousness as well.
King CoalUpton Sinclair
The idea of the general strike keeps alive and fortifies in the workingmen their class-consciousness and revolutionary feelings.
Syndicalism in FranceLouis Levine
class consciousness
Identification with other members of one's own class and awareness of its relationship with other classes. According to Marxist theory, the proletariat (see also proletariat) will assume class consciousness when workers realize that they are being exploited by the bourgeoisie; then a proletarian revolution will be inevitable. Contrary to this theory, however, the American working class is primarily socially conservative.
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The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.