Social Class———717

projects. In social capital, they found a concept that focuses in sociological theory. This is followed by a more
like a laser on precisely that idea. fine-grained exploration of the differences in the concept of
class in the two most important traditions of class analysis,
— Christopher Prendergast
the Weberian and the Marxist.
See also Cultural Capital

VARIETIES OF CLASS CONCEPTS

FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES
Many discussions of the concept of class confuse the
Bourdieu, Pierre and Loïc J. D. Wacquant. 1992. An Invitation terminological problem of how the word class is used within
to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago social theory with theoretical disputes about the proper def-
Press. inition and elaboration of the concept of class. While all uses
Burt, Ronald S. 2002. “The Social Capital of Structural Holes.” of the word class in social theory invoke in one way or
Pp. 148–90 in The New Economic Sociology: Developments in another the problem of understanding systems of economic
an Emerging Field, edited by M. F. Guillén, R. Collins, inequality, different uses of the word are imbedded in very
P. England, and M. Meyer. New York: Russell Sage. different theoretical agendas involving different kinds of
Coleman, James S. 1988. “Social Capital in the Creation of questions and thus different sorts of concepts. One way of
Human Capital.” American Journal of Sociology sorting out these alternative meanings is to examine what
94:S95–S120. might be termed the anchoring questions within different
Hanifan, Lyda Judson. 1916. “The Rural School Community agendas of class analysis. These are the questions that define
Center.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and the theoretical work the concept of class attempts to do. Five
Social Science 67:130–38. such anchoring questions in which the word class figures
Krishna, Anirudh. 2000. “Creating and Harnessing Social centrally in the answers are particularly important.
Capital.” Pp. 71–93 in Social Capital: A Multifaceted
1. Class as subjective location. First, the word class
Perspective, edited by P. Dasgupta and I. Serageldin.
sometimes figures in the answer to the question: “How do
Washington, DC: World Bank.
people, individually and collectively, locate themselves and
Lin, Nan. 2001. Social Capital: A Theory of Social Structure and
others within a social structure of inequality?” Class is one
Action. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
of the possible answers to this question. In this case, the
Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and
concept would be defined something like this: “Classes are
Revival of American Community. New York: Simon &
social categories sharing subjectively salient attributes used
Schuster.
by people to rank those categories within a system of eco-
Putnam, Robert D, with Roberto Leonardi and Raffaella Y.
nomic stratification.” With this definition of class, the
Nanetti. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in
actual content of these evaluative attributes will vary con-
Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
siderably across time and place. In some contexts, class-
as-subjective-classification revolves around lifestyles, in
others around occupations, and in still others around
income levels. Sometimes the economic content of the sub-
SOCIAL CLASS jective classification system is quite direct, as in income
levels; in other contexts, it is more indirect, as in expres-
sions such as “the respectable classes,” the “dangerous
Few concepts are more contested in sociological theory
classes.” The number of classes also varies contextually
than the concept of “class.” In contemporary sociology,
depending on how the actors in a social situation them-
there are scholars who assert that class is ceasing to be use-
selves define class distinctions. Class is not defined by a set
ful (Pahl 1989) or even more stridently proclaim the death
of objective properties of a person’s social situation but by
of class. Yet at the same time, there are also sociologists
the shared subjective understandings of people about rank-
who write books with titles such as Bringing Class Back In
ings within social inequality (e.g., Warner [1949]1960).
(McNall, Levine, and Fantasia 1991), Reworking Class
Class, in this sense of the word, is contrasted to other forms
(Hall 1997), Repositioning Class (Marshall 1997), and
of salient evaluation—religion, ethnicity, gender, occupa-
Class Counts (Wright 1997). In some theoretical traditions
tion, and so on—that may have economic dimensions but
in sociology, most notably Marxism, class figures at the
that are not centrally defined in economic terms.
very core of the theoretical structure; in others, especially
the tradition identified with Durkheim, only pale shadows 2. Class as objective position within distributions.
of class appear. Second, class is often central to the question, “How are
In what follows, there is first an examination, in broad people objectively located in distributions of material
strokes, the different ways in which the word class is used inequality.” In this case, class is defined in terms of material
718———Social Class

standards of living, usually indexed by income or, possibly, macrolevel concept rather than simply a microlevel concept
wealth. Class, in this agenda, is a gradational concept; the capturing the causal processes of individual lives, and it
standard image is of rungs on a ladder, and the names for requires a concept that allows for macrolevel variations
locations are accordingly such things as upper class, upper across time and place. This question is also important in
middle class, middle class, lower middle class, lower class, both the Marxist and Weberian traditions, but as we will see
underclass. This is the concept of class that figures most later, here the two traditions have quite different answers.
prominently in popular discourse, at least in countries like Within the Marxist tradition, the most salient aspect of his-
the United States without a strong working-class political torical variation in inequality is the ways in which eco-
tradition. When American politicians call for “middle-class nomic systems vary in the manner in which an economic
tax cuts” what they characteristically mean is tax cuts for surplus is produced and appropriated, and classes are there-
people in the middle of the income distribution. Subjective fore defined with respect to the mechanisms of surplus
aspects of the location of people within systems of stratifi- extraction. For Weber, in contrast, the central problem of
cation may still be important in sociological investigations historical variation is the degree of rationalization (in this
using this concept of class, but the word class itself is being context, the extent to which inequalities are organized in
used to capture objective properties of economic inequality, such a way that the actors within those inequalities can act
not simply the subjective classifications. Class, in this in precise, calculable ways) of different dimensions of
context, is contrasted with other ways that people are objec- inequality. This underwrites a conceptual space in which,
tively located within social structures—for example, by on one hand, class and status are contrasted as distinct
their citizenship status, their power, or their subjection to forms of inequality and, on the other hand, class is con-
institutionalized forms of ascriptive discrimination. trasted with nonrationalized ways through which individual
life chances are shaped.
3. Class as the relational explanation of economic life 5. Class as a foundation of economic oppression and
chance. Third, class may be offered as part of the answer to exploitation. Finally, class plays a central role in answering
the question, “What explains inequalities in economically the question, “What sorts of transformations are needed to
defined life chances and material standards of living of eliminate economic oppression and exploitation within cap-
individuals and families?” This is a more complex and italist societies?” This is the most contentious question, for
demanding question than the first two, for here the issue is it implies not simply an explanatory agenda about the
not simply descriptively locating people within some kind mechanisms that generate economic inequalities but a nor-
of system of stratification—either subjectively or objec- mative judgment about those inequalities—they are forms
tively—but identifying certain causal mechanisms that help of oppression and exploitation—and a normative vision of
determine salient features of that system. When class is the transformation of those inequalities. This is the distinc-
used to explain inequality, typically, the concept is not tively Marxist question, and it suggests a concept of class
defined primarily by subjectively salient attributes of a laden with normative content. It supports a concept of class
social location but, rather, by the relationship of people to that is not simply defined in terms of the social relations to
income-generating resources or assets of various sorts. economic resources but that also figures centrally in a polit-
Class thus becomes a relational rather than simply grada- ical project of emancipatory social change.
tional concept. This concept of class is characteristic of Different theoretical approaches to class analysis build
both the Weberian and Marxist traditions of social theory. their concepts of class to help answer different clusters of
Class, in this usage, is contrasted to the many other deter- these questions. Figure 1 indicates the array of central ques-
minants of a person’s life chances—for example, geo- tions linked to different approaches to class analysis.
graphical location, forms of discrimination anchored in Weber’s work revolves around the third and fourth ques-
ascriptive characteristics like race or gender, or genetic tions, with the fourth question concerning forms of histori-
endowments. Location, discrimination, and genetic endow- cal variation in social organization of inequalities providing
ments may, of course, still figure in the analysis of class— the anchor for his understanding of class. The narrower
they may, for example, play an important role in explaining question about explaining individual life chances gets its
why different sorts of people end up in different classes— specific meaning from its relationship to this broader histor-
but the definition of class as such centers on how people are ical question. Michael Mann’s work on class, especially in
linked to those income-generating assets. his multivolume study of The Sources of Social Power
(1993) is, like Weber’s, also centered on the fourth question.
4. Class as a dimension of historical variation in systems John Goldthorpe’s (1980) class analysis centers firmly on
of inequality. Fourth, class figures in answers to the the third question. While his work is often characterized as
question, “How should we characterize and explain the having a Weberian inflection, his categories are elaborated
variations across history in the social organization of strictly in terms of the requirements of describing and
inequalities?” This question implies the need for a explaining economic life chances, not long-term historical
 Social Class———719

variations in systems of inequality. For Pierre Bourdieu, are also important, but they are posed within the parameters
class analysis is anchored in a more open-ended version of of the problem of emancipatory transformations.
the third question. Where he differs from Weber and other The rest of this essay examines in some detail how
Weber-inspired class analysts is in expanding the idea of life these questions are played out in the Weberian and
chances to include a variety of noneconomic aspects of Marxist traditions, the two most important traditions of
opportunity (e.g., cultural opportunities of various sorts) and class analysis in sociological theory. The concepts of class
expanding the kinds of resources relevant to explaining in these two theoretical traditions share much in common:
those life chances from narrowly economic resources to a They both reject simple gradational definitions of class;
range of cultural and social resources (called “cultural capi- they are both anchored in the social relations that link
tal” and “social capital”). “Class” for Bourdieu (1984), people to economic resources of various sorts; they both
therefore, is a much more expansive concept, covering all see these social relations as affecting the material interests
inequalities in opportunities (life chances) that can be attrib- of actors; and, accordingly, they see class relations as
uted to socially determined inequalities of resources of the potential basis for solidarities and conflict. Yet they
whatever sort. Finally, class analysis in the Marxist tradition also differ in certain fundamental ways. The core of
is anchored in the fifth question concerning the challenge to the difference is captured by the favorite buzzwords of
systems of economic oppression and exploitation. The ques- each theoretical tradition: life chances for Weberians, and
tions about historical variation and individual life chances exploitation for Marxists. This difference, in turn, reflects

Anchoring questions

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
subjective distributional life chances historical emancipation
location location variation

Karl Marx * * ** ** ***

Max Weber * * ** ***

Michael Mann * * * ***

John Goldthorpe * * ***

Pierre Bourdieu * * ***

popular usage * *** *

Lloyd Warner *** * *

*** primary anchoring question for concept of class

** secondary anchoring question
* additional questions engaged with concept of class, but not central to the definition

The questions:

1. “How do people, individually and collectively, locate themselves and others within a social structure of inequality?”

2. “How are people objectively located in distributions of material inequality?”

3. “What explains inequalities in economically defined life chances and material standards of living?”

4. “How should we characterize and explain the variations across history in the social organization of inequalities?”

5. “What sorts of transformations are needed to eliminate economic oppression and exploitation within capitalist societies?”

Figure 1 Anchoring Questions in Different Traditions of Class Analysis

720———Social Class

the location of class analysis within their broader of class and status and, second, the broad historical problem
theoretical agendas. in understanding the rationalization of social processes.
Class is part of a broader multidimensional schema of
stratification in Weber in which the most central contrast is
THE WEBERIAN CONCEPT: CLASS between “class” and “status” (as well as “party”). Status
AS MARKET-DETERMINED LIFE CHANCES groups are defined within the sphere of communal interac-
tion (or what Weber calls the “social order”) and always
What has become the Weber-inspired tradition of class imply some level of identity in the sense of some recog-
analysis is largely based on Weber’s few explicit, but frag- nized estimation of honor, either positive or negative. A sta-
mentary, conceptual analyses of class. In Economy and tus group cannot exist without its members being in some
Society ([1924]1978), Weber writes: way conscious of being members of the group.
This conceptual contrast between class and status for
We may speak of a “class” when (1) a number of people Weber is not primarily a question of the motives of actors:
have in common a specific causal component of their It is not that status groups are derived from purely symbolic
life chances, insofar as (2) this component is represented motives and class categories are derived from material
exclusively by economic interests in the possession of interests. Although people care about status categories in
goods and opportunities for income, and (3) is repre- part because of their importance for symbolic ideal inter-
sented under the conditions of the commodity or labor ests, class positions also entail such symbolic interests, and
markets. This is “class situation.” both status and class are implicated in the pursuit of mate-
It is the most elemental economic fact that the way in rial interests. Rather than motives, the central contrast
which the disposition over material property is distrib- between class and status is the nature of the mechanisms
uted among a plurality of people, meeting competitively through which class and status shape inequalities of the
in the market for the purpose of exchange, in itself cre- material and symbolic conditions of people’s lives. Class
ates specific life chances. . . . affects material well-being directly through the kinds of
But always this is the generic connotation of the con- economic assets people bring to market exchanges. Status
cept of class: that the kind of chance in the market is the affects material well-being indirectly, through the ways that
decisive moment which presents a common condition categories of social honor underwrite various coercive
for the individual’s fate. Class situation is, in this sense, mechanisms that are in accord with the degree of monopo-
ultimately market situation. (pp. 927–28) lization of ideal and material goods or opportunities to
obtain them.
In short, the kind and quantity of resources you own The contrast between class and status provides one
affects your opportunities for income in market exchanges. of the axes of Weber’s analysis of historical variation
“Opportunity” is a description of the feasible set individuals in systems of inequality. One of the central reasons that
face, the trade-offs they encounter in deciding what to do. capitalist societies are societies within which class
Owning means of production (the capitalist class) gives a becomes the predominant basis of stratification is precisely
person different alternatives from owning skills and creden- because capitalism fosters continual technical and economic
tials (the “middle” class), and both are different from simply transformation.
owning unskilled labor power (the working class). Further- Weber’s concept of class is also closely linked to his the-
more, in a market economy, access to market-derived income oretical preoccupation with the problem of historical varia-
affects the broader array of life experiences and opportunities tion in the process of rationalization of social life. The
for oneself and one’s children. The study of the life chances problem of class for Weber is primarily situated within one
of children based on parent’s market capacity is thus an inte- particular form of rationalization: the objective instrumen-
gral part of the Weberian agenda of class analysis. tal rationalization of social order. In all societies, the ways
This definition of class in terms of market-determined people gain access to and use material resources is gov-
life chances is clearly linked to the third question posed erned by rules that are objectively embodied in the institu-
above: “What explains inequalities in economically defined tional settings within which they live. When the rules
life chances and material standards of living?” Weber’s allocate resources to people on the basis of ascriptive char-
answer is, In capitalist societies, the material resources one acteristics and when the use of those material resources is
brings to market exchanges explain such inequalities in life governed by tradition rather than by the result of a calcula-
chances. But even more deeply, Weber’s conceptualization tive weighing of alternatives, then economic interactions
of class is anchored in the fourth question, the question of take place under nonrationalized conditions. When those
how to characterize and explain historical variation in the rules enable people to make precise calculations about
social organization of inequality. Two issues are especially alternative uses of those resources and discipline people to
salient here: first, the historical variation in the articulation use those resources in more rather than less efficient ways
 Social Class———721

on the basis of those calculations, those rules can be The most distinctive feature of the concept of class
described as “rationalized.” This occurs, in Weber’s analy- elaborated within Marxism to contribute to the answer of
sis, when market relations have the most pervasive influ- these two questions is the idea of exploitation. Marx shares
ence on economic interactions (i.e., in fully developed with Weber the central idea that classes should be defined
capitalism). His definition of classes in terms of the in terms of the social relations that link people to the cen-
economic opportunities people face in the market, then, is tral resources that are economically relevant to production.
simultaneously a definition of classes in terms of rational- And like Weber, Marx sees these relations as having a
ized economic interactions. Class, in these terms, assumes systematic impact on the material well-being of people;
its central sociological meaning to Weber as a description both “exploitation” and “life chances” identify inequalities
of the way people are related to the material conditions of in material well-being generated by inequalities in access to
life under conditions in which their economic interactions resources of various sorts. Thus, both concepts point to
are regulated in a maximally rationalized manner. Weber is, conflicts of interest over the distribution of the assets them-
fundamentally, less interested in the problem of the mate- selves. What exploitation adds to this is a claim that con-
rial deprivations and advantages of different categories of flicts of interest between classes are generated not simply
people as such, or in the collective struggles that might by what people have but also by what people do with what
spring from those advantages and disadvantages, than he is they have. The concept of exploitation, therefore, points our
in the underlying normative order and cognitive practices— attention to conflicts within production, not simply con-
instrumental rationality—embodied in the social interac- flicts in the market.
tions that generates these life chances. “Class,” in these Exploitation is a complex and challenging concept. In
terms, is part of the answer to a broad question about his- classical Marxism, this concept was elaborated in terms of
torical variations in the degree and forms of rationalization a specific conceptual framework for understanding capital-
of social life in general, and the social organization of ist economies, the “labor theory of value.” In terms of soci-
inequality in particular. ological theory and research, however, the labor theory of
value has never figured very prominently, even among soci-
ologists working in the Marxist tradition. And in any case,
THE MARXIST CONCEPT:
the concept of exploitation and its relevance for class analy-
CLASS AS EXPLOITATION
sis does not depend on the labor theory of value.
The pivotal question that anchors the Marxist conceptu- The concept of exploitation designates a particular form
alization of class is the question of human emancipation: of interdependence of the material interests of people—
“What sorts of transformations are needed to eliminate eco- namely, a situation that satisfies three criteria:
nomic oppression and exploitation within capitalist soci-
eties?” The starting point for Marxist class analysis is a 1. The inverse interdependent welfare principle: The
stark observation: The world in which we live involves a material welfare of exploiters causally depends on
juxtaposition of extraordinary prosperity and enhanced the material deprivations of the exploited.
potentials for human creativity and fulfillment along with 2. The exclusion principle: This inverse interdepen-
continuing human misery and thwarted lives. The central dence of welfares of exploiters and exploited depends
task of the theory is to demonstrate first, that poverty in the on the exclusion of the exploited from access to
midst of plenty is not somehow an inevitable consequence certain productive resources.
of the laws of nature but, rather, the result of the specific 3. The appropriation principle: Exclusion generates
design of our social institutions and, second, that these material advantage to exploiters because it enables
institutions can be transformed in such a way as to elimi- them to appropriate the labor effort of the exploited.
nate such socially unnecessary suffering. The concept of
class, then, in the first instance is meant to help answer this Exploitation is thus a diagnosis of the process through
normatively laden question. which the inequalities in incomes are generated by inequal-
The specific strategy in the Marxist tradition for ities in rights and powers over productive resources: The
answering the normative question leads directly to the inequalities occur, in part at least, through the ways in
question about historical variation. The normative question which exploiters, by virtue of their exclusionary rights and
asks what needs transforming for human emancipation to powers over resources, are able to appropriate surplus gen-
occur. The theory of history in Marx—generally called erated by the effort of the exploited. If the first two of these
“historical materialism”—lays out an account of the histor- principles are present, but not the third, economic oppres-
ical dynamics that make such transformations possible and, sion may exist, but not exploitation. The crucial difference
in the more deterministic version of the theory, inevitable. is that in nonexploitative economic oppression, the privi-
Again, the concept of class figures centrally in this theory leged social category does not itself need the excluded cat-
of historical development. egory. While their welfare does depend on exclusion, there
722———Social Class

Market capacity Differential

Basic causal structure Relationship
in instrumentally control over
of Weber’s Class to Economic
rational exchange income
Analysis Assets
relations (life chances)

Market capacity Differential

in instrumentally control over
rational exchange income
relations (life chances)
Basic causal structure Relationship
of Marx’s Class to Economic
Analysis Assets
Location within Differential
production control over
relations of labor effort
domination and (exploitation)
subordination

Figure 2 Core Elements in Weber’s and Marx’s Class Analysis

Source: Adapted and simplified from Wright (1997:34).

is no ongoing interdependence of their activities. In the case the life experiences and interests of individuals living
of exploitation, the exploiters actively need the exploited: within these relations generate patterns of conflict that have
Exploiters depend on the effort of the exploited for their the potential of pushing these historical variations in ways
own welfare. that accomplish the emancipatory transformation.
This conceptualization of exploitation underwrites an
essentially polarized conception of class relations in which,
THE TWO TRADITIONS COMPARED
in capitalist societies, the two fundamental classes are capi-
talists and workers. Capitalists, by virtue of their ownership The contrast between Marxist and Weberian frameworks
and control of the means of production, are able to appro- of class analysis is illustrated in Figure 2. Both Marxist and
priate the laboring effort of workers embodied in the surplus Weberian class analysis differ sharply from simple grada-
produced through the use of those means of production. The tional accounts of class in which class is itself directly iden-
Marxist tradition of class analysis, however, also contains a tified within inequalities in income since both begin with
variety of strategies for elaborating more concrete class the problem of the social relations that determine the access
concepts that allow for much more complex maps of class of people to economic resources. In a sense, therefore,
structures in which managers, professionals, and the self- Marxist and Weberian definitions of class in capitalist soci-
employed are structurally differentiated from capitalists and ety share much the same operational criteria for class struc-
workers. For example, Wright (1985, 1997) argues that ture within capitalist societies. Where they differ is in the
managers in capitalist firms constitute a type of “contradic- theoretical elaboration and specification of the implications
tory location within class relations” in the sense of having of this common set of criteria: The Marxist model sees two
the relational properties of both capitalists and workers. causal paths being systematically generated by these rela-
The exploitation-centered concept of class provides a tions—one operating through market exchanges and
framework for linking the microlevel question about the other through the process of production itself—the
explaining individual material conditions and interests with Weberian model traces only one causal path, and the
the macrolevel question about historical variation and the Marxist model elaborates the mechanisms of these causal
normative question about emancipatory transformation. paths in terms of exploitation as well as bargaining capac-
What needs changing in capitalism is a system of property ity within exchange; the Weberian model only deals with
relations that confers power on capitalists and enables them the latter of these. In a sense, then, the Weberian strategy of
to exploit and oppress others. This social organization of class analysis is contained within the Marxist model.
class relations is not an expression of a natural law but is While the Marxist concept of class may be particularly
one form in a systematic pattern of historical variation. And suited to the distinctively Marxist question about potential
 Social Class———723

emancipatory transformations, is it still sociologically to the support for ideological positions that proclaim the
useful if one rejects that question? There are a number of practical and moral desirability of capitalist institutions. Such
reasons why elaborating the concept of class in terms of consent-producing practices, however, also have costs
exploitation has theoretical payoffs beyond the specific attached to them, and thus systems of exploitation can be seen
normative agenda of Marxist class analysis itself: as always involving trade-offs between coercion and consent
as mechanisms for extracting labor effort.
1. Linking exchange and production. The Marxist logic 5. Historical/comparative analysis. As originally
of class analysis affirms the intimate link between the way conceived, Marxist class analysis was an integral part of a
in which social relations are organized within exchange and sweeping theory of the epochal structure and historical tra-
within production. This is a substantive, not definitional, jectory of social change. But even if one rejects historical
point: The social relations that organize the rights and pow- materialism, the Marxist exploitation-centered strategy of
ers of individuals with respect to productive resources sys- class analysis still provides a rich menu of concepts for his-
tematically shapes their location both within exchange torical and comparative analysis. Different kinds of class
relations and within the process of production itself. relations are defined by the specific mechanisms through
2. Conflict. One of the standard claims about Marxist which exploitation is accomplished, and these differences
class analysis is that it foregrounds conflict within class rela- in turn imply different problems faced by exploiting classes
tions. Indeed, a conventional way of describing Marxism in for the reproduction of their class advantage and different
sociological textbooks is to see it as a variety of “conflict opportunities for exploited classes to resist. Variations in
theory.” This characterization, however, is not quite precise these mechanisms and in the specific ways in which they
enough, for conflict is certainly a prominent feature of are combined in concrete societies provide an analytically
Weberian views of class as well. The distinctive feature of powerful road map for comparative research. Weber’s class
the Marxist account of class relations in these terms is not concept also figures in an account of historical variation,
simply that it gives prominence to class conflict but that it and one of its strengths is the way in which his conceptual
understands conflict as generated by inherent properties of menu draws attention to the interplay of class and status
those relations rather than simply contingent factors. and to historical variations in the forms of rationality gov-
erning life chances. These are not issues brought into focus
3. Power. At the very core of the Marxist construction of by the Marxist concept of class. On the other hand, the
class analysis is not simply the claim that class relations Weberian concept, by marginalizing the problem of
generate deeply antagonistic interests but that they also give exploitation, fails to bring to center stage the historical vari-
people in subordinate class locations forms of power with ability in forms of conflict linked to the central mechanisms
which to struggle for their interests. Since exploitation rests of extraction and control over the social surplus.
on the extraction of labor effort and since people always
— Erik Olin Wright
retain some measure of control over their own effort, they
always confront their exploiters with capacities to resist See also Bourdieu, Pierre; Capitalism; Conflict Theory;
exploitation. This is a crucial form of power reflected in the Dahrendorf, Ralf; Marx, Karl; Political Economy; Status
complex counterstrategies exploiting classes are forced to Relations; Stratification; Weber, Max; Wright, Erik Olin
adopt through the elaboration of instruments of supervi-
sion, surveillance, monitoring, and sanctioning.
FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES
4. Coercion and consent. Marxist class analysis contains
the rudiments of what might be termed an endogenous theory Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement
of the formation of consent. The argument is basically this: of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge, MA:
The extraction of labor effort in systems of exploitation is Harvard University Press.
costly for exploiting classes because of the inherent capacity ———. 1987. “What Makes a Social Class?” Berkeley Journal of
of people to resist their own exploitation. Purely coercively Sociology 22:1–18.
backed systems of exploitation will often tend to be subopti- Gerth, H. and C. W. Mills. 1958. From Max Weber. New York:
mal since under many conditions it is too easy for workers to Oxford University Press.
withhold diligent performance of labor effort. Exploiting Goldthorpe, John H. 1980. Social Mobility and Class Structure in
classes will therefore have a tendency to seek ways of reduc- Modern Britain. Oxford, UK: Clarendon.
ing those costs. One of the ways of reducing the overhead Holton, R. J. and B. S. Turner. 1989. “Has Class Analysis a
costs of extracting labor effort is to do things that elicit the Future? Max Weber and the Challenge of Liberalism to
active consent of the exploited. These range from the devel- Gemeinschaftlich Accounts of Class.” Pp. 160–96 in Max
opment of internal labor markets that strengthen the identifi- Weber on Economics and Society, edited by R. J. Holton and
cation and loyalty of workers to the firms in which they work B. S. Turner. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
 Wright, Erik Olin———891

with a globalized and neoliberal world economy in which Arrighi, Giovanni. 1994. The Long Twentieth Century. London:
capital is given free reign to generate accumulation wher- Verso.
ever profits are greatest. Chase-Dunn, Christopher. 1998. Global Formation. Lanham, MD:
The insight that capitalist globalization has occurred in Rowman & Littlefield.
waves, and that these waves of integration are followed by Chase-Dunn, Christopher and Thomas D. Hall. 1997. Rise and
periods of globalization backlash has important implica- Demise: Comparing World-Systems. Boulder, CO: Westview.
tions for the future. Capitalist globalization increased both Frank, Andre Gunder. 1998. Reorient. Berkeley: University of
intranational and international inequalities in the nineteenth California Press.
century, and it did the same thing in the late twentieth cen- McMichael, Philip. 2000. Development and Social Change: A
tury. Those countries and groups left out of the “beautiful Global Perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge.
époque” either mobilize to challenge the hegemony of the Meyer, John W., John Boli, George M. Thomas, and Francisco
powerful or retreat into self-reliance or both. Globalization Ramirez. 1997. “World Society and the Nation-State.”
protests emerged in the noncore with the anti-IMF riots of American Journal of Sociology 103:144–81.
the 1980s. The several transnational social movements that Modelski, George and William R. Thompson. 1996. Leading
participated in the 1999 protest in Seattle brought global- Sectors and World Powers. Columbia: University of South
ization protest to the attention of observers in the core, and Carolina Press.
this resistance to capitalist globalization has continued and Robinson, William I. 1994. Promoting Polyarchy. Cambridge,
grown despite the setback that occurred in response to the UK: Cambridge University Press.
terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. The Shannon, Thomas R. 1996. An Introduction to the World-Systems
2003 global antiwar demonstrations against the Bush Perspective. Boulder, CO: Westview.
administration’s “preventative” war against Iraq involve Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2000. The Essential Wallerstein.
many of the same movements as well as some new recruits. New York: New Press.
The several transnational social movements face difficult
problems of forming alliances and cooperative action. The
idea of semiperipheral development implies that support for
more democratic institutions of global governance will
come from democratic socialist regimes that come to power WRIGHT, ERIK OLIN
in the semiperiphery. This has already happened in Brazil,
where the new labor government strongly supports the Erik Olin Wright is a radical sociologist working within
movement for global social justice. the Marxist tradition. Raised in a family of academics in
There is an apparent tension between those who advo- Kansas, Wright studied history and social science at
cate deglobalization and delinking from the global capital- Harvard and Oxford University before entering the sociol-
ist economy and the building of stronger, more cooperative ogy program at Berkeley in the early 1970s. Upon com-
and self-reliant social relations in the periphery and semi- pleting his PhD degree in 1976, he secured a position in the
periphery, on one hand, and those who seek to mobilize Sociology Department at the University of Wisconsin,
support for new or reformed institutions of democratic where he has been ever since. Wright thus made his
global governance. But in fact these strategies are comple- appearance on the intellectual scene in the mid-1970s,
mentary, and each can benefit by supporting the other. Self- along with an entire generation of young academics who
reliance by itself, although an understandable reaction to were radicalized by the Vietnam War and the civil rights
exploitation, is not likely to solve the problems of human- movement. What is remarkable about his career is not its
ity in the long run. The great challenge of the twenty-first initiation in Marxist debates—in this, it is not unlike many
century will be the building of a democratic and collectively other careers of the “generation of ’68”; rather, it is
rational global commonwealth. World-systems theory can Wright’s steady commitment to his research agenda for
be an important contributor to this effort. more than a quarter century, long after most of his peers
had ended their dalliance with Marxist theory. Even more
— Christopher Chase-Dunn
noteworthy is that, throughout this period, Wright has
See also Annales School; Capitalism; Globalization; Historical ceaselessly confronted mainstream sociology while at the
and Comparative Theory; Imperialism; Marxism; Wallerstein, same time carefully modifying his views in response to
Immanuel criticism. The result has been as unusual as it is significant:
Over a long arc of theoretical innovation and conceptual
clarification, Wright has quite successfully developed a
FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES
nuanced and sophisticated version of Marxian class analy-
Amin, Samir. 1997. Capitalism in the Age of Globalization. sis and has managed to place it at the very core of contem-
London: Zed. porary social theory.
892———Wright, Erik Olin

The Components of a Research Agenda. Wright’s research history. First, it serves as the central axis on which social
agenda has been exceptionally clear and consistent. formations are distinguished. Second, it is supposed to be
Throughout his career, he has been centrally concerned the means through which these formations are propelled
with interrogating the concept of “class” in Marxian across time—through class struggle. But the notion of
theory. The bulk of this work has concentrated on how class struggle as the motor of history sits uneasily with
class operates as a mechanism for social differentiation in another part of the Marxist canon, broadly known as tech-
contemporary capitalism. In three successive book-length nological determinism. On the latter argument, class
attempts, Wright has offered a careful discussion of the struggle itself is subservient to a deeper force—namely,
theoretical status of the term in Marxian theory and then the developmental requirements of society’s productive
proceeded to investigate how it maps on to contemporary forces. Class struggle still plays a role but only to the
society, mainly Europe and the United States. In addition extent that its outcomes are functional for the needs of the
to this component of his work, however, Wright has also productive forces. The contingency and drama of class
expended considerable energy analyzing the importance of struggle is thus pit against a highly deterministic theory of
class on another axis in Marxian theory: its importance as technological development. Wright’s solution to this ten-
a marker of qualitatively different social formations and a sion has been a synthesis of sorts: He allows that there is
mechanism for the traversal from one historical epoch to a cumulative character to technological development
another. across history. But technology does not drive history;
rather, because humans tend to prefer greater productive
Class as a Mechanism for Social Differentiation. The tra- power over less, technological achievements, when they
jectory of Erik Wright’s theoretical innovations has been occur, tend not to be abandoned. Technological growth
driven by a puzzle central to Marxism: how to marry the therefore gives history a trajectory, preventing it from
simple, polarized picture of class society to the empirically becoming a random walk. Within the broad trajectory
rich and quite diverse topography of capitalist societies— imparted by this accumulation of productive power, there
a puzzle that is most pointedly embodied in the problem of is enormous room for variation of social forms. And this
conceptualizing the “middle class.” Marxists insist that, in variation is generated by the conflicts between classes.
every social formation, agents are slotted into two basic Which class wins, and which loses, is at best underdeter-
groups: producers, who generate a social surplus, and mined by the needs of the productive forces. Class strug-
exploiters, who usurp a portion of this surplus. Every gle is thus married to a weak technological determinism
social formation is therefore characterized by two funda- (Wright, Levine, and Sober 1993).
mental classes of exploited and exploiters. But it is also the Wright has argued that this elevation of class struggle
case that this simple polarized picture does not sit easily over the functional requirements of the productive forces
with the reality of modern society. It is easy to find agents comes at a cost: Marxists can no longer be confident that
who, while technically belonging to one of the two capitalism will necessarily give way to socialism, since the
“classes,” also have features that set them apart from theory’s determinism is now drastically weakened.
members of that same class. This is most famously exem- Furthermore, after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, it is no
plified in the case of professionals; while they do not longer clear just what socialism entails. This implies that
directly control material productive assets, it strains our progressives must expend a great deal of energy on doing
intuitions to slot them in the same category as workers on just what Marx himself strenuously abjured: drawing up
the production line. Wright’s solution, which he briefly designs—blueprints, as Marx called them—of the institu-
abandoned and then resurrected in a more nuanced ver- tions necessary for a just social order, since they are no
sion, is to conceptualize such members of social classes as longer guaranteed by history and since the ones presented
simultaneously occupying locations in more than one in the name of socialism failed on so many counts. In his
class: they are in contradictory class locations, pulled in most recent work, Wright has not only developed, but also
different and opposing directions (Wright 1978, 1985, sponsored through a series of conferences and book vol-
2000). The reason for this is that they reproduce them- umes, arguments about “Real Utopias”—realistic visions of
selves through mechanisms that include those typical of a future society, inspired by the utopias of the present (see,
workers and those of capitalists. This allows Wright to e.g., Wright and Fong 2003).
move away from thinking of the middle class as a residual Over the course of a quarter century, Wright has, in this
category, encompassing everyone who doesn’t “fit” neatly fashion, explored the importance of class for the past, the
into one of the two basic classes, to a category that is present, and possible futures.
robustly defined.
— Vivek Chibber

Class and Historical Variation. The concept of class See also Capitalism; Historical Materialism; Marx, Karl; Social
performs two functions in the broader Marxist theory of Class; Structuralist Marxism