Social class refers to the hierarchical distinctions (or stratification) between individuals or groups in societies or cultures. Usually individuals are grouped into classes based on their economic positions and similar political and economic interests within the stratification system.

Most societies, especially nation states, seem to have some notion of social class ^[1]. However, class is not a universal phenomenon. Many hunter-gatherer societies do not have social classes, often lack permanent leaders, and actively avoid dividing their members into hierarchical power structures.^[2]

The factors that determine class vary widely from one society to another. Even within a society, different people or groups may have very different ideas about what makes one "higher" or "lower" in the social hierarchy. Some questions frequently asked when trying to define class include 1) the most important criteria in distinguishing classes, 2) the number of class divisions that exist, 3) the extent to which individuals recognize these divisions if they are to be meaningful, and 4) whether or not class divisions even exist in the US and other industrial societies. Kerbo, Harold R. (1996). Social stratification and inequality: class conflict in historical and comparative perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill, 12. ISBN 0-07-034258-X. .

The theoretical debate over the definition of class remains an important one today. Sociologist Dennis Wrong defines class in two ways - realist and nominalist. The realist definition relies on clear class boundaries to which people adhere in order to create social groupings. They identify themselves with a particular class and interact mainly with people in this class. The nominalist definition of class focuses on the characteristics that people share in a given class - education, occupation, etc. Class is therefore determined not by the group in which you place yourself or the people you interact with, but rather by these common characteristics. Kerbo, Harold R. (1996). Social stratification and inequality: class conflict in historical and comparative perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill, 142. ISBN 0-07-034258-X.  .

The most basic class distinction between the two groups is between the powerful and the powerless ^{[3] [4]}. People in social classes with greater power attempt to cement their own positions in society and maintain their ranking above the lower social classes in the social hierarchy. Social classes with a great deal of power are usually viewed as elites, at least within their own societies. This is most exemplified between the contrasting of texts Hard Times (of Charles Dickens - representing an undifferentiated monolithic 'working class') and A Ragged Schooling (of Robert Roberts - representing 'the working classes').

In the less complex societies, power/class hierarchies may or may not exist. In societies where they do exist, power may be linked to physical strength, and therefore age, gender, and physical health are common delineators of class.^{[citation needed]} However, spiritual charisma and religious vision can be as important.^{[citation needed]} Also, because different livelihoods are so closely intertwined in less complex societies, morality often ensures that the old, the young, the weak, and the sick maintain a relatively equal standard of living despite low class ^[5]. What also must be recognised is the extent to which faith perpetuates the ongoing cycle of depravity in the lower classes, as most exemplified by the film Raining Stones . Strikingly, this film questions how meaningful the reliance on faith is in response people's needs, as a result of a Conservative Government (see Thatcherism).

[ Determinants of class

In so-called non-stratified societies or acephalous societies, there is no concept of social class, power, or hierarchy beyond temporary or limited social statuses. In such societies, every individual has a roughly equal social standing in most situations.^{[citation needed]}

In societies where classes exist, one's class is determined largely by:

• occupation
• education and qualifications
• income, personal, household and per capita
• wealth or net worth, including the ownership of land, property, means of production, et cetera
• family background and aspirations. Although class is rarely hereditary in a strict sense, it will often be affected by such factors as upbringing and the class of one's parents. The child of high status professionals will grow up with the expectation that a similar occupation is an attainable goal, whereas a child of lower status parents in a run down neighborhood will often have much lower aspirations based upon what they see around them. The degree to which, in a given society, an individual's, family's, or group's social status can change throughout the course of their life through a system of social hierarchy or stratification is referred to as Social Mobility. Subsequently, it is also the degree to which that individual's or group's descendants move up and down the class system. The degree to which an individual can move through their system can be based on attributes and achievements or factors beyond their control.

Those who can attain a position of power in a society will often adopt distinctive lifestyles to emphasize their prestige and to further rank themselves within the powerful class. Often the adoption of these stylistic traits (which are often referred to as cultural capital) is as important as one's wealth in determining class status, at least at the higher levels:

• costume and grooming
• manners and cultural refinement. For example, Bourdieu suggests a notion of high and low classes with a distinction between bourgeois tastes and sensitivities and the working class tastes and sensitivities.
• political standing vis-à-vis the church, government, and/or social clubs, as well as the use of honorary titles
• reputation of honor or disgrace
• language, the distinction between elaborate code, which is seen as a criterion for "upper-class", and the restricted code, which is associated with "lower classes"

Finally, fluid notions such as race can have widely varying degrees of influence on class standing. Having characteristics of a particular ethnic group may improve one's class status in many societies. However, what is considered "racially superior" in one society can often be exactly the opposite in another. In situations where such factors are an issue, a minority ethnicity has often been hidden, or discreetly ignored if the person in question has otherwise attained the requirements to be of a higher class. Ethnicity is still often the single most overarching issue of class status in some societies (see the articles on apartheid, the Caste system in Africa, and the Japanese Burakumin ethnic minority for examples). However, a distinction should be made between causation and correlation when it comes to race and class. Some societies have a high correlation between particular classes and race, but this is not necessarily an indication that race is a factor in the determination of class.

Defining Ascribed status versus Achieved status deals with the actual individual person's role in class identification, and on whether or not one's social standing is determined at birth or earned over a lifetime.

People who are born into families with wealth, for example, are considered to have a socially ascribed status from birth. In the U.S. specifically, race/ethnic differences and gender can create basis for ascribed statuses.

Achieved statuses are acquired based on merit, skills, abilities, and actions. Examples of achieved status include being a doctor or even being a criminal—the status then determines a set of behaviors and expectations for the individual.

[ The middle class

Main article: middle class

In about the 1770s, when the term "social class" first entered the English lexicon, the concept of a "middle class" within that structure was also becoming important. The Industrial Revolution was allowing a much greater portion of the population to have time for the kind of education and cultural pursuits once restricted to the European aristocracy.

Today, concepts of social class assume three general categories: an upper class of proprietors and senior managers, a middle class of people who may not exert power over others, but may earning a significant proportrion of their income through commerce or land ownership and a lower class of people who rely on wages for their livelihood.

In the United States, the term "middle class" is applied very broadly and includes people who would elsewhere be considered working class. As the vast majority of Americans identify themselves as being middle class, there are multiple theories as to what constitutes the American middle class. The term has been used to describe people from all walks of life, from janitors to attorneys.^[6][7] As a result, the US middle class is often sub-divided into two or three groups. While one set of theories claim that the middle class is composed of those in the middle of the social strata, other theories maintain that professionals and managers who have a college degree make up most of the middle class.^[8] In 2005 roughly 35% of Americans worked in the professional/professional support or managerial field and 27% had a college degree.^[9] Sociologists such as Dennis Gilbert or Joseph Hickey argue that the middle class is divided into two sub-groups. The upper middle class consists of white collar professionals with advanced educations and constitutes roughly 15% of the population. In 2005 the top 15% of income earners (age 25+) had incomes exceeding $62,500.^[10] The lower middle class (or middle-middle class for those who divide the middle class into three segments) consists of other mostly white collar employees with less autonomy in their work, lower educational attainment, lower personal income and less prestige than those of the upper middle class. Sociologists such as Dennis Gilbert, James Henslin, William Thompson and Joseph Hickey have brought forth class models in which the middle class is divided into two sections which combine to represent 47% to 49% of the population.^[11][12][13] Economist Michael Zweig defines class as power relationships among the members of a society, rather than as a lifestyle or by income.^[14] Zweig says that the middle class is only about 34% of the U.S. population, typically employed as managers, supervisors, small business owners and other professional people.

[ Class structure in various societies

Although class can be discerned in any society, some cultures have published specific guidelines to rank. In some cases, the ideologies presented in these rankings may not concur with the mainstream power dialectic of social class as it is understood in modern English use.

[ Indian

Traditionally, the Indian caste system was one of the oldest and most important systems of social class with peculiar rigidity (in the sense that it lacks upward or downward mobility between castes). It differs from Varnashrama Dharma^[15] found in Hinduism, which allowed people born into a certain Varna to move upward or downwards depending on their qualification. It divided society based on skill and qualifications. Briefly, the Brahmin varna was idealized as a leisurely priest class devoted to religious ceremonies, while the Kshatriya defended them as military princes. The modern concept of the middle class was represented by the Vaishya varna artisans, farmers, and merchants, and the lower varna were the Shudra laborers. Within this basic framework were arranged a huge number of jatis, or subcastes. Despite being notorious for its rigidity, it should be recognised not as a religious system (as Varnashrama Dharma prescribed in Hinduism), but a social system, which evolved from Varnashrama Dharma. After, the end of British occupation in 1947, the Constitution of India introduced various affirmative action plans to abolish the caste system with limited success.

[ Chinese

In pre-Confucian China, the feudal system divided the population into 6 classes. 4 noble classes with the king (王) at the top, followed by the dukes (諸侯), then the great men (大夫) and finally the scholars (士). Below the noble classes were commoners (庶民) and slaves (奴隸). Confucian doctrine later minimized the importance of the nobles (except the emperor), abolished great men and scholars as noble classes, and further divided commoner workers based on the perceived usefulness of their work. Scholars (now not exclusively nobles) ranked the highest because the opportunity to conceive clear ideas in a state of leisure would lead them to wise laws (an idea that has much in common with Plato's ideal of a philosopher king). Under them were the farmers, who produced necessary food, and the artisans who produced useful objects. Merchants ranked at the bottom because they did not actually produce anything, while soldiers were sometimes ranked even lower because of the destruction they caused. The Confucian model is notably different from the modern European view of social class, since merchants could attain great wealth without reaching the social status accorded to a poor farmer. In practice, a rich merchant might purchase land to reach farmer status, or even buy a good education for his heirs in the hopes that they would attain scholar status and go into the imperial civil service. The Chinese model was widely disseminated throughout east Asia. [1]

[ Japanese

The Japanese class structure, while influenced by the Chinese, was based on a much more feudal environment. The Emperor, as a deity, was unquestionably at the pinnacle of the Japanese class structure (and still is, although no longer considered a god). However, for much of Japanese history the emperor was not allowed outside the palace grounds and his will was "interpreted" by a shogun, or military dictator. Beneath the shogun, daimyos or regional lords, administered the provinces through their samurai lieutenants. Perhaps through Chinese influence, and perhaps springing from a lack of arable land, the Japanese class structure also ranked farmers above merchants and other bourgeois.

See also: Four divisions of society

[ Iranian

Under the Qajar dynasty of Iran, the class structure was set up as follows:

• the permanent hereditary class of Qajar princes
• an upper class of "nobles and notables"
• religious leaders and students of theology
• merchants (note the difference from east Asian models)
• agricultural landowners
• master artisans and shopkeepers

As in many official class structures, the laborers who made up the majority of the population but owned no land and relied on wages were not even considered part of the structure at all. [2]

[ Inca

Main article: Inca society

[ Aztec

Aztec society traditionally was divided into classes. The highest class were the pīpiltin or nobility.^[16] Originally this status was not hereditary, although the sons of pillis had access to better resources and education, so it was easier for them to become pillis. Later the class system took on hereditary aspects.^[17]

The second class were the mācehualtin (people), originally peasants. Eduardo Noguera^[18] estimates that in later stages only 20% of the population was dedicated to agriculture and food production. The other 80% of society were warriors, artisans and traders.^[19]

Slaves or tlacotin also constituted an important class. Aztecs could become slaves because of debts, as a criminal punishment or as war captives. A slave could have possessions and even own other slaves.

Traveling merchants called pochtecah were a small, but important class as they not only facilitated commerce, but also communicated vital information across the empire and beyond its borders. They were often employed as spies.

[ French

France was an absolute monarchy for most of its history, with the king at the pinnacle of the class structure. However, the French States-General, established in 1302, provided a sort of legislative assembly with its members ranked according to hereditary class. The First Estate consisted of the highborn sons of great families who had devoted themselves to religion (compare to the Indian Brahmins, Confucian scholars, and Qajar theology students). The Second Estate consisted of all other members of the nobility, who constituted approximately two percent of the total population. The Third Estate consisted, technically, of everyone else, but was represented only by the richest members of the bourgeoisie. In truth, the peasantry had no voice at all in the system, as contrasted with the ideologically high status of farmers in Confucian China. The rigidity of the French hereditary system has been suggested as a major cause of the French Revolution.

[ Latin American

In Mexico, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Brazil and Chile access to positions of power and wealth were delineated by race. Accordingly, Peninsulars (Spaniards born in Spain and Portuguese born in Portugal) held the top ranks- including titles such as Viceroy, Captain General, etc. They were followed by Criollos (Those directly descended from Spaniards but born in America), who held considerable power and class but were barred from the highest decision-making posts. After these there was a system of castes, listed in order of rank, there were around a hundred castes, one of these were:

• Mestizo (Mixed Amerindian and Spaniard);
• Mulatto (Mixed Spaniard and African)
• Amerindian
• Zambo (Mixed Amerindian and African)
• Negro

It is to be noted that even today there is a strong correlation between class and ethnicity.

[ British

Main article: Social structure of Britain

The Parliament of the United Kingdom still contains a vestige of the European class structure undone in France by the Revolution. The Queen maintains her status at the top of the social class structure, with the House of Lords up until very recently still representing the hereditary upper class and the House of Commons technically representing everyone else. Because of the electoral rules, however, the House of Commons historically (until the late 19th, early 20th centuries) represented the Landed classes. In the Victorian era of the United Kingdom, social class became a national obsession, with nouveau riche industrialists in the House of Commons trying to attain the status of House of Lords landowners through attempts to dress, eat, and talk in an upper class manner, marriages arranged to achieve titles, and the purchase of grand country houses built to emulate the old aristocracy's feudal castles. It was the Victorian middle class who tried to distance themselves from the lower class with terms such as "working class", which seemed to imply that their new white collar positions couldn't really be considered "work" since they were so clean, modern, and safe.

It was also in 19th century Britain that the term Fourth Estate was used to describe the press. Thomas Carlyle equated the Queen to France's First Estate of clergy, the House of Lords to France's Second Estate of hereditary aristocracy, and the House of Commons to France's Third Estate of rich bourgeoisie. But he then pointed out that the editors of newspapers in Britain's booming Industrial Revolution (similar to the pamphleteers before and during the French Revolution) held powerful sway over public opinion, making them equally important players in the political arena. The political role of the media has become ever more important as technology has blossomed in the 20th and 21st centuries, but few academic models today set aside the media as a specific class.

It remains important in any analysis of social class in the UK to allow for regional variations. What may be true of England may be untrue or at least less true of Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales. Attempts to assume a 'British' class system rarely produce useful or reliable results. Scotland's population's inter-class relations are (from an English point of view) confused by the vestiges of the clan system. Wales had most of its nobility killed off in a series of conflicts between different families and different centres of power, and of course with England. The upshot of this, according to historian Gwyn Alf Williams in his book When Was Wales, has been a country which thinks of itself as being of a single class, like Czechoslovakia.
From a sociological point of view the class system in Britain, especially in the north of England was greatly altered during the 'Thatcher Era'. With the removal of the majority of traditional working class industrial jobs from the market, a new 'underclass', below working class emerged. The 'underclass', defined as, unemployed relying on state benefits, is the new bottom of the British class system.

Social class due to the integrated nature of modern British society where high earning jobs and positions can be attained by people of traditional lower social standing, is now largely governed by ones parents status, mannerisms and education. People are often perceived as being upper class if they were educated by a public school, use Received Pronunciation and have a large amount of inherited items such as furniture despite having a job that is socially regarded as inferior or has a lower rate of pay. Similarly many high earners can be regarded as being of a lower class due to attending state schools or having jobs that society deems low class but with a high wage.

If viewed as a hierarchy from the ground up a current model would be as such (below is only a basic model, other factors such as home, attitude, clothing, speech, mannerisms, and family ties etc also affect social standing, although the main factors are wealth and perceived wealth.)

The upper class is also known as the owning class. Without a title, your only chance of being in this class bracket is by having more income, than the top of the middle classes.

Title (Having a title will automatically place you in the upper class category)

Upper Middle Class - (professionals such as doctors, lawyers, bank managers)
Middle Class - (professionals, such as teachers, managers, accountants, ministers of religion)
Lower middle class - (Basic graduate professions, basic office and clerical).

Upper Working Class - (Working in role such as supervisor, foreman, steward, or skilled trade such as plumber/bricklayer)
Working Class - (Working in traditional working class profession, often basic skilled industrial/construction)
Lower working class - (Working in low/minimum wage occupations, such as cleaner, shop assistant, bar worker)

Wages (Wages tend to be the main distinguishing factor, having any wages moves you into the working class, whereas earning a salary moves you into the middle class)
Underclass - (reliant on state benefits for income, described by Marx as the lumpenproletariat; sometimes colloquially referred to as 'chav class')

[ United States

Class in the US, featuring occupational descriptions by Thompson & Hickey as well as US Census Bureau data pertaining to personal income and educational attainment for those age 25 or older.^[11][20][9]

Main article: Social class in the United States

The social structure of the United States is a vaguely defined concept which includes several commonly used terms that use educational attainment, income and occupational prestige as the main determinants of class. While it is possible to create dozens of social classes within the confines of American society, most Americans employ a six or five class system. The most commonly applied class concepts used in regards to contemporary American society are:^[11]

• Upper class; Those with great influence, wealth and prestige. Members of this group tend to act as the grand-conceptualizers and have tremendous influence of the nation's institutions. This class makes up about 1% of the population and owns about a third of private wealth. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved on 2008-04-07.
• Upper middle class; The upper middle class consists of white collar professionals with advanced post-secondary educational degrees and comfortable personal incomes. Upper middle class professionals have large amounts of autonomy in the workplace and therefore enjoy high job satisfaction. In terms of income and considering the 15% figure used by Thompson, Hickey and Gilber, upper middle class professionals earn roughly $62,500 (€41,000 or £31,500) or more and tend to reside in households with six figure incomes.^[8][11][21]
• (Lower) middle class; Semi-professionals, non-retail salespeople and craftsmen who have some college education. Out-sourcing tends to be a prominent problem among those in this class who often suffer from a lack of job security.^[11][22] Households in this class may need two income earners to make ends meet and therefore may have household incomes rivaling the personal incomes of upper middle class professionals such as attorneys.^[22]
• Working class; According to some experts such as Michael Zweig, this class may constitute the majority of Americans and include those otherwise referred to as lower middle.^[23] It includes blue as well as white collar workers who have relatively low personal incomes and lack college degrees with many being among the 45% of Americans who have never attended college.^[11]
• Lower class; This class includes the poor, alienated and marginalized members of society. While most individuals in this class work, it is common for them to drift in and out of poverty.^[11]

[ Theoretical models

[ Marxist

An Industrial Worker capitalist class critique

It was in Victorian Britain that Karl Marx became the first person to critically attack the privileges not just of a hereditary upper class, but of anyone whose labor output could not begin to cover their consumption of luxury. The majority proletariat which had previously been relegated to an unimportant compartment at the bottom of most hierarchies, or ignored completely, became Marx's focal point. He recognized the traditional European ruling class ("We rule you"), supported by the religious ("We fool you") and military ("We shoot at you") élites, but the French Revolution had already shown that these classes could be removed. Marx looked forward to a time when the new capitalist upper class could also be removed and everyone could work as they were able, and receive as they needed.

Karl Marx defined class in terms of the extent to which an individual or social group has control over the means of production. In Marxist terms a class is a group of people defined by their relationship to the means of production. The prerequisite for classes is existence of sufficient surplus product. Marxists explain the history of "civilized" societies in terms of a war of classes between those who control production and those who produce the goods or services in society. In the Marxist view of capitalism, this is a conflict between capitalists (bourgeoisie) and wage-workers (the proletariat). For Marxists, class antagonism is rooted in the situation that control over social production necessarily entails control over the class which produces goods -- in capitalism this is the exploitation of workers by the bourgeoisie.

Marx himself argued that it was the goal of the proletariat itself to displace the capitalist system with socialism, changing the social relationships underpinning the class system and then developing into a future communist society in which: "..the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all." (Communist Manifesto).

Vladimir Lenin has defined classes as "large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in law) to the means of production, by their role in the social organisation of labour, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it." A Great Beginning

[ Proletarianisation

The most important transformation of society for Marxists has been the massive and rapid growth of the proletariat in the world population during the last two hundred and fifty years. Starting with agricultural and domestic textile labourers in England and Flanders, more and more occupations only provide a living through wages or salaries.^[citation needed] Private enterprise or self-employment in a variety of occupations is no longer as viable as it once was, and so many people who once controlled their own labour-time are converted into proletarians.^{[citation needed]} Today groups which in the past subsisted on stipends or private wealth -- like doctors, academics or lawyers -- are now increasingly working as wage labourers.^{[citation needed]} Marxists call this process proletarianisation, and point to it as the major factor in the proletariat being the largest class in current societies in the rich countries of the "first world." However, only in the strongly social-democratic societies such as Sweden is there much long-term evidence of the weakening of the consequences of social class.

The increasing dissolution of the peasant-lord relationship (see pre-capitalist societies), initially in the commercially active and industrialising countries, and then in the unindustrialised countries as well, has virtually eliminated the class of peasants. Poor rural labourers still exist, but their current relationship with production is predominantly as landless wage labourers or rural proletarians. The destruction of the peasantry, and its conversion into a rural proletariat, is largely a result of the general proletarianisation of all work. This process is today largely complete, although it was arguably incomplete in the 1960s and 1970s.

[ Dialectics, or historical materialism, in Marxist class

[ Objective and subjective factors in class in Marxism

Marxism has a rather heavily defined dialectic between objective factors (i.e., material conditions, the social structure) and subjective factors (i.e. the conscious organization of class members). While most Marxism analyses people's class based on objective factors (class structure), major Marxist trends have made greater use of subjective factors in understanding the history of the working class. E.P. Thompson's The Making of thee English Working Class is a definitive example of this "subjective" MaSource: this wikipedia article, under GFDL.
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