Classical and Contemporary Views on Class and Inequality: A Look at the Vocabulary of Power

Class is a sociological concept describing a hierarchical social order based on money, property, commercial goods or quality of character, occupation, lifestyle, and in some instances, physical appearance.

Key insights from historical sources

The term "class" is etymologically derived from the Latin classis, which was used by census takers to categorize citizens by wealth in order to determine military service obligations. In the late 18th century, the term began to replace classifications such as estates, rank, and orders as the primary means of organizing society into hierarchical divisions. This linguistic shift corresponded to a general decrease in the significance ascribed to hereditary characteristics and an increase in the significance of wealth and income as indicators of position in the social hierarchy.¹

In classical sociological theory, Karl Marx emphasizes the ownership or non-ownership of the so-called "means of production" as a prime indicator of class. This ownership includes land, factories, machines, tools, and knowledge about how to be an effective producer of commodities. Expanding on Marx's framework, the concepts of class consciousness and false consciousness explain how people perceive their position in this hierarchy. False consciousness describes a state in which subordinate groups adopt the ideologies of the ruling class—often believing the current economic system is entirely fair, natural, and meritocratic—which prevents them from recognizing shared interests. Conversely, class consciousness represents the self-awareness that members of a social class share common economic interests fundamentally opposed to those of another class, serving as a vital precursor to collective political action.

Meanwhile, Max Weber stresses the importance of social status, prestige, and political power alongside Marx's ideas about the ownership of the means of production. Where Marx saw a single economic axis, Weber argued that social stratification is multidimensional, dividing society through three distinct components: class (economic position and market power), status (Ständetag, or social honor and prestige based on lifestyle or occupation), and party (political influence and organizational power). By recognizing that individuals can hold high status without high wealth—or vice versa—Weber provided the theoretical foundation for how sociologists analyze social standing today.

Durkheim and the Division of Labor

Bridging the gap between pure economics and institutional order, Émile Durkheim examined how the modern division of labor shapes social hierarchy and interdependence. Rather than viewing class primarily through conflict or individual market power, Durkheim argued that advanced industrial societies rely on "organic solidarity"—a mutual dependence built on specialized occupations and roles.

However, he cautioned that when economic stratification outpaces moral regulation, it creates "pathological" states like the "forced division of labor" (where people are locked into unequal positions against their will) and anomie (a state of normlessness). For Durkheim, maintaining social harmony requires that economic classes and occupational groups remain bound by shared moral norms and cooperative institutions rather than unchecked competitive isolation.

Expanding into Modern Dimensions and Mobility

In contemporary empirical research, sociologists often translate these multi-dimensional factors into Socioeconomic Status (SES). Rather than relying on broad class labels, SES is typically calculated using a combination of income, wealth (the total value of assets minus debts, which serves as a much more accurate indicator of long-term security and generational advantage than income alone), educational attainment, and occupational prestige.

Fairly recent sociological terms relating to class and hierarchical inequality are stratification and disparity. Furthermore, modern sociologists study social mobility to understand how movement within this hierarchy occurs. Intergenerational mobility looks at changes in social status from one generation to the next, while intragenerational mobility measures changes over the course of an individual's lifetime. Additionally, structural mobility occurs when broader societal transformations—such as economic shifts or technological revolutions—create entirely new types of employment or eliminate old ones, shifting large groups collectively up or down the social ladder.

Although classical sociologists took great pains to delineate just what class is, not too many contemporary thinkers agree on its definition, and some argue that class does not truly exist. After all, how can we accurately determine a person's supposed class? By money, knowledge, prestige, power, beauty, goodness, ability, or age?

Cultural Capital, Intersectionality, and Postmodern Lenses

Along these lines, the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu introduced the idea of cultural capital with Jean-Claude Passeron in "Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction" (1973). Again from Wikipedia:
The term cultural capital refers to non-financial social assets that promote social mobility beyond economic means. Examples can include education, intellect, style of speech, dress, and even physical appearance, et cetera.²

To fully capture modern inequalities, intersectionality—a concept coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw—demonstrates that class never operates in a vacuum. Instead, class constantly intersects with other axes of identity and stratification, such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and ability, creating overlapping systems of advantage and disadvantage that shape an individual's lived experience.

Instead of focusing on the idea of class as some kind of absolute truth in itself, postmoderns like Michel Foucault emphasize the role of social power in determining outcomes among competing discourses. For Foucault, the idea of discourse refers to relative social truths generated by soft and/or hard power, as well as institutionalized social practices. For Foucault, society is in constant struggle, so individuals and groups are always in a competitive kind of "war," even in peacetime.

Most sociological analyses of class overlook the message of many religious traditions, a message that essentially inverts worldly thinking about rank and order:

The worldly rich may be poor in spirit whereas the worldly poor may be rich in spirit (Matthew 6:19-20, Mark 10:21).

However, it seems a common mistake and gross simplification to suppose that all materially wealthy people are spiritually poor and that all materially poor people are spiritually rich (1 Timothy 6:17).

Whether or not the notion of class eventually disappears from our collective vocabulary remains to be seen.

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¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class
² http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_capital