Chapter Two: Classes in Modern Capitalism

1) persistence until late into 19th century of the prominence of landowners, merchants and financiers in British upper class compared to industrialists.

2) persistence of old world noble privileges in British class structure, making it seemingly more rigid than some other countries

3) decline of British capitalism in contrast to emergence of the US and then Japanese capitalism on the world stage.

1) Pre-Civil War equalitarian roots of US class structure, marked bypervasiveness of ownership of the means of production (80% of US working non-slave pop. owned means of production) - a nation of small farmers, small traders, and small craftspeople.

Three reasons for this:

1. -the equalitarian revolt in War of Independence against hierarchy of European privileges;
2. -absence of European feudalism tradition; and
3. -the open frontier presented new opportunities for geographic and social mobility.

2) Consolidation of US class structure after Civil War with emergence of wealthy upper class and the organization of the working class into trade unions.

3) Decline in ownership of means of production:

4) Paradox of persistence of equalitarian ideology on top of an unequal class structure:

1. no sudden expansion in working class (wage earners were 53% in 1870 and 57% in 1940) (35)
2. large expansion in salaried earners (from 7% to 25% between 1870-1940) which made possible structural upward mobility
3. no decline in living standard
4. continual economic growth during much of this period ????

1) Consolidation of class structure

in which wealth was concentrated in upper 10,000, and extreme poverty at other end, despite growth of welfare state which ameliorated some of these living conditions.

2) Dominance of capitalist class in modern industrial societies based in three reasons:

• its initial advantage as an organized minority in terms of its control of resources;
• changes in other classes after WWII caused by general economic growth and prosperity;
• the situation in the socialist societies. (37)

3) Reasons for Increase in Living Standards of Working Class:

• development of welfare state (especially health care) which equalizes initial structural conditions for all;
• development of near-full employment.

4) Single Most Important Victory of Working Class:

-disappearance of personal household servants (caused by great growth in jobs outside home)

5) Social Mobility:

• its extent has been exaggerated by sociologists who seem to have focused more on it than on internal analyses of classes, especially upper class
• caused mostly by expansion in middle strata, especially professional, administrative, and office jobs (thus really structural mobility due to occupational expansion of the middle).

-short- versus long-range: most mobility occurs between occupations close together, especially between upper parts of working class and lower parts of middle strata; all studies on elites show very little long-range mobility from working class into elite positions.

-2 implications of mobility for working class:

a) intensifies feelings of individual aspiration and ambition and weakens class solidarity and consciousness;

b) reduces size of working class and increases size of middle strata.

E.g.: Great Britain: manual workers and foremen fell from

6) Middle classes (strata):

a) Internally heterogeneous and differentiated.

b) Weber's status groups often used to describe them, even though 'classes' used;

7) Boundary Problem one of main foci of sociologists, both between middle classes and upper classes, and middle classes and working class.

(Please note that the boundary problem is an essential theme later in the course when we consider Carchedi, then Poulantzas, and finally Wright.

I) studies show maintenance of boundary between manual and white collar workers:

• Lockwood used tripartite distinction among class situation, market situation, and status situation;
• Giddens used a Marxian-Weberian approach, defining class situation in terms of possession of property.

II) Two types of Marxist analyses of boundary between working and middle:

1-proletarianization thesis:

-property: Renner: service class has become propertyless and thus similar to working class

-skill - deskilling of large parts of white collar sector (Braverman) (note: Bottomore is critical of Braverman)

2-rejection of proletarianization thesis have emphasized political & social attitudes:

-Poulantzas emphasized political and ideological factors on a par with economic factors;

-Wright emphasizes contradictory class location of middle strata, focusing on professional and managerial employees.

(Note: did Wright or Poulantzas reject proletarianization thesis??)

III) Boundary Between Capitalist and Middle Classes:

-disappearance:

• Abercrombie and Urry suggest that middle classes (service class) takes on functions of capital (conceptualization, control, reproduction), while capitalist class becomes more similar to service class.
• Touraine: property as a criterion of capitalist class being replaced by knowledge, technology, and education;

Bottomore rejects these arguments, as inherited family wealth and property continue to act as foundation of capitalist class; middle class acts in a subaltern role to capitalist class, executing decisions made elsewhere.

1) Dominant Capitalist class:

• based on family wealth and corporate power
• continues to grow in influence and power
• however, circumscribed by state intervention in economy and public expenditures, which withdrew large sums from private accumulation, and which resulted to some extent from working class pressures.

2) Middle Class:

• grown in numbers and thus influence
• internally heterogeneous in terms of property ownership (vs non-ownership), education, public versus private sector employment, employing others versus employees, etc.
• political position generally supportive of market capitalism, sometimes a mixed market capitalism.

3) Working Class:

• declined in relative and absolute numbers
• some Marxists have bade 'farewell' to the working class (Gorz)
• but emergence of 'new working class'
• continuing influence of socialist and labor parties in Western Europe;
• changing face of socialism.

© Copyright Carl Cuneo, Department of Sociology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. URL: http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/soc/courses/soc2r3/botom02.htm