Karl Marx defined the relationship between those who own the means of production and those who make their living by selling their own labor power for a wage as two classes that he referred to as:

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Question restatement: Karl Marx described the relationship between those who own the means of production and those who sell their labor power for a wage as two classes, which he termed what?  
Option 1: "sellers and buyers". This framing is too general and does not capture the specific classes Marx highlighted; it treats economic actors in market transactions rather than the ownership of production, so it fails to name the distinctive social classes Marx emphasized. 
Option 2: "the bourgeoisie and the proletariat". This pairing precisely names the two main classes in Marx’s analysis: the bourgeoisie are the owners of capital and productive assets, while the proletariat sells labor to survive. The dynamic between these groups under capitalism is central to Marx’s theory of class struggle and economic structure. 
Option 3: "status groups and pariahs". This terminology resembles classifications from other sociological theories about groups and stigma, not Marx’s specific capitalist-class framework. It does not refer to ownership of the means of production or wage labor. 
Option 4: "producers and consumers". While these terms describe roles within an economy, they do not reflect the ownership relations and wage-labor dynamic that Marx explicitly identifies as two distinct classes formed by relation to means of production. 
In summary, the second option directly corresponds to Marx’s well-known dichotomy between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, reflecting ownership versus labor and the central class-struggle motif in his critique of capitalism.

SMC 2025 Smr - SOCIOL 1 (1561,1562) - Introduction to Sociology (O) FINAL EXAM

Karl Marx defined the relationship between those who own the means of production and those who make their living by selling their own labor power for a wage as two classes that he referred to as:

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