Class Analysis: What Class is Not

Abstract

HE TERM has assumed an importance in contemporary theory in inverse proportion to its clarity as a scientific instrument for investigation of the phenomena with which it purports to deal. Every science advances by defining and sharpening its concepts and testing them with the external reality they attempt to describe, but the concept of has not been rigorously defined and is not tested. There is such confusion in the term that it is impossible to use it for investigation. This confusion has resulted in part from attempts to make the concept mean too much at once, and thus too little in the long run. It is made to mean too much because it is used to explain too many discrete and different things, and it is made to mean too little because, being used to refer to so many different things, it gives no clear explanation of any of them. The scientific validity of theory, like that of all theory, lies in its verifiability through empirical research. Systematization of theory for pedagogical or other presentative purposes often leads to a worship of theory in itself. This is nowhere so evident as in the theory of All sorts of definitions are given, theoretical analyses are drawn up,-and nobody employs them. The lack of research in the field of analysis is due, not to lack of interest or internal significance, but to the inadequacy of present theoretical foundations to set the stage for investigation. Empirical analyses (historical and field research) are not made because the theoretical apparatus with which we are asked to work gives no clues to the recognition of pertinent data and, a fortiori, no means for handling data.' To clear the ground for testable concepts and categories, we must first consider some common theories which recently have been presented but never have been tested. They suffer from what may be called a sociologism which refines concepts and rarefies theory to the point where it recognizes no need for verification. The discovery of the shortcomings of such theories will aid us in formulating a theory and a concept capable of empirical use. I. Class Is not Class. This confusion of the substantive with a qualification of itself is the fundamental error in all contemporary sociological theory concerning There is in society, it is argued, a reality which may be termed social class. T. H. Marshall2 distinguishes social class from class, which latter he takes in the Marxian sense. Social