ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with an account of the importance of class in the work of the founding fathers of cultural studies — Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, and EP Thompson. Margaret Thatcher, who did more than most in recent times to rebalance class struggle in favour of the rich and powerful, once claimed that 'Class is a communist concept'. Pierre Bourdieu demonstrates how particular patterns of consumption are ultimately about class difference and class distinction. He shows how arbitrary tastes and arbitrary ways of living are continually transmuted into legitimate taste and the only legitimate way of life. Bourdieu's interest is in the processes by which patterns of consumption help to secure and legitimate forms of power and domination that are ultimately rooted in economic inequality. The chapter concludes with a discussion of an idea that is often deployed as a means to dismiss class as an explanatory concept — 'meritocracy'.
