Class

Class
In general terms class can be understood as a classification of persons into groups
based on shared socio-economic conditions. However, classes do not exist as stand
alone groups but are to be understood in relation to other classes in the context of
an overall stratification system. As such, class can be grasped as a relational set of
inequalities with economic, social, political and ideological dimensions. Since class
is a cultural classification rather than an ‘objective’ fact, post-Marxist writers such
as Laclau and Mouffe approach it as a discursive construct.

Within cultural studies, the most influential understanding of class has been that
associated with Marxism where class is broadly defined as a relationship to the
means of production. Here the organization of a mode of production is not simply
a matter of coordinating objects but also of the relations between people. These
relations, while social, that is, cooperative and coordinated, are also matters of
power and conflict. Indeed, Marxists regard class antagonisms, which are an
intrinsic part of a mode of production, as the motor of historical change. For Marx,
class is constituted by an objective relation to property ownership and the mode of
production. Nevertheless, he also recognizes that consciousness of those
circumstances is significant. Thus he makes a distinction between class-in-itself and
class-for-itself where the latter includes a self-consciousness that is absent from the
former.

The core of Marx’s work was his analysis of the dynamics of capitalism wherein
the fundamental class division is between those who own the means of production,
the bourgeoisie, and those who, being a propertyless proletariat, must sell their
labour. Although, for Marxists, capitalists and workers form the core of the
contemporary class system, it is acknowledged that other class divisions are also in
evidence. For example, small shopkeepers, clerks and students form part of what
Marx called the ‘petite bourgeoisie’ while the unemployed and the criminal
fraternity are at the heart of the so-called ‘lumpen-proletariat’.

It is now widely felt that the class system of contemporary capitalism is much
more complex than that envisioned by Marx during the mid-nineteenth century
and involves a more graduated set of unequal relations. That class is constituted by
more than one’s relationship to the means of production has long been the argument of Weber and his subsequent followers. Here, though class is considered
to be founded on divisions associated with ownership of the means of production,
it also includes lifestyle differences based on income, occupation, status, education,
qualifications and so forth that cluster together to form class.

In particular, class relations today include the much-expanded middle classes
who, while they are not owners of the means of production, are nevertheless
distanced from the manual working class by income and lifestyle. This has been the
consequence of both a sectoral redistribution of labour from the primary and
secondary sectors to the service sector and a shift in the make-up of labour towards
white-collar work. Indeed, the working class has itself become highly stratified by
transformations in the occupational structures of industrial capitalism and the
increased though differential consumption that an ever-expanding capitalism has
enabled. To a considerable extent these transformations are implicated in the
displacement of industrial manufacturing by service industries centred on
information technology and by a more general alteration of emphasis from
production to consumption.

The increased productivity of capitalism has meant that the majority of the
populations of Western societies have sufficient housing, transportation and income
to be in a post-scarcity situation. This has contributed to an increased consumption centredness
amongst the working class that has led to its fragmentation as their
differential incomes and consumption capabilities are expressed in the market.
Further, as its relative prosperity has risen so the employed working class has
become dislocated from the unemployed urban underclass. In this context, it has
been argued by the theorists of ‘New Times’ that (at least in the heartlands of
Western capitalism) we are witnessing the emergence of a two-thirds: one-third
society. That is, two-thirds of the population are relatively well off while one-third
are either engaged in de-skilled part-time work or form a new underclass of the
unemployed and unemployable.

With this re-construction of class relations has come a new uncertainty regarding
the relationship between class position and political behaviour. Thus there has been
a steady decline in allegiance between occupational class categories and the major
political parties. More generally, we have witnessed the demise of a revolutionary
working class politics that could realize an alternative social order. Nevertheless,
class does retain a powerful and important place in social life that cannot be
ignored. There are still inequalities in educational access and outcome that are
underpinned by social class and there are still differences in cultural tastes and
practices that mark out class boundaries.


(adapted from: The SAGE Dictionary of Cultural Studies, by Chris Baker)