Abstract
The first step in devising a framework of comparative analysis must be to define the phenomena under investigation — classes. And it follows from the preceding discussion that a usable definition of them must not incorporate any explanation of their origins or determinants, whether political or economic, and must leave us free to assess any possible contributor to their formation. We can satisfy this requirement by defining classes as enduring, horizontally-demarcated segments of a national population whose members distinguish themselves from those they consider above or beneath them in the belief that they have common interests and share a distinct way of life.
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Notes
Schumpeter put these points better than anyone else. ‘Class members behave toward one another in a fashion characteristically different from their conduct toward members of other classes. They are in closer association with one another; they understand one another better; they work more readily in concert; they close ranks and erect barriers against the outside; they look out into the same segment of the world, with the same eyes, from the same viewpoint, in the same direction.’ pp.107–8, Joseph Schumpeter, Imperialism and Social Classes, New World, New York, 1971.
‘By class I understand an historical phenomenon, unifying a number of disparate and seemingly unconnected events, both in the raw material of experience and in consciousness, I do not see class as structure, nor even a category, but as something which in fact happens (and can be shown to have happened) in human relationships.’ p.9, E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, Victor Gollancz, London, 1965.
Maurice Duverger, Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State, trans by Barbara and Robert North, Methuen, London, 1954.
p.15, Giovanni Sartori, ‘The Sociology of Parties: a critical review’, in Otto Stammer, ed., Party Systems, Party Organizations and the Politics of the New Masses, Institute of Political Science, Free University, Berlin, 1968.
His questionnaire is reprinted pp.211–18, in T. Bottomore and M. Rubel, eds, Karl Marx, Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1971.
p.124, Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, International Publishers, New York, 1963; pp.24–5, Dahrendorf, op. cit.
Charles E. McClelland, pp.101–2, ‘Escape from Freedom? Reflections on German Professionalization, 1870–1933’, in Rolf Torstendahl and Michael Burrage, eds, The Formation of Professions, Sage, London, 1989.
Novak is one of many who mistakenly assumed that business corporations were the first collective institution of civil society. p.16, Michael Novak, The Future of the Corporation, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C., 1996.
It was the ‘national character’ of tramping that caused concern which surfaced in Parliament in 1794, though it had then been ‘in existence for perhaps a century’. pp.164–5, John Rule, The Experience of Labour in Eighteenth-Century Industry, Croom Helm, London, 1981. Rule’s italics.
I will give just two British examples from dozens of others that might be given from many countries. In the eighteenth century cutlery, file and paper trades, Rule observed ‘combinations of workers … had brought contesting masters’ associations into being’, and in paper manufacture ‘well-established unionism had produced a counter-organization of employers’. pp.168, 174, ibid. In his comparison of British and Swedish employers in the late twentieth century, Fulcher decided that it is ‘to the character of the two countries labour movements that we must turn for an explanation of the differences in their national employer organization.’ p.310, James Fulcher, Labour Movements, Employers, and the State: Conflict and Co-operation in Britain and Sweden, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991.
a point that Bourdieu formally acknowledged, but found it difficult to act on. Another victim, one might say, of economic determinism. Pierre Bourdieu, The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power, trans by Lauretta C. Clough, Polity, Oxford, 1996.
As may be judged by some of their websites, the Association of Pension Fund Managers and others, all of which are listed on the IMA site, ibid.; p.46, Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1970.
Kirk succinctly reviewed many of the social distinctions that have been identified within the British working class. pp.214–19, Neville Kirk. Change, Continuity and Class: Labour in British Society, 1850–1920, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1998; Raynor decided that ‘whatever else the middle class is, it is certainly not monolithic’, and much of his work is devoted to identifying differences within it. p.7, Raynor, op. cit.
David Brooks, Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2000. He later identified a fundamental divide between professionals and managers within ‘the educated class. ‘Bitter at the Top’, New York Times, June 15th, 2004.
It included scientists and engineers, professors, poets, novelists, artists, actors, designers, architects, think-tank researchers, programmers. pp.68–72, Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life, Basic Books, New York, 2002.
Michael Zweig, The Working Class Majority: America’s Best Kept Secret, Cornell University Press, Itaca, N.Y., 2000.
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© 2008 Michael Burrage
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Burrage, M. (2008). What Are Classes? And Who Forms and Dissolves Them?. In: Class Formation, Civil Society and the State. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230593367_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230593367_3
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