Reading on "The class structure of the advanced society"

By Anthony Giddens

Some sociologists tried to improve Marx’s class theory. They argued that Marx treated “class” as a purely economic phenomenon and regarded class conflicts as the “inevitable” outcome of clashes of material interests. He failed to realize that the divisions of economic interest which create classes do not necessarily correspond to sentiments of communal identity which constitute differential “statue”. Thus, statue is a separate dimension of stratification from class, and two may vary independently. Third dimension is “power”, which Weber recognized as an independently variable factor in stratification, but which Marx treated as directly contingent upon class interests.

This article is to re-examine above arguments and provides a clearer understanding of Weber’s class, status and power concepts.

Weber at least had two principal respects different from Marx’s abstract model of classes:
1. The differentiation of class from statue and party,
2. Pluralistic conception of classes.

Weber defines classes based on two criteria: 1) the property that is usable for return; 2) the services that can be offered on market.

Weber’s pluralistic classes:

o Ownership of property class- Positively privileged classes
o Acquisition class -Middle classes- those who have no property but have marketable skills, in relation to the types and degree of monopolization of marketable skills which they posses. In modern capitalism society, education qualification and monopolization of trade skills by manual worker are important marketable assets.
o Negative privileged classes -those who possess neither property nor market skills.

Weber emphasis the difference between “class” and “status”. While class is founded upon differentials of economic interests in market relationship, status groups are normally communities; in that sense it forms by social groups rather than by market interests. Class expresses the relationships involved in production; statue groups express those involved in consumption, i.e. lifestyle.

Status affiliations may cut across the relationship generated in market, since membership of a statue group usually carries with it various monopolistic privileges. Nonetheless, class and status tend in closely linked by property: possession of property is both a major determinant of class situation and provides the basis for following a definite lifestyle. Weber points out that class and status represents two possible and competing, modes of group formation in relation to the distribution of power in society. Thus, power is not, for Weber, a third dimension in comparable to the first two. That is to say that power is not to be assimilated to economic domination, like Marx suggested. The political party represents a major focus of social organization relevant to the distribution of power in a society. It is only characteristic of the modern rational state.

Weber raises a new concept “social classes” besides distinguishing the purely economic classes, which is formed of a cluster of class situations which are linked together by virtue of the fact that they involve common mobility chances, either within the career of individuals or across the generations. A social class exists only when these class situations cluster together in such a way as to create a common nexus of social interchange between individuals. In capitalism, Weber defines four main social classes:
1. the manual working class
2. the petty bourgeoisie class
3. property less white-collar workers
4. privileged through property and education

Weber’s viewpoint drastically amends the important elements of Marx’s development of class structure that is the propertyless middle class tend to expand most with the advance of capitalism. Moreover, the social classes do not necessarily constitute communities and they may be fragmented by interest divisions deriving from differentials in market position; finally, the relationship between class structure and political sphere is a contingent one.