Social class is real (I)

Class is real, but not for the reasons of the obviously observed consequences of class. Factually belonging to a certain class in itself brings about quite conspicuous results in a person’s personality, conduct, taste, material abundance, etc. But these are just manifest real consequences of class. One cannot trace the importance of something to the importance of its natural consequences, for doing so would be equal to attributing a father’s facial feature to the son’s resemblance of him. Similarly refuted by Durkheim in critique of utilitarianism in the Division of Labor, human’s pursuit of happy endings should not be explained as the cause of a civilization’s progression, but the natural consequence of such progress.

Far too often lay people reduce the significance of social class to that of monetary achievement or some levels of financial grandiosity, likely amplified and mystified by their very lack of these properties. From an unspecialized perspective this still makes sense because “you will recognize them by their fruits”. The results of a class position can at least indicate the extent and type of the concrete goods that are by probability determined by one’s embeddedness in the class position.

The bottom line is that class fundamentally differs from all the real consequences of class and should be treated differently so as a distinct type of causative originator. Naturally, notions like self-esteem, distress, honor, connections, longevity and health fall in the category of the ramifications of class. There is no reason why income and wealth are anything different from honor and connections in terms of their relation to class, except in the case that income constitutes an essential part in determining one’s class position.

The ambiguity of income and other concrete resources as either a consequence or constituent of social class requires us to rightfully define class with a theoretical orientation that retrieves the analytical utility of class. In its most literal sense, class simply means an outcome from classification, but how does one classify a group of people, based on what principle? In the classical theory of class, the Marxian tradition organizes its entire argument about class around the idea of production, whereas the Weberian tradition around the rewarding chance/probability occupied by an actor. There should also be an implicit Durkheimian tradition of class categorization incumbent in his early writings, although it has been little discussed except in Gruski & Galescu (2005, 2005) two separate articles that delved into the possibility of formulating micro-aggregated refined occupation classes based on their contributary solidarity functions for a salubrious division of labor in the society. However, Gruski and Galescu’s treatment of class under the canopy of Durkheimian analysis of the society led to a focus on the nature of class as micro and refined unit occupational groups and away from the site of class-forming mechanisms and the constituting factors behind each class. Durkheim had a holistic view on class too, leaving little ink on what made unique of each different class except for how all occupations should be mutually reliant and coordinating under a natural tendency of regulation and self-integration — only if the division of labor is naturally evolved.

In a very succinct summary, the Marxian class analysis evolving around the idea of production originates from Karl Marx’s very heterodoxic Hegelian obsession with human nature and its dialectical relationship with the nature. Human nature is to maximize the wellbeing of organism by changing its environment, with a clear intention of doing so. The only way to achieve so comes through labor/arbeit. Labor puts everything into the equation of converting the natural beings into use-value for human, and later on converting use-value into pure token exchange value. Therefore, whoever commands over labor power and natural beings has the ultimate determining force in human relations. The site of class production, therefore, pivots around 1 means of production and 2 labor process. The second point is more pronounced in Braverman too. The dominant classes under different modes of production in human history all monopolize the means of production and control the reproduction of labor, with today’s capitalism standing out by putting labor into creating surplus value uncompensated. Empirically, classical operation of Marxian classes dichotomizes two variables: whether does one own the means of production, and whether one controls the labor of others.

The popularized extension of Marxian class analysis — the EO Wright class operation — incorporated skill force into the relative location of production. The proposed rationale contends that having skills and monopolized credentials made difficult supervision and control over one’s own labor and elevated skills in complicated division of labor are inherently scarce as if a form of real estate from which workers can extract rent. The underlying logic of incorporating skills and credentials into separating class locations is still Marxian as it abides to the principle of exploitation and control over the subordinate class. In some ways, technology and the skills conferred by technical advance remained in Marx’s writing a type of productive force that determines the relation of production — where the idea of conflicting classes occurs. But the deploy of the terminology of productive force in Marxist historical materialism has a highly macro theoretical connotation that encompasses the aggregated totality of labor force, technology, and material means of production. It remains ambivalent whether productive force can be owned by individuals and decomposed into specific skill sets. Wright stated skills embodies the idea of power in the labor market. But Marx did not conceptualize power independently from human labor. Power can only come through the direct deployment or some metamorphosis of people’s labor (as product and infrastructure), and workers alone possess the ultimate source of power. The type of resistance and obstacle presented by skills and credentials during labor control may be more aligned with a Weberian conception of power as the ability to impose and resist intentions (will). In fact, this possibility is admitted in Wright (2005, p27). The same manifest measurement also fits into the Weberian scheme where the window of life chance can be opened by skills and credentials, not for the resistance against labor control brought by highly technical skills, but for the opportunities of socialization and economic venture brought by the skills to the workers — the exact reverse of the Marxian appropriation logic.

Thus, it helps to succinctly summarize Weber’s scheme of class. The Weberian project on class stays away from a deterministic explanation of the development of rigid class structure. The Weberian class may at first appear syncretic and post-hoc based on his historicist examination of different forms of domination that were highly subjected to the constraints and conditions of each historical context. But the central position of action in Weberian theory clarifies what was intended in his class analysis: class is important insofar as it lays the foundation for the possible action that brings in the highest chance of meeting an actor’s intention with the expected outcome (Strand 2022). Similar to various forms of rationalization, people act with a meaningful intention, but their volition is constrained by others’ behavior and, ultimately, a social structure that includes classes. It is in this sense that Weber defined class position as a “chance” of power disposition over goods, and class as a group of people with similar life chance (Weber, Tribe 2021). The Weberian class scheme is further divided into three types of mechanisms that were responsible for the production of class positions: property, acquisition, and rank. The possession of positive properties, capacity to acquiring goods in a market, and inherent positive status, collectively shape the life chance of each individual. Albeit some overlaps, the distinct contrast with Marxian class must be highlighted here. The site of production in the labor process is fundamentally the cause of several opposed classes in Marxism. But in the Weberian class scheme, production and labor process is at best delineated in the first two mechanisms of class position. Social rank, what would be considered as a superstructure outcome in Marxism, is the Weberian leverage that opens a variety of chances for action without necessarily creating material benefits in the production process.