23.

Class (II): Class Conflict

 Review
• Class is an achieved status:
– You are not as obviously ‘marked’ with your class position
as with an ascribed status like gender.
– You can in theory change your class position.
• However, despite the theoretical openness of the class system,
it’s often very difficult in practice to change class.
– Sociologists evaluate social mobility by looking at the life
chances of people born in different parts of the class
spectrum.
– It is exceedingly hard for those at the bottom to improve
situation – even more so when there’s little government
aid.
• Being stuck in poverty has numerous measurable effects on
the well-being of the poor:
– Health effects caused by food deserts etc.
 Overview
• What about the relations between people in different class
positions? How do they interact? Does one have power over
another? Do they conflict?
• Most answers to these questions are either Marxist or
Weberian: their different basic premises or ideas lead them to
different conclusions about nature and forms of class conflict.
1. Theories of Class: What basic explanations of class and class
relations do Marx & Weber offer? How do they treeat the
same topic differently?
2. Class and control: What relations of power are built in to
class positions? Are they intrinsic to the modern economy?
3. Class conflict: Why might we expect classes to come in to
conflict? In what sense would they have opposed interests?
 1. Can money buy you love?

Political
Respect Money authority
Physical
Force Sex Intellect
• Who gets to control the things above, or be ‘rewarded’ with
them? What do you need in order to have them?
• Do the same people get all these things? Can you use any one
of these resources to get any of the others?
 1a. The dimensions of inequality
Marx Weber
Class is structural: it’s defined as a
Class is defined by your market situation:
specific position within a system of social
what resources do you have to get what
relations, defined by ownership of means
you want?
of production.
Economic class is only one form of
Class is central: other forms of inequality
inequality, and can itself be shaped by
are derived from class.
other forms.

• Theorists of class are usually either Marxist or Weberian. They

use Marx or Weber as their starting point, but develop more
contemporary analyses.
– Erik Olin Wright is the leading Marxist.
– John Goldthorpe is the leading Weberian.
• There are two main points of disagreement:
– Is class defined as a position in a structure?
– Is class the most important/dominant form of stratification?
 1b. Marx’s model of class
• The way a society is organized in order to produce
the things its members need.
Mode of
• Based on economic organization around existing
production
technology for getting food.
• Other social relations depend on economy.
• Marx argues that society in general, and social inequality in
particular are best understood as consequences of the mode of
production in operation in a given society.
• Whoever owns the means of production, or tools & materials
used in making things, will hold power.
– A society whose highest technology is spears or bows &
arrows will be a tribal hunter-gatherer society.
– Once we develop agriculture, social structure will change,
and landowners (aristocrats) will be powerful.
– With industrialization, those who own factories etc
 1c. Class structures
Specific positions within a mode of production, defined
Class relations by ownership of means of production, and the relations
between people in different positions.

• For Marx, if we understand the mode of production in a given

society, we can understand the relations between its members
and work out who has power over whom.
• For example: in a tribe of hunter-gatherers, one person may be
appointed to climb a tree and watch out for predators and prey.
– This person does ‘mental labour’ (Marx), and ends up
giving orders to the others.
– They become accustomed to obeying him – not just in the
hunt, but also in other parts of life.
• Thus, economic class relations are structured: those in
particular classes interact in predetermined ways.
 1d. Class in Capitalism
Bourgeoisie
Proletariat
The employers, who Each class needs the
The workers, who
have enough capital to other: they have a clear
don’t have enough
invest for profit, & relationship defined
money to be
who own means of within capitalism as a
independent, so have
production (e.g. mode of production.
to work for a living.
factories etc)
• Marx describes contemporary society as capitalism:
– Mass production is aimed at increase of profits and capital.
– Instead of producing communally and sharing everything,
we sell our labour to the employer, and take home a private
wage.
• In this society, the bourgeoisie have monopolized the means of
production. The proletariat have no way to make a living
independently, so they have to go to work for the bourgeoisie.
• Thus, class position gives the bourgeoisie an advantage.
 1e. The changing forms of class
Post- Used to describe modern Western societies, which were
formerly industrial centres, but which have now
Industrial transitioned to service economies with less manual
Society labour.

• Marx’s model of class identifies only two basic classes:

bourgeoisie and proletariat.
• Ralf Dahrendorf traces significant changes in economic
organization that transform classes:
– Rise in shareholding means owners of businesses now
don’t usually run them – new class of managers and CEOs.
– Increase in administrative tasks, even in factories: creation
of new middle classes with non-productive role.
• For Dahrendorf, this complicates the picture: position in an
administrative system is just as important.
 1f. Class Today
Bourgeoisie Small Employers
Big businesses; profits
from exploiting labour
Petty Bourgeoisie:
Managers
Self-employed, independent
Proletariat
No capital: must work for Semi-autonomous
wages to live wage earners
• Marxists such as Erik Olin Wright have tried to reconstruct
Marx’s model to incorporate changes in society.
• Wright identifies three main classes – bourgeoisie, proletariat,
and petty bourgeoisie (the ‘middle classes’) – but also
identifies ‘contradictory class locations,’ those who fall
somewhere between the different classes.
– These are defined by loyalties both to employers and
workers, as both wage-earners and managers.
 1g. The systems of stratification
Social STATUS
Economic CLASS Political PARTY
GROUP

Determined by “market Defined by honour: are Individuals form

situation”: what access you viewed as parties of those with
do you have to personally ‘worthy’ or similar ends to
property? ‘noble’? facilitate goals.
• Max Weber defines class differently, as market situation:
– Instead of a position within a clearly-defined structure, he
only refers to possession of resources to get what you want.
– Weberians therefore treat class as less systematic than Marx.
• Moreover, he identifies three dimensions of social hierarchy,
which can act independently: high economic class doesn’t
always equate to high social status; you may be looked down on
as merely ‘nouveau riche.’
 1h. The value of status
Privileges Closure
Particular rights or opportunities Strategic monopolization of access to
permitted only to members of certain privileges for all except members of your
groups, e.g. right to join a particular club, own group, e.g. male-only clubs. Often
marry a prince uses laws.
• High status is often used to control (or limit) access to
privileges, and to ensure privileges are limited to a certain
group by closure.
– Frequent use of legal restrictions to ensure closure, e.g.
only allowing males to work. (Weber’s term ‘closure’ was
later developed further by Frank Parkin.)
– Groups thus delimited by specific legal rights, not by
(class) quantity of wealth: deliberately-set boundaries.
• According to Weber, status groups may try to inhibit
development of free markets, to protect, say, aristocratic
privileges by limiting the power of the rising merchant class.
 1i. The sources of power
Lenski’s model of power
Power Prestige
Privilege
Random
Altruism factors
• Sociologists ask how different systems of stratification may co-
exist with one another: can we use one resource, or position in one
system to get the others?
• For Gerhard Lenski (b.1924), physical force (“the power to take
life”) is the source of all other position and privilege.
– Physical power allows you to commandeer resources and
demand the respect of all others.
• As societies grow, Lenski argues, they develop new structures and
systems for managing this uneven distribution of privilege.
– Different types of society manage scarce resources differently.
 1j. Class (system) struggle
• An individual’s rank in one class system
Status
may differ from his/her rank in another.
Inconsistency • Often leads to anxiety or radicalism.

• Multiplicity of systems of social ranking means that

individuals have many different ranks – and may be relatively
high status in one system, whilst relatively low in another.
– You may be highly-educated, but have low income, or be
part of socially-excluded ethnicity or gender.
• When interacting, people will try to establish rank based on
their preferred system – may lead to frustration.
• Awareness of status inconsistency often correlated with
preference for radical politics, according to Gerhard Lenski.
– Highly-educated but underpaid professors are all crazy
lefties.
 2. The joys of cubicle life
• Watch this short clip from the movie Office Space, and try to
decide what it is about modern forms of work that leads to the
sort of gloom we can see here by answering these questions:
– Are you filled with joy at the thought of spending your next
five decades in a cubicle? How do these workers feel about
work?
– How do these office workers feel about their boss? Is he a
charismatic leader? How does it feel to work for an idiot?
– How much connection do people have with their fellow
cubicle workers?
– How much can these workers see the bigger picture? What
is the overall purpose of their specialised tasks?

http://movieclips.com/4aBM-office-space-movie-did-you-get-the-memo/
http://movieclips.com/tTeW-office-space-movie-bad-case-of-the-mondays/
 2a. Industrial work
Each worker performs a single, highly-specialised role
Division of
for whole, instead of making a product on his own, like
Labour
traditional artisans.
• Modern capitalist production relies on complex division of
labour to ensure efficiency.
– Many people work on one product, each performing single
task, instead of one person slowly creating each item.
– We sell our labour for wages, instead of selling whatever
we produce by ourselves.
• This complex arrangement of work includes a number of
relations of authority and power:
– Employers have power over their employees.
– Managers have authority over their workers.
– Mental labourers (planners, office workers) have higher
wages & status than material or manual labourers.
 2b. Worker or Robot?
• Aims at absolute maximum efficiency in the
Taylorism or
workplace, especially factories.
Scientific
• Trains workers to follow exact procedures, and
Management
‘manages’ them like machines.
• Twentieth-century saw rise of Scientific Management
(pioneered by Frederick Taylor (1856-1915)) in factories, to
maximise productive efficiency.
• Workers are are expected to obey orders exactly:
– Total subjection of workers to the system of control – they
become cogs in a machine manipulated by the
administrators.
– Humans made to serve the machine, not the other way.
• These techniques are an extreme version of modern division of
labour, which breaks work down into simple tasks:
– Workers have no autonomy; no need to think independently.
 2c. Weakening the workers
Reducing the level of skill or specialization required
to perform a particular job by introducing
Deskilling
technology or an advanced division of labour to
replace skilled workers.
• Historically, skilled or artisanal labourers were in a stronger
position than low-skilled workers:
– Anyone can do a low-skill job, but there are fewer with the
training to do difficult tasks (e.g. medicine, printmaking.)
– Employers thus couldn’t just fire skilled workers: they
might not be able to replace them.
• Technology undermines this advantage by deskilling of jobs:
work is more automated & needs less training – so employers
need fewer workers, or can employ lower-skilled.
• Lack of security: it undermines workers relative to employers.
 2c. The part-time problem
• So-called ‘McJobs’: short-term, low-skill jobs
Non-standard work with limited future prospects.
arrangements • Often involves part-time work, multiple jobs,
lack of security. May be self-employed.
• Long-term jobs are usually covered by legal protections:
– Employers must provide pension schemes, give notice
period and severance package if they wish to fire you.
– Longer-term workers likely to be union members.
• However, there has been a general decline in long-term jobs in
secure positions in Canada and across developed world:
– Decline in manufacturing industry.
– Increase in easily-transferrable service jobs.
– In universities, tenured professors have been replaced by
short-term contract staff who teach one or two courses.
• These workers are vulnerable: have to do whatever bosses say.
 2d. The rule of the rich
Giant corporations that dominate economy, excluding
Monopoly
small businesses, and leaving workers with few options
Capital but to work for them.
• Harry Braverman’s Labor & Monopoly Capital (1974) traces
increasing homogenisation and polarisation of work into two
groups:
– Small number of high-skilled, high-paid individuals.
– Large mass of increasingly-unskilled workers.
• Even white collar work becomes deskilled and subject to
management techniques: it becomes proletarianised, put under
constant watch by overseers, regimented, and controlled.
• Braverman argues that this is a result of monopoly capital: the
rise of huge corporations places all power in fewer hands.
• Overall, degradation of mass of workers by deliberate
application of scientific management reduces worker power.
 2e. Your Life Is Meaningless
• Feeling of distance from your life, work, other
people, leading to sense of having no control.
Alienation
• For Marx, comes from treating labour as a
commodity to be bought & sold.
• In his 1844 Manuscripts, Karl Marx identifies the sale of
labour as central problem of modern production: alienating
our labour by working for a wage leads to alienation from
others.
– Selling labour means we lose control over our products.
• This leads to alienated forms of industrial factory production:
– Alienated from selves & from labour: we work to live, and
find no fulfillment in our work.
– Alienated from other people: we interact only as
commodities
• Totally under control of the capitalist who owns all the means
 2f. The sociology of alienation
• Melvin Seeman operationalises Marx’s concept of alienation as a
basis for social psychological analysis. He identifies five different
psychological problems associated with alienated labour:
– Sense of Powerlessness (feeling out of control);
– Meaninglessness (work appears purposeless);
– Normlessness (sense that work lacks any guiding intelligence)
– Isolation (feeling of being cut off from other workers);
– Self-estrangement (lack of personal fulfillment in job.)
• The relative inequality of hierarchies leads to sense of impotence
that can cause serious health problems. Karasek & Theorell
showed that workers who had control over tasks (not subject to
orders of others) had significantly lower rates of stress-related
illness. Echoed by ‘Whitehall Studies’ of differently-ranked civil
servants in Britain: low-ranked were more stressed, sick.
 3. What do you want?

Union workers Farmers

Urban business Oil Industry

What sort of considerations might affect how the people above
choose their vote? How far do you think their economic interest
will determine their vote? How far are you concerned with
economic issues when you vote?
 3a. The needs of the workers
• The goals and desires of people as defined by their
Class position within a class system.
Interests • Defined as what it would be rational for them to want,
not (necessarily) what they do want
• If class is defined by position in a system, it becomes possible
to predict the needs and interests of people in that position:
• Marxist theorists of inequality focus on such systemic class
interests, deduced from your position within a social structure:
– All individuals in the same class position will predictably
want the same kind of things.
– For Marx, the bourgeoisie always want a weak proletariat,
because this makes it easier to wield control over them.
• For Weber and Weberians, class does not predict your
interests: there’s no reason to assume all those of the same
wealth would want the same things in life.
 3b. The nature of exploitation
• Using a position of strength to compel someone in
a position of weakness to give you something they
Exploitation
otherwise wouldn’t.
• Profiting at expense of another.
• Marx sees capitalism as inherently exploitative: workers have
no choice but to work for capitalists.
– Exploitation is the fault of the system, not of individual
members of the bourgeoisie (who must act this way).
• Contemporary Marxist Erik Olin Wright defines exploitation:
1. Inverse interdependence principle: capitalists’ well-being
depends on deprivation of workers.
2. Exclusion principle: capitalists make it difficult for
workers to escape by excluding them from resources.
3. Appropriation principle: capitalists take labour of workers
by paying less than its real value.
 3c. United We Stand
Organization of workers for collective bargaining of pay,
Labour union defence of rights against employer, provision of other
services to workers.
• Trade or Labour Unions rely on & develop class
consciousness: they serve as form of organisation for working
classes.
– Unions encourage social solidarity of workers.
• Material benefits to union membership; strength in numbers:
– 2006 Canadian average pay for non-union worker =
$16.65; for union worker = $21.01 (26% higher).
– Legal support for unfairly-dismissed workers.
• However, despite obvious advantages, union membership is
falling in Canada and across developed world:
– Fell from 34% in 1997 to 31.5% in 2007 (Alberta = 23.8%)
– Related to pressures of globalisation: unions undermined
 3d. Class struggle
• Social struggles caused by confrontation of interests
between structurally-defined classes.
Class Conflict
• May be long-term persistent class struggle or open
revolutionary class war.
• Because Marxists define class within a clear structure, they
predict conflicts between different class positions.
– The bourgeoisie and proletariat are in a definite relationship:
they’re defined by fact that the latter works for the former.
– Their predictable interest are thus opposed – they want
incompatible things from their interaction, so will conflict.
• For Weber, classes are not necessarily likely to conflict. In fact,
there’s more likelihood of conflict within a class as between
classes.
– North American workers may view workers in other countries
as rivals for jobs – instead of opposing bourgeoisie. Thus,
Weber suggests conflict is more likely on basis of status
 3d. Are we classless?
Both an individual’s awareness of being a member of
Class
particular class, and self-identity as class member and a
Conscious-ness
class’s awareness of its real group interest in long run.
• In industrialized Western countries, there is some evidence that
class is of declining importance in political activity.
– Terry Clark & Seymour Lipset (1991) argued that
historically voters often voted for parties that explicitly
advanced their class agenda – but post-1979, they vote on
the basis of identity and ascribed statuses more.
– Now, class voting patterns aren’t explicit – e.g Trump voters.
• Marxists respond by suggesting that individuals may not be
aware of class interest or class position.
– Ideological hegemony of the bourgeoisie (Gramsci) means
that workers don’t understand their true interest.
– Therefore, parties & unions needed to raise consciousness.
 3f. The coming revolution…
A society in which all class conflicts are resolved by the
Classless
abolition of class. The ‘means of production’ are in
society
everyone’s hands, so no-one has power over others.
• Marx uses theory of class interests to deduce the necessity of
total overthrow of capitalist system in worldwide revolution,
outlined in Communist Manifesto (1848):
1. “The history of all hitherto-existing society is the history
of class struggle”: classes always fighting for social
supremacy.
2. Under capitalism, conflicting interests of bourgeoisie and
proletariat lead to ever-greater immiseration of proletariat.
3. This coincides with periodic crises of capitalism, due to
falling rates of profit and economic problems.
• Only solvable if the source of the problem is removed:
communism doesn’t allow private ownership of the means of
 Summary
• Study of inequality identifies numerous obstacles in the way
of social mobility:
– People in different class starting points have difficulty
climbing the social ladder; lack of resources.
• But these obstacles aren’t just impersonal and objective:
sometimes they’re the result of deliberate action by those on
top:
– Assertion of greater control by dominant classes, through
changing work patterns etc.
• This may generate the sort of class conflicts we see in cases of
strikes etc.
– Marxists suggest class conflict is an inherent part of
modern industrial-capitalist society.