ABSTRACT
Social scientists of various persuasions use the concept of class, and it has been central to analyses of political experiences and possible strategies for mobilization, both reformist and revolutionary. The concept of class originated not with Karl Marx but with Comte de Saint-Simon and others who preceded him. The earliest conception of class structure appears to date to eighteenth-century political economy and, in particular, to the work of Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Richard Wolff and Stephen Resnick identified three usages of "class" since the eighteenth century and argued that analysis yielded different results depending on the usage. Erik Olin Wright, comparing the Marxian and Weberian concepts of class, shows that for Weberians the concept of class structure does not have to be tied to the concept of mode of production; instead categories of stratification are linked to market societies. Ralf Dahrendorf's synthesis of Marxist class theory confirmed the difficulty of incorporating a Marxist view in a theory of pluralism.
