Tag / communism

by doctormcgrail

What Do We Mean by “Class”? One of Sociology’s Most Misunderstood Concepts

When people talk about social class, they often assume everyone knows what the term means. We hear references to the “working class”, “middle class”, and “upper class” in politics, the media, and everyday conversation. Yet the closer we examine the concept, the more complex it becomes. Social class is not a single concept. It is a collection of different ways of understanding social relationships, inequality, identity, and power.

One of the most striking features of discussions about class is how often different meanings are mixed together. Someone may use class to describe a person’s income, while another uses it to refer to cultural tastes, political beliefs, or social status. Sociologists have developed a range of (often contradictory) approaches to understanding class, each highlighting different aspects of social life.

This blog explores three major ways class has been understood: as a group, as a social division, and as a vision of future social development. Along the way, I will also consider the work of influential thinkers such as Karl Marx, Max Weber, Zygmunt Bauman, and Pierre Bourdieu.

The Everyday Meaning of Class

Outside sociology, people usually think of class as a hierarchy. Individuals are imagined as occupying positions somewhere on a social ladder: upper class, middle class, or working class. These categories often reflect occupation, income, education, lifestyle, and social status.

British culture has long reflected this way of thinking. Comedy sketches, newspaper cartoons, and political debates frequently portray society as a collection of different social layers. The humour often comes from exposing how arbitrary these distinctions can be. Why should someone’s accent, clothing, or preferred drink tell us anything important about their worth as a person? Yet such markers continue to shape how people are judged and categorised.  

This conventional understanding treats class as a series of social groups. The central question becomes: “Which group do I/you belong to?” Sociological research often builds on this assumption by creating class categories based on occupation, income, or educational attainment.

However, this is only one way of thinking about class.

Marx and the Idea of Class as Division

Karl Marx approached class from a very different direction. Rather than beginning with social categories, he began with social relationships. For Marx, classes emerge from the way people participate in material practices (‘economic’ processes), especially production and exploitation.  

In the opening pages of The Communist Manifesto, class struggle appears before any specific classes are named (see Gunn, 1987). This ordering is significant. Conflict comes first. Classes emerge from the social divisions created by that conflict.

Marx’s famous examples include master and slave, lord and serf, and capitalist and worker. What matters is not a person’s identity, tastes, or cultural preferences but their relationship to the production process. Do they control or own productive resources? Do they command or employ others? Or do they survive only by following instruction or selling their labour?

This perspective challenges many popular assumptions about class. Someone may identify as middle class, enjoy a comfortable lifestyle, and possess a university degree. Yet if they still depend upon employment for their income, Marx’s analysis would classify them as a wage labourer (open to exploitation as a commodified product). Their subjective identity does not alter their objective position within the economic system.

Marx was particularly interested in exploitation. His discussion of child labour in nineteenth-century industries highlights how economic systems can compel individuals into deeply unequal relationships. Such examples remind us that class is not merely about status or lifestyle. It also concerns power, ownership, and the distribution of social resources.

Class as Identity and Group Membership

While Marx focused on social divisions, others devoted greater attention to group identities and status differences.

Max Weber argued that people compete not only for economic resources but also for social honour and recognition. Groups seek to distinguish themselves from others using a variety of markers, including education, lifestyle, profession, ethnicity, and cultural practices.  

From this perspective, class becomes partly a matter of social or market positioning. People attempt to improve their standing while simultaneously preserving distinctions between themselves and those below them. Elites may use exclusive institutions, qualifications, or networks to protect their status. At the same time, less advantaged groups often develop their own forms of identity and solidarity.  

This approach helps explain why class remains socially meaningful even when economic differences appear less obvious. People continue to sort themselves and others into categories. According to Veblen, they use consumer or consumption signals (such as speech, dress, leisure activities, and educational background) to make assumptions about social position.

Class, therefore, is not simply something we possess. It is also something we perform, negotiate, and contest.

Class as a Vision of Society

A less familiar interpretation treats class as an entire system of social organisation.

In some strands of Marxology, a term such as “capitalist class” does not merely refer to wealthy individuals. It refers to a whole mode of production and the assumptions that sustain it. In this sense, class becomes a way of organising society itself.  

This opens up a broader question: can society be organised differently?

The concept of class consciousness reflects awareness that existing arrangements are neither natural nor permanent. Every social system emerged historically and could, in principle, be replaced by another. Capitalism replaced older forms of social organisation, and alternative arrangements have been proposed throughout modern history.  

Viewing class in this way moves discussion beyond questions of personal identity. Instead, attention shifts towards competing visions of how social life should be organised. Class becomes a debate about collective futures rather than simply individual positions.

The Rise of Consumer Society

However, some sociologists have claimed that the meaning of class has changed significantly in contemporary societies.

Zygmunt Bauman (in line with Veblen) suggested that modern life is increasingly shaped by consumption rather than production. Instead of defining people primarily through the organisation of production (their occupations), consumer society tends to define them through what they can buy and display: an approach which presumes the permanency of commodity exchange.

Bauman distinguished between “the seduced” and “the repressed.” The seduced are those who can actively participate in consumer culture through stable income and access to credit. The repressed are excluded or marginalised, often because they lack sufficient resources or face insecure employment.

This argument highlights how class distinctions remain visible even when traditional industrial (working) identities weaken. Expensive homes, fashionable clothing, luxury goods, and lifestyle choices continue to function as indicators of social position. The form of presentation may have changed, but inequality remains highly visible.  Unfortunately for Bauman and other ‘consumerists’, the reasoning applied to such inequality still carries connotations of ‘the work ethic’.

Bourdieu and the Power of Capitals

Beyond Bauman, perhaps the most influential contemporary account of class comes from Pierre Bourdieu.

Bourdieu argued that inequality involves more than money. He identified several forms of capital that help individuals navigate society. Financial capital remains important, but so do social capital, cultural capital, and symbolic capital.  

Social capital refers to networks, relationships, and useful contacts. Cultural capital includes knowledge, skills, educational credentials, and familiarity with valued cultural practices. Symbolic capital encompasses prestige, reputation, qualifications, titles, and recognised status.  

According to Bourdieu, these resources are transferred across generations. Families pass on not only wealth but also habits, tastes, expectations, and social connections. As a result, class inequalities often reproduce themselves even when opportunities appear formally open to all.

Central to this theory is the concept of habitus. Habitus refers to the dispositions and tendencies people develop through their experiences. Our preferences for food, music, language, education, and leisure activities are shaped by the environments in which we grow up. These preferences often feel natural and personal, yet they reflect wider social influences.

This perspective helps explain why class differences persist in subtle ways. Inequality is not reproduced solely through income. It is also reproduced through everyday practices and cultural expectations.  Though, like Bauman, Bourdieu is “bourgeois” (Marx) in assuming the permanency of commodity exchange as a mode of production. Bourdieu also tends to see ‘capital’ as a possession (held in the form of skill, knowledge, finance, or social connections) rather than as a relationship and process (one person only ‘has’ skill in relation to another).

Why Class Still Matters

Despite decades of debate over whether class is declining in importance, it remains central to understanding modern societies. Income, wealth, educational opportunities, cultural resources, and social networks continue to be distributed unevenly. These inequalities affect life chances, health outcomes, housing options, political participation, and access to opportunity.  

Yet the concept of class itself remains contested. Is it primarily a group identity? A social division? A system of exploitation? A cultural habitus? Or a vision of alternative forms of society?

The answer may be all of the above.

The sociology student’s challenge is to recognise that “class” is not one idea or conceptualisation but many. Different sociological traditions focus on different dimensions of social reality. Understanding class therefore requires us to move beyond simplistic labels and engage with the complexity of how power, identity, resources, and social relationships interact.  

Class is not merely a category we belong to. It is a way of understanding the structures, conflicts, cultures, and possibilities that shape social life, but additionally a cultural and social practice we are part of and actively reproduce.

[1,545 words]

References

Gunn, R. (1987) ‘Notes on Class’, in Common Sense, Issue No.2.  Edinburgh: Common Sense Collective / Edinburgh Conference of Socialist Economists.

Links:

This is a shortened (blog style) article of a 6,000-word essay with the same argument (fully referenced with direct quotations).  This longer version can be found at:

McGrail, B. A. (2024) Class Cultures: What is meant by ‘Class’? [PDF] (12 pages / 24 minute read). Available at: Class Cultures: What is meant by ‘Class’

You can also listen to a ‘podcast’ recording (produced by AI) at the top of this longer version – I see this as a ‘bit of fun’ (and an interesting ‘perspective’ on my article).

by doctormcgrail

Theses on the Mirage of “Left” Unity

Introduction

A teaching and union colleague recently pointed out that one of the 2025 Reith Lectures claimed disunity on the “Left” was incapacitating struggle against the new authoritarianism. This disunity leaves the “Left” unable to combat the rise of the Far Right. Like most theories, this claim contains its moment of truth. There seems to be little obvious opposition to the politics of isolation. Self-immolation in an era of capitalist crises and state austerity stands unchallenged.

However, such calls to arms overlook or ignore not just the historical reasons for “Left” disunity. They neglect to consider why, philosophically, there have been incompatible positions on the “Left”. Indeed, we should ask this question. Has there ever been such a thing as “Left unity” (producing a unified position, movement, group, or identity)?

The Left should be associated with ‘radicalism’ (a desire to change the status quo). This creates its ‘identity’ in opposition to ‘conservatism’ (a desire to maintain the status quo). However, there has never been agreement amongst “the Left” as to what counts as the ‘status quo’. Hence, what is it that needs to be ‘changed’? If this cannot be agreed upon, radicals (change seekers) face a crossroads. They are bound to head off in different directions. Thus, disunity is built into the so-called ‘march of progress’!

Analysing the Options

Here I will argue there are 3 fundamental positions on “the Left”. Everyone involved may want to ‘change society’ (and clearly they hope to do this ‘for the better’). But, as noted, their positions are fundamentally, in both theoretical and practical terms, incompatible. I call these three positions: (1) State Takers, (2) State Makers, and (3) State Breakers.

All three stand in relation to ‘capitalism’ as the currently existing mode of production. And each wants to present their own position as the ‘best way forward’ or ‘best available option … in reality’. I say ‘stand in relation to’ and not ‘stand against’. The first major division arises between those ‘radicals’ who see capitalist relations of production grounded in ‘human nature’ (and thereby inevitable or insurmountable). Others see capitalism as running against ‘human nature’ (and thereby flawed and historically dangerous; working its way towards barbarism). Yet, things are never this ‘neat’ and sub-positions emerge as there are those who ‘think’ they are overthrowing capitalism whenever the state nationalises or incorporates services and institutions, despite widespread awareness of the modern nation state’s role in advancing capitalist relations of production (i.e., the wage labour form, laws on community dispossession, the promotion of monetary command over life).

What is a ‘State’?

First I am required to give a definition of what I mean by ‘state’. I understand a ‘state’ to be a permanent structure or condition which entails a political division between rulers and ruled. Typically, there are politicians and non-politicians. One section of the social totality (the polity) makes decisions in relation to the other (who take instruction).

A classic account of a ‘state’ is Plato’s Republic. In this account, the community is divided into three distinct classes: (a) philosophers, (b) soldiers, and (c) traders (techne). Plato argued against democracy. He did not envision a properly functioning society where everyone (within the polity) had the capacity, skills, time, or inclination to govern. Rulers (the government or governors) had to be ‘trained’ to rule properly. Indeed, the most effective rulers had to be philosophers. And these philosophers had to be communists not ‘corrupted’ by private interests. Philosophers were placed above techne. They were not ‘encumbered’ with everyday requirements, such as producing the material needs of the polity. Their sole job was to ‘rule’.

Of course, Plato’s arrangements involved permanent classes reproduced through genetic isolation from each other. The philosophers were a nobility, though a physically weak one which needed protecting by a second class (level or layer) of ‘rulers’, the soldier guardians, who had physical strength. Naturally, the head (philosophy or wisdom) ruled the body (might) and in Plato’s Republic it was ‘impossible’ for individuals to move between classes (defined by ‘birth’).

Our contemporary ‘states’ differ in so far as everyone is abstractly ‘equal’ before the law. Anyone, under the American Dream, has the ability to rise among the ‘ranks’ and become a ‘ruler’ (politician). But this social mobility does not mean there is no permanent division between rulers and ruled in modern society. Whilst ‘individuals’ can change rank and swap places, at any moment in time/space rulers (politicians) are still a class apart from the ruled. Each empowered individual has temporary privileges (the ability to take part in meaningful votes) which others do not, but as a ruling class politicians are a ‘permanent’ feature and division.

Whereas in Plato’s Republic both the individuals and their class divisions are permanent, with modern states individuals are ‘free’ to move between or across classes, becoming ‘temporary’ rulers. But the classes themselves (politicians versus non-politicians) remain ‘permanent’. An individual can be elected or co-opted into the ruling (governing) class. And they can also exploit their way into being a desirable and co-optable character via accumulation of monetary wealth (capital).

Elections give a semblance of democratic engagement (in contrast to Plato’s Republic). As the philosopher Hegel notes, there is democracy merely one day every 4 years; an event through which a temporary tyrant or oligarch is selected to serve ‘their’ term. During that term the elected are a class apart. Democratic events (‘the election’) are rarer than the 29th of February (1 in 1,461 days). Such is ‘the state’ we are in!

(1) State Takers

The first position on “the Left’ is populated by those willing to work with the ‘existing’ class-divided system and its peculiar arrangements. They put themselves forward to be selected as one of the temporary dictators (or club of would-be dictators) under such a system. [A kind of reversal of The Hunger Games, in which a champion for the exploiting class – to carry it forward – is chosen by and from amongst the exploited class.]

The aim is to ‘take over’ the state in its current condition, with our ‘champions’ firmly believing they are ‘the one’ – an incorruptible Messianic ‘ruler’ who will represent and govern in the interests of ‘the workers’ (the working class or techne). There are clear echoes of Plato in this; minus the preference for ‘democratic’ selection of the philosopher-guardians. Plato’s philosophical machinations were all about coping with the potential for guardians to be ‘corrupted’. But with a social system which eulogises the corruptible there is no need to bother with Plato’s concerns.

Meanwhile, modern political science knows too much about familial and genetic corruption (via primogeniture) and, consequently, desires to draw the polity’s governors from what it perceives as the endless ‘talent pool’ of a mass population that has been legally and commercially equalised through market trading (i.e., every commodity owner is formally equal – the same – except those who do get ‘chosen’ tend to have socially desirable exploitative ‘talents’ indicating they deserve a chance at power and ‘ruling’).

Whilst the “Left” State Taker position may be widely identified with social democracy, it also covers democratic socialism, Fabianism, and movements such as social liberalism and market socialism. Figures and characters range (in UK politics) from Tony Blair to Jeremy Corbyn, from Jenny Lee to George Galloway. Some appear more ‘radical’ than others, but the primary goal has always been to take charge of the existing state apparatus and run it ‘for the good’ or ‘the betterment’ of the lower orders.

After all, can such a state (as the existing one) remain in the hands of Right-wingers or even Centrists? Wouldn’t that be worse for ‘the working class’? Aren’t State Taker arguments reasonable? Don’t they make sense? Let’s ‘take the state’! Couldn’t anything be more obvious?

The criticism is that after more than two centuries of such ‘Left’ (radical) reformist argumentation and action the tension (or contradiction) between progress and regress is nothing except heightened. There is no lack of food, but use of food banks continues to rise. And the arrival of state welfare has introduced another control mechanism with which to discipline and punish the universal working class (constantly filtering people into deserving and undeserving ‘classes’ despite movement of the ‘means testing’ slide ruler). There has always been a ‘dark side’ to social democratic politics – a complicity with ‘the beast’ through which the permanent class division perseveres.

(2) State Makers

This has always been considered a ‘more radical’ stance on the existing state, and its promises features more fundamental change. There are a range of methods involved, from the democratic ‘take over’ (which quickly aims to become a ‘make over’), through guerrilla movement (often based on ethnic, national, cultural, or racial differences in a supposedly ‘cosmopolitan’ colony), to the militaristic General’s coup d’état.

Having read Robert Service’s work on the Russian Revolution, I am never sure how to treat and place Lenin. He wore a civilian suit but, at the same time, was the puppet master of Bolshevik action undertaken by armed units managed by Trotsky. Though the real coup took place after the only free elections returned a majority of Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries to the post-provisional Assembly. So, Lenin and the Bolsheviks ‘suspended’ the Assembly (at gun point).

The Russian Revolution (as Arendt, 1963, notes: ‘modelled’ on the French and not the American Revolution) is a clear example of state making. This was no mere ‘take over’ of the old apparatus and its class divisions. The monarchy was executed (multiple generations), the nobility fled overseas, and the peasants refused to be subservient (to anyone: Kerensky and Lenin included). For about six months (Feb-Oct) there was what Ernst Bloch would call an ‘opening’. If there was a ‘state’ it was one of flux (so really a ‘non-state’ given the absence of permanency [see my definition of ‘state’ above]).

Then Lenin and Bolshevik Co., stepped into build up a ‘new state’. Despite the theoretical proposal that this would be a state which would ‘wither away’, it never did. Or, it took 70 years and then ‘withered’ into an “illiberal” oligarchic state and not ‘away’. The Bolsheviks were classic state makers. They ‘radically’ changed the structural components and ‘classes’ of the Russian (Imperial) state. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat was the new ruling class. But since this particular class could not be found outside the major cities of Imperial Russia, it was Bolshevik Party membership (and obedience to Party organs, structured in a strict hierarchy) that defined the ‘new’ permanent ruling class.

As a piece of state making this became a proven success which, subsequently, was followed, copied and mimicked across the globe (primarily for its acclaimed ‘success’): China; North Korea; Cuba, Vietnam; Syria; Libya; Afghanistan; Venezuela. Therefore, as a ‘model’ for “Left” (radical) politics it remains prominent and powerful if not as predominant as it used to be.

And, of course, this kind of state making (overthrowing one state system and replacing it with another) does not have to be “Left” wing. Unlike Socialist Afghanistan, ‘socialist’ Iran never made it beyond the revolutionary period due to the radical Clerics and their supporters becoming the ‘vanguard’ which remade the state. The Islamic Caliphate in Iraq/Syria (ISIS) is another example of such ‘regressive’ radicalism.

Contemporary ‘successful’ Leftist state making may be associated with ‘civic nationalist’ movements or with the downtrodden / wretched ‘side’ in civil and colonialist wars. But in what manner do the remade nation ‘states’ of Ireland, Tanzania or Bosnia-Herzegovina now count as “Left” good causes? And what of advocates for a Palestinian State? Surely this is a contemporary highly-reasonable case for “Leftist” ‘state making’? But the history of hitherto state making does not sit well with any prefigurative attempts to make ‘the state’ work for the people.

(3) State Breakers

Finally, we reach the anarchist “Left”. In that the ‘state’ is a permanent division between ‘rulers’ and ‘ruled’, no matter what form that class division takes (e.g., ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’; plutocracy; meritocratic and labour aristocracy), the state breaker’s aim is to do away with permanent social division – to create an indivisible political community, a true ‘polity’ (where the people rule in the people’s interest). Out go ‘charismatic’ “leaders of the people” and “representative” forms of democracy, with their election of one part of the population into positions of power over another.

The state breaker “Left” is, therefore, associated with the more extreme forms of democracy; so-called direct democracy involving participatory action, delegation, and consensus. The latter forms need to be grassroots based, such that the local is free to engage with the federal and global (which are nothing except the conglomeration of local polities).

The objections to state breaking are that it is ‘impractical’ and will lead to ‘anarchy’ (objectors mean ‘chaos’, since ‘anarchy’ is, indeed, the goal). But anarchy simply means ‘without a state’ (so, without a permanent division between rulers and ruled). Used pejoratively, ‘anarchy’ is shouted by those within an existing ruling class as a form of defense against change. That is, their own removal from power.

Of course, given a history of state makers managing to produce even worse systems that what preceded them, the real ‘chaos’ in modern history has been produced by a perpetuation of ruler/ruled divisions (a ‘state’) that promote ‘terror’ (and what is ‘war’ if not terror) in order to ‘keep the state going’.

State breaking remains ‘fanciful’ – the most utopian of the three “Leftist” positions. But it does exist, and always has, bubbling away and percolating through historically-made institutions (which would rather pretend, and do pretend, they are an outcome of ‘nature’). We find remnants of delegatory democracy in trade unions – where the ‘branch’ and not the ‘representative’ votes at conference. Such leftovers are a reminder of past attempts to break the state (during the French Revolution, the Paris Commune, the post-World War 1 revolutions – see Tomba).

Conclusion

Given the above positions, what does “Left” unity look like? There may be some ‘abstract’ desires which ‘all’ can agree upon (remember: these do not even include an ‘end to capitalism’), but what are concrete examples of these? An example might be ‘an end to poverty’? Everyone on the “Left”, surely, will agree to this as ‘an end’ of the “Left”?

But then we simply move on to differences over action and ‘policy’ (‘the means’), where the above positions once more make themselves felt as disunity. Furthermore, the latter ‘assertion’ soon becomes a ‘charge’ against any ‘opposing’ position, such that ‘dissent’ from a policy or strategy enables the charge of disunity to become a ‘control’ mechanism!

What then becomes of “Left” unity? Does it mean ‘everyone’ getting behind a (state taker) “representative” of “all”, such as Starmer, Corbyn, Mélenchon, or Saunders? Or does it mean signing up to a specific ‘leadership’ organisation (the vanguard party or a rainbow coalition), in the hope of ‘changing the system’ by creating an alternate system?

Such demands for “Left” unity can ultimately become ‘suspect’ within themselves – a means of disabling certain forms of resistance and refusal. Hence, calls for ‘unity’ are but mirages – the unreachable sites of an ‘identity group’ formed purely in opposition to the “Right”, and not by any autonomous agenda. Instead of trying to “unite” the mutually exclusive positions of the “Left”, would it not be better to work out what is required for real emancipation?