Lesson Two - Social Inequality in Canada

Marx and Weber on Social Class: How Do They Differ?

Weber: Class as common “life chances” based on possession of goods and opportunities for income (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Karl Marx: Class as relationship to the means of production (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).

Often, Marx and Weber are perceived to be at odds in their approaches to class and social inequality, but it is perhaps better to see them as articulating different styles of analysis. Weber’s analysis presents a more complex model of the social hierarchy of capitalist society than Marx. Weber’s model goes beyond structural class position to include the variables of status (degree of social prestige or honour) and power (degree of political influence). Thus, Weber provides a multi-dimensional model of social hierarchy. It is important to note that although individuals might be from the same objective class, their position in the social hierarchy might differ according to their status and political influence. For example, women and men might be equal in terms of their class position, but because of the inequality in the status of the genders within each class, women as a group remain lower in the social hierarchy.

With respect to class, Weber also relies on a different definition than Marx. Weber defines class as the “life chances” one shares in common with others by virtue of one’s possession of goods or opportunities for income (1969). Class is defined with respect to markets rather than the process of production. As in Marx’s analysis, the economic interests that stem from owning property/capital or not owning property/capital are still the basic variables that define one’s class situation or life chances. However, as the value of different types of property (e.g., industrial, real estate, financial, etc.) or different types of opportunity for income (i.e., different types of marketable skills) varies according to changes in the commodity or labour markets, Weber can provide a more nuanced description of an individual’s class position than Marx. A skilled tradesman like a pipe welder might enjoy a higher class position and greater life chances in Northern Alberta where such skills are in demand, than a high school teacher in Vancouver or Victoria where the number of qualified teachers exceeds the number of positions available. If we add the element of status into the picture, the situation becomes even more complex as the educational requirements and social responsibilities of the high school teacher usually confer more social prestige than the requirements and responsibilities of the pipe welder. Nevertheless, Weber’s analysis is descriptive rather than analytical. It can provide a useful description of differences between the levels or “strata” in a social hierarchy or stratification system, but does not provide an analysis of the formation of hierarchy itself.

On the other hand, Marx’s analysis of class is essentially one-dimensional. It has one variable: the relationship to the means of production. If one is a professional hockey player or a clerk in a supermarket, one works for a wage and is therefore a member of the working class. In this regard, his analysis challenges common sense as the difference between the different “fragments” of the working class — those who survive by selling their labour for a wage or salary — seem paramount, at least from the point of view of the subjective experience of class. It would seem that hockey players, doctors, lawyers, professors, and business executives have very little in common with grocery clerks, factory or agricultural workers, tradespersons, or low level administrative staff despite the fact that they all depend on being paid by someone. However, the key point of Marx’s analysis is not to ignore the existence of status distinctions within classes, but to examine class structure dialectically so to provide a more comprehensive and historical picture of class dynamics.

You will recall the four components of dialectical analysis from Chapter 1: Everything is related; everything changes; change proceeds from the quantitative to the qualitative; and change is the product of the unity and struggle of opposites. These dialectical qualities are also central to Marx’s account of the hierarchical structure of classes in capitalist society. The main point of the dialectical analysis of class is that the working class and the owning class have to be understood in relationship to one another. They emerged together out of the old class structure of feudalism, and each exists only because the other exists. The wages that define the wage labourer are paid by the capitalist; the profit and capital accumulated by the capitalist are products of the workers’ labour.

In Marx’s dialectical model, change occurs because the “unity” of this system is characterized by the struggle of opposites (i.e., the classes are “structurally in conflict” because of the contradiction in their class interests). The composition of classes changes over time; the statuses of different occupations vary; the proportions between workers’ income and capitalists’ profit change; and the types of production and the means of production change (through the introduction of labour saving technologies, globalization, new commodities, etc.). In addition, change proceeds from the quantitative to the qualitative in the sense that changes in purely quantitative variables like salary, working conditions, unemployment levels, rates of profitability, etc. lead to changes in qualitative variables like the subjective experience of class, the divisions of “left” and “right” in political struggles, and the formation of class consciousness.

Thus, the strength of Marx’s analysis is its ability to go beyond a description of where different groups fit within the class structure at a given moment in time to an analysis of why those groups and their relative positions change with respect to one another. The dialectical approach reveals the underlying logic of class structure as a dynamic system and the potential commonality of interests and subjective experiences that define class-consciousness. As a result, in an era in which the precariousness of many high status jobs has become clearer, the divisions of economic interests between the different segments of the working class becomes less so.