Class Analysis: Understanding Social Cleavages and Struggles

1. PEDU 6210Education Policy and SocietyTopic 4Education Policy and Social Differentiation: Modern Education as Balance Wheel of Social Origins?

2. EDM 6210Education Policy and SocietyTopic 4 (ii)Understanding Social Class: Class structure, class formation, class struggle, class compromise, …a century’s discourse

3. Class Analysis: Formulation of the Problem • Significance of class analysis in sociology • “One of the objects of class theory has been to identify the principal line of social cleavage within a given system ——the structural ‘fault’ running through society to which the most serious disturbances on the political landscape are thought to be ultimately traceable.” (Parkin, 1979, p.3) • “Sociology has only one independent variable, class.” (Stinchcombe, quoted in Wright, 1979, p.3)

4. Class Analysis: Formulation of the Problem • Class analysis: Formulation of the problem • What is class? How class boundaries are delineated? • How classes are structured? • How class identities and class cultures are formed? • How class actions, class conflicts and class struggles are enacted? • How class revolutions are invoked? • How class compromises are forged?

5. (I) What is Class? How Class Boundaries are delineated?

6. Class Analysis: • Economic and social inequalities as gradational & continuous classification • Social class as conceptual & theoretical constructs of sociologists (Social Constructivism) • Social class as concrete socio-political forces in the universal trajectory of the human history (historical materialism) • Social class as social fact generating concrete social effects on collective actions & producing social consequences (Social Realism)

7. What is Class? How Class Boundaries are delineated? • Different sociologists have put forth different definition to the concept of class. Accordingly they have delineated the boundaries of class differently. These variations can in general be trace back to the differences in their theoretical orientations of how society is perceived.

8. Neo Marxist Approach to Class Delineation & Class Structure • Karl Marx’s Legacy on Class Analysis (Wright, 1985, p.6)

10. Neo Marxist Approach to Class Delineation & Class Structure • According to traditional Marxist’s conception, class is defined in terms of the relation of production of a given economy. Under capitalism, the relation of production are dichotomized into bourgeoisie (i.e. capitalists), who own the means of production, and proletariats, who own no means of production but their own labor power. The definitive feature underlying the relation of production of capitalism is “exploitation”.

11. Neo Marxist Approach to Class Delineation & Class Structure • Conceptualization of exploitation: Erik O. Wright conceptualizes exploitation by making the distinction between two types of economic oppression, namely, exploitative and non-exploitative oppressions.

12. Neo Marxist Approach to Class Delineation & Class Structure • Conceptualization of exploitation: … • Distinction between exploitative and non-exploitative economic oppressions • “Economic exploitation is a specific form of economic oppression defined by particular kind of mechanism through which the welfare of exploiters is causally related to the deprivations of the exploited. In exploitation, the material well-being of exploiters causally depends upon their ability to appropriate the fruits of labor of the exploited. The welfare of the exploiter therefore depends on the effort of the exploited, not merely on the deprivations of the exploited.” (Wright, 1994, P.40)

13. Neo Marxist Approach to Class Delineation & Class Structure • Conceptualization of exploitation: … • Distinction between exploitative and non-exploitative economic oppressions • … • “In non-exploitative economic oppression there is no transfer of the fruit of labor from the oppressed to the oppressor; the welfare of the oppressor depends on the exclusion of the oppressed from access to certain resources, but not on their effort.” (Wright, 1994, P.40)

14. Neo Marxist Approach to Class Delineation & Class Structure • Conceptualization of exploitation: … • Wright illustrates the moral indictment between exploitative and non-exploitative economic oppression with an example in the US history. The oppressive treatment of the European settlers to the Native American (the Indians) is non-exploitative oppression. That is the settlers did not care about the live and death of the Native Americans, for all they wanted is the resources. Therefore, they would say that “a good Indian is a dead Indian.” But for the slave owners in the US history, their oppression to the Afro-Americans (the black salves) was exploitative in nature. That is, they wanted to keep the slaves healthy and strong so as to confiscate their fruits of labor continuously.

15. 1947-2019 2015 1997 2005 1994 1985 1978

16. Neo Marxist Approach to Class Delineation & Class Structure • The class structure • Traditional Marxist class structure

17. (Wright, 1979, P.75)

18. Neo Marxist Approach to Class Delineation & Class Structure • The class structure • Erik O. Wright’s 1st revision of Marxist class structure: In 1979, Wright revised the traditional Marxist class structure scheme by injecting the conception of contradictory class locations

19. (Wright, 1979, p.76)

20. Neo Marxist Approach to Class Delineation & Class Structure • The class structure • Wright’s 2nd revision of Marxist class structure: In 1985, Wright revised once again the class structure schema by injecting the concept of “exploitation-generating assets”. (Wright, P. 1985) Wright asserts that there are three specific types of assert through which exploitation can “legitimately” be generated. (Wright, 1985, P. 150)

21. Neo Marxist Approach to Class Delineation & Class Structure • The class structure • Wright’s 2nd revision of Marxist class structure: … • Assets in the means of production: It refers to the traditional Marxist conventional conceptualization of exploitation, which is based on the ownership of means of production. • Assets in organizational control: It refers to the managerial class in stock-holding corporation in capitalist societies and bureaucrats in socialist societies, who coordinate and control huge amount of organizational resources. • Assets in scarce skill/talent: It refers to individuals who possess specific and scarce talent and skills, or more currently known as owners of intellectual properties which are scarcity in supply but in huge demand.

22. Neo Marxist Approach to Class Delineation & Class Structure • The class structure • Wright’s 2nd revision of Marxist class structure: … • Assets in the means of production: … • Assets in organizational control: … • Assets in scarce skill/talent: … • As a result, Wright has revised his class structure as follows.

23. (Wright, 1997, p.24)

24. (Wright, 1997, p.25)

25. Neo-Weberian Approach to class delineation and class structure

27. Neo-Weberian Approach to class delineation and class structure • Max Weber’s distinction of economic and social classes • Weber’s concept of class (i.e. economic class): “We speak of a class when (1) a number of people have a common and specific causal component of their life chances, in so far as (2) this component is represented exclusively by economic interests in the possession of goods and opportunities for income, and (3) is represented under the conditions of the commodity or labor markets. This is class situation…. Class situation is, in this sense, ultimately market situation.” (Weber, 1978, p. 927-28)

29. Neo-Weberian Approach to class delineation and class structure • Max Weber’s distinction of economic and social classes • …. • Weber’s concept of social class: In Weber’s own words, “A ‘social class’ makes up the totality of those class situations within which individual and generational mobility is easy and typical” (Weber, 1978, p.302).

30. Neo-Weberian Approach to class delineation and class structure • Anthony Giddens concept of class structuration:

32. Neo-Weberian Approach to class delineation and class structure • Anthony Giddens concept of class structuration: Anthony Giddens coins the concept “class structuration” to use it to clarify Weber’s concepts distinction of class (Giddens specified as economic class) and social class. • Anthony Giddens elaborates Weber’s conception social class as: “A ‘social class’ exists only when these class situations (market situations of economic classes) cluster together in such a way as to create a common nexus of social interchange between individuals” (Giddens, 1982, p. 49)

33. Neo-Weberian Approach to class delineation and class structure • Anthony Giddens concept of class structuration: … • …… • Accordingly, Giddens specifies class structuration as “process whereby economic classes become social classes” (Giddens, 1981, p. 105)

34. Neo-Weberian Approach to class delineation and class structure • In summary, Weberian approach to class has been specified as • Class is defined in term of “market situation”, more specifically situations in “commodity and labor market”. And individuals in a particular class will share a common and typical life chance within a particular market situation.

35. Neo-Weberian Approach to class delineation and class structure • In summary, Weberian approach to class has been specified as • …. • According to Weberian, the underlying principle governing in the differentiation of class situations is domination. By domination, it refers to the capacity of constituting a “social closure” in which a group of individuals are able “to secure for itself a privileged position at the expense of some other group through a process of subordination.” More specifically, Frank Parkin specifies that class domination can be classified into two processes.

37. Neo-Weberian Approach to class delineation and class structure • In summary, Weberian approach to class has been specified as • …. • ….Parkin specifies that class domination can be classified into two processes. • Downward exclusionary closure: “Exclusionary closure represents the use of power in a downward direction because it necessarily entails the creation of group, class, or stratum of legally defined inferior.” (Parkin, 1979, P. 45) • Upward usurpation: It represents “the use of power in an upward direction in the sense that collective attempts by the excluded to win a greater share of resources always threatened to bite into the privileges of the legally defined superiors.” (Parkin, 1979, P. 45)

38. Neo-Weberian Approach to class delineation and class structure • John Goldthorpe’s class schema: English sociologist John Goldthorpe and his associates have developed a class schema (Goldthorpe, 1980; Erikson, Goldthorpe, and Portocarero, 1979; Erikson and Goldthorpe 1992) that has been widely used in the UK and aboard and in fact has been “officially used today by the Office of National Statistics, the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification.” (Savage, 2015, P. 40). The class schema has been commonly perceived as a Weberian approach, though he himself has disagreed. (Breen, 2005, P. 42)

39. Neo-Weberian Approach to class delineation and class structure • John Goldthorpe’s class schema: …. • Goldthorpe underlines that his class schema is to present the “interconnections defined by employment relations in labor markets and production units …the processes through which individual and families are distributed and redistributed among these positions over time, and the consequences therefore their life-chances.” (Goldthorpe and Marshall, 1992, P. 382)

40. Neo-Weberian Approach to class delineation and class structure • John Goldthorpe’s class schema: …. • …. • Goldthorpe further elaborates that employment relations or more specifically employment contracts in capitalist economies can generally be differentiated into two dimensions, namely the degree of “asset-specificity” and the extent of “monitoring difficulty” (Goldthorpe, 2000, P. 213)

41. Neo-Weberian Approach to class delineation and class structure • John Goldthorpe’s class schema: …. • ….employment contracts in capitalist economies … • “Asset-specificity refers to the extent to which a job calls for job-specific skills, expertise, or knowledge, in contrast to jobs that require general, non-specific skills.” (Breen, 2005, P. 37) • “Monitoring difficulties arise when the employer cannot, with any reasonable degree of clarity, assess the extent to which the employee is acting in the employer’s interests.” (Breen, 2005, P. 37) • Accordingly, Goldthorpe has constructed a analytical framework for the contractual relations, which Goldthorpe names it as “contractual hazard”, as follows

42. (Goldthrope, 2000, p.214)

43. Neo-Weberian Approach to class delineation and class structure • John Goldthorpe’s class schema: …. • …. • Based upon this framework, the class schema, which Goldthorpe has developed over the years can be construed as follows

44. (Goldthrope, 2000, p.223)

45. (Goldthrope, 2000, p.223)

46. Neo-Weberian Approach to class delineation and class structure • Goldthrope’s mobility-table studies and Weberian conception of class structuration • In the precedent discussions, Giddens, working within the Weberian tradition, defines class structuration as “process whereby economic classes become social classes” (Giddens, 1981, p. 105). • Weber himself has defined social class as “the totality of those class situations within which individual and generational mobility is easy and typical.”

47. Neo-Weberian Approach to class delineation and class structure • Goldthrope’s mobility-table studies and Weberian conception of class structuration • ……. • Accordingly, the conventional mobility-table studies can be used to measure whether there intergenerational mobility are “easy and typical”. That is whether social classes have consolidated.

48. (Goldthrope, 2007, P.531)

49. Neo-Durkheimian Approach to Class Delineation and Class structure • Emile Durkheim, one of the founding father of the discipline of sociology, has seldom been mentioned in the conventional literatures of social stratification and class analysis. It is because he has in fact never rendered any formal analysis on the topic of social class and social inequality, as the other two founding fathers of the discipline, Karl Marx and Max Weber did.

50. Neo-Durkheimian Approach to Class Delineation and Class structure • …... However, since the 1990s, a number of American sociologists, namely David Grusky, Aage Sorensen, and Kim Weeden, and others have developed an analytical framework for class analysis based mainly on Durkheim’s work Division of Labour (1960/1893) or more specifically on Durkheim’s conception of “occupation association”