Toward a Sounder Basis for Class Analysis

Abstract

Satisfactory class concepts need to identify the mechanisms that produce the consequences of class membership, be they class conflicts or differences in lifestyles. Using a broad conception of property rights, the article proposes to base class concepts on personal wealth, that is, the assets a person controls. Two main class concepts are proposed: class as life conditions, based on a person's total wealth, and class as exploitation, based on a person's control over assets that produce economic rents. The former concept corresponds to empirical and Weberian class concepts, the latter to Marxist and neo‐Marxist class concepts. The article shows that the class concept based on rent‐producing assets accounts for recent developments in capitalism.