Introduction

There is an enormous literature on the concept of class that consists mostly of debates about which properties should be included in the concept. The result is a variety of class schemes and arguments that center around which class scheme is most appropriate for capturing the class structure of modern society. Dahrendorf (1959) argues that classes should be identified with authority relations. Ossowski (1963 [1958]), and later Wright (1979), produce class schemes by cross-classifying property and authority or dominance relations. The class scheme identified with John Goldthorpe is based on property, employment, and authority relations (Goldthorpe 1987; Erikson and Goldthorpe 1992). Parkin (1979) and Murphy (1988) emphasize relationships of closure, and Giddens (1973), the degree of “structuration.”

The purpose of the original proposal for the concept of class, by Marx, is to explain inequality, social movements, social conflict, and political processes – to construct a theory of history. The mechanism that produces this extraordinary explanatory power is exploitation of the working class by the capitalist class, which produces antagonistic interests. Interests may be said to be antagonistic when the gain of one actor, or a set of actors, excludes others from gaining the same advantage. The incumbents of classes realize, through a process usually referred to as class formation, that they have these interests and form collective actors that engage in conflicts that eventually change the class structure and society.