A key issue relating to class (deriving largely, but not entirely, from the work of Marx) is that of class identity or consciousness. Marx argued that, as different classes had conflicting interests, deriving from their position in relation to production and markets, these interests would find their expression in political action. Indeed, Marx saw class conflict as the major driving force of social change. In preindustrial (feudal) societies, the dominant class was the feudal aristocracy, whose power and authority was challenged by the rise of the industrial bourgeoisie. The conflict between these classes resulted in the emergence of capitalism. In capitalist society, Marx argued, the proletariat (or working class) assumed the role of the revolutionary class. He argued that the bourgeoisie exploited the proletariat via the extraction of the surplus value created by their labour. Marx predicted that the conflict brought about by growth of class consciousness and action amongst the proletariat (its transcending of a ‘class-in-itself’ to ‘class-for-itself’), together with the weaknesses engendered by successive crises of capitalism, would eventually lead to the victory of the proletariat and their allies and transformative social change. These changes would usher in first socialism, then communism.

The work of Max Weber has also been influential (Class, Status and Party [trans. 1940]). Like Marx, Weber emphasized the economic dimension of class. However, besides property ownership (Marx’s major axis of class differentiation), Weber also emphasized the significance of market situations. These included individual skills and qualifications, the possession of which will result in enhanced life chances as compared with those groups possessing neither property nor skills. Weber’s account of class, however, was radically different from that of Marx in that it was not linked to any theory of history and, although Weber recognized the likelihood and persistence of class conflict, he did not see such conflicts as necessarily leading to radical social change. Weber also identified the independent significance of social status (social honour or prestige), that is, hierarchical systems of cultural differentiation that identify particular persons, behaviour and lifestyles as superior or inferior, more or less worthy. Weber identified class and social status as different bases for claims to material resources.

Subsequently many sociologists have insisted on the analytical separation of the two concepts: class and social status. On the one hand, the class concept, it is argued, describes the relationships giving rise to inequalities; it is a relational concept. Hierarchies of prestige or status, on the other, only describe the outcomes of underlying class processes, as gradational class schemes. However, we should understand that although analytically class and status are distinct concepts, there are difficulties in separating them empirically.

Status

The term, ‘social status’ may be used in three analytical contexts with quite different meanings. In the analysis of social structure and differentiation, social status refers to:

1. A position in social relations (for example, student, parent or teacher) that is socially recognized and normatively regulated. This generic usage is often contrasted with a more specific one, associated with sociological studies of inequalities and meaning.
2. A hierarchical position in a vertical social order, an overall social rank, standing and social worth. In this context, individual statuses are associated with privileges and discriminations.
3. Finally, in contemporary studies of social stratification, especially those inspired by Weber, social status refers to an aspect of hierarchical location in the social order derived from established cultural conventions (traditional beliefs and popular creeds). It is contrasted with class (market position in the economic order) and party (authority or command position in the political / organizational order). In this Weberian context, hierarchical status positions reflect the unequal conventional distribution of honour (esteem) and the accompanying life chances, while class positions reflect unequal distribution of market endowments and the accompanying life chances. The occupants of these positions form status groups characterized by common lifestyles, tastes, social proximity and intermarriage.