ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a framework within which to understand the transformation of social inequality and resource development in American society. Class analysis has as its intellectual origins the work of Karl Marx and represents the first systematic interest in social inequality. Marx's conceptualization of class, class interest, class structure, class conflict, and social change was derived from an analysis of the productive process in capitalist society. The concept of ideological hegemony has been taken out of a class and analytical framework and developed by non-Marxist scholars. David Sallach conceptualizes ideological hegemony as a process in which a dominant class, which controls the economic and political institutions of a society, also possesses privileged access to the primary ideological institutions of that society. The chapter attempts to synthesize elements of the class, elitist, and social stratification analyses of the phenomenon of social inequality.
