ABSTRACT
In spite of rumours to the contrary, social class continues to be a major feature of ‘late modernity’ (Bradley and Hebson 1999; Scott 2002). The two main perspectives on social class, Marxist and Weberian, also continue to dominate the theoretical agenda. Broadly speaking, Marxists see class in terms of two aspects: first, a shared relationship to production (for example, as exploiters or exploited, oppressors or oppressed, managers or managed); and second, specific forms of social organisation (for example, trade unions, the labour movement, employers’ organisations, classbased political parties). Marx called the first aspect a ‘class-in-itself’. Under this aspect, class positions are determined by the way in which production is organised in society. For example, under conditions of capitalist production, we have positions of wage-labourers, on the one hand, and positions of capitalists and corporate managers, on the other. The second aspect Marx called a ‘class-for-itself’. This aspect refers to the existence of self-conscious working-class and ruling-class organisations, which operate both within and beyond the workplace, affecting the whole of a society.
