CHAPTER FOUR
Social Ranks and Social Classes
1. Concepts
§1. The “class position” of an individual is the typical Chance
1. of provision with goods,
2. of outer social standing,
3. of inner personal fate
that follows from the extent and nature of a power of disposition (or the absence of such power) over goods, education, and skills (Leistungsqualifikationen), and from the given form in which they might be valorised in seeking access to income or revenues within a given economic order.
A “class” is a group of men and women who find themselves in the same class position.
a) A propertied class is a class for which the primary determinant of class position is differences of property.
b) An acquisitional class (Erwerbsklasse) is a class for which the primary determinant of class position is Chancen for the market valorisation of goods or services.
c) Social class is the totality of those class positions, between which a
α) personal or
β) generational
change is easily possible, and which typically tends to occur.
Sociations of those sharing class interests (class organisations) can form on the basis of all three class categories. But this does not have to happen: class position and class denote in themselves only the actual existence of equal (or similar) typical interest situations in which individuals and very many others find themselves. In principle, the power of disposition over all kinds of consumer goods, means of production, wealth, means for gainful acquisition, educational and technical qualifications each constitutes a particular class position, and only those who are completely “unskilled,” propertyless, and reliant for work on casual employment form a unitary class position. The transitions from one to the other are variable in ease and fluidity, while the unity of the “social” class is consequently expressed in very different ways.
a)70 The primary significance of a positively privileged propertied class consists in
α) the monopolisation of highly priced (high-cost) consumption goods through purchase,
β) the monopolistic situation and possibility of deliberate monopolistic sales policy,
γ) the monopolisation of the Chance to accumulate wealth through unconsumed surpluses,
δ) the monopolisation of the Chancen that of accumulating capital through saving, hence the possibility of investing wealth as loan capital, and so access to the leading posts in business,
ε) the possession of an educational position owed to the privilege conferred by social rank, insofar as these are very costly.
I. Positively privileged propertied classes are typically rentiers. They can be
a) rentiers living off human beings (slave owners),
b) rentiers living off income from land,
c) rentiers living off income from mines,
d) rentiers living off income from industrial plants and equipment,
e) rentiers living off income from shipping,
f) or creditors, living off loans related to
α) cattle,
β) grain,
γ) money;
g) rentiers living off income from securities.
II. Negatively privileged propertied classes are typically
a) those who are the objects of property (unfree persons; see §3 below),
b) those who are déclassé (proletarii in antiquity),
c) those who are indebted,
d) those who are “poor.”
Between these two are the “middle classes” (Mittelstandsklassen) possessing property or educational qualifications, from which strata of all kinds make their living. Some of them can belong to an “acquisitional class” (a significantly privileged entrepreneur, a negatively privileged proletarian). But not all farmers, craftsmen, officials do so belong.
In its pure form, the composition of the propertied class is not “dynamic”; it does not necessarily lead to class struggle and class revolution. The highly positively privileged propertied class of slave owners, for example, can exist alongside less positively privileged farmers, or even the déclassé, without there being any class conflict, and the former sometimes form ties of solidarity with the latter (e.g., against those who are unfree). However, the contrast in property holding:
1. rentier living off landed income—déclassé,
2. creditor—debtor (which often means urban-dwelling patrician—rural-dwelling farmer or urban-dwelling small craftsman)
can lead to revolutionary struggles, aimed not necessarily at a change of economic structure, but mainly instead solely at the possession and distribution of property (revolutions over property).
A classic case of the absence of class conflict was the situation of “poor white trash,” whites who owned no slaves, with regard to plantation owners in the Southern states of the United States. Poor whites were much more hostile to blacks than were planters in much the same position, who for their part were often governed by patriarchal feelings. Antiquity provides the principal example of the struggle of déclassé elements against property owners, as well as for the contrasting case: creditors—debtors, and that of rentiers living from landed income—déclassé.
§2. b) The principal significance of a positively privileged acquistional class lies in
α) the monopolisation of the management of the production of goods in favour of the acquisitional interests of their class members; and
β) the securing of gainful Chancen by influencing the economic policy of political and other organisations.
I. Positively privileged acquisitional classes are typically: entrepreneurs:
a) merchants,
b) shipowners,
c) industrial entrepreneurs,
d) agricultural entrepreneurs,
e) bankers and financial entrepreneurs, and under some circumstances:
f) “professionals” with special abilities or special training (lawyers, physicians, artists),
g) workers with skills over which they have a monopoly (skills that are either inborn, or cultivated and trained).
II. Negatively privileged acquisitional classes are typically workers of varied and qualitatively different kinds:
a) skilled,
b) semiskilled,
c) unskilled.
Independent farmers and craftsmen here represent “middle classes” between I and II. Also very often there are
a) officials (public and private),
b) the category of professionals listed under I.f) and the workers listed under I.g).
c)71 Social classes are
α) the workforce as a whole, the more automated the labour process becomes,
β) the petty bourgeoisie, and
γ) the propertyless intelligentsia and those with specialised training (technicians, commercial and other clerical staff, and officials, who are all probably very different from each other socially, distinguished by the costs of training),
δ) the propertied classes and those privileged by education.
The unfinished conclusion to Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, Bd. III, was clearly intended to address the problem of the class unity of the proletariat in spite of its qualitative differentiation. Of importance here is the increasing importance, within quite a short period of time, of the displacement of “skilled” labour by semiskilled work aided by machinery, also sometimes involving “unskilled” labour as well. Nonetheless, semiskilled capabilities can often be monopolised (at present, weavers typically reach their peak of efficiency after five years!). A transition to an “independent” petty bourgeois occupation was once every workers’ dream, but this possibility is one that is increasingly rare. Between generations, it is relatively easy for both a) and b) to “rise” into social class c) (technician, clerk). Within class d), money increasingly buys everything—at least in terms of succeeding generations. Those in class c) have Chancen of rising into banks and financial institutions; officials have Chancen of rising into d).
Sociated class action is easiest to to bring about
a) against those with directly adverse interests (workers against employers, and not against shareholders, who really do receive an income without working for it; nor also peasants and farmers against landowners),
b) where there is a typically mass basis to equality of class position,
c) where technical possibility makes it easy to come together, especially a working community concentrated in one place (workplace community),
d) where there is guidance to clear and obvious aims usually imposed or interpreted by those not belonging to the class (the intelligentsia).
§3. The position afforded by social rank typically involves a claim to positive or negative privilege in social estimation, based on
a) the manner in which life is conducted, and so
b) formal mode of cultivation (Erziehungsweise), whether
α) empirical instruction or
β) rational instruction and on the possession of the corresponding forms of living;
c) prestige of birth or of occupation.
In practice, the position afforded by social rank is expressed primarily in
α) intermarriage,
β) eating together, and possibly often
γ) the monopolistic appropriation of privileged Chancen for gain, or the abomination of particular forms of gain,
d) conventions relating to social rank (“traditions”) of other kinds.
The position afforded by social rank can be based on a class position of a particular or ambiguous kind. But it is not defined by this alone: the possession of money and position as an entrepreneur are not in themselves qualifications of social rank, although they can well lead to them. Nor is lack of wealth in itself a disqualification for social rank, although it can become so. On the other hand, social rank can determine class position in part or entirely, without, however, being identical with it. The class position of an officer, official, or student can be quite different depending on their respective wealth, but without leading to differences in their social standing, for it is the way they lead their lives that is the decisive point in establishing equality of social rank, and this way of leading one’s life is a result of upbringing and education.
A “social rank” can be defined as many persons who within an organisation attract
a) special estimation due to their social rank, and possibly also
b) are able to lay claim to particular monopolies by virtue of their social rank.
Social ranks can arise
a) primarily through the particular way members of the rank lead their lives, especially including their occupation (social ranks based on life conduct, or occupational ranks),
b) secondarily, through hereditary charisma, successfully laying claim to prestige by virtue of being descended from persons of a certain social rank (social rank by descent),
c) through the a social rank’s appropriation of political or hierocratic ruling powers as monopolies (political or hierocratic social ranks).
Development of social rank by birth is usually a form of the (hereditary) appropriation of privileges to an organisation or a qualified individual. Each permanent appropriation of Chancen, especially those related to rule, tends to contribute to the formation of social ranks. Each instance of the formation of social rank tends to lead to the monopolistic appropriation of ruling powers and Chancen for gain.
Whereas acquisitional classes originate and flourish in a market-oriented economy, social ranks develop and exist chiefly by monopolising the provisioning of organisations—whether this is liturgical, feudal, or patrimonial. A society is a “society of ranks” when the social structure is organised by rank; it is a “class society” when the social structure is organised by class. “Social ranks” are closest to “social classes,” and most distant from “acquisitional classes.” The constitution of social ranks is often heavily influenced by propertied classes.
Every society based on social rank is ordered conventionally, through the regulation of life conduct; this therefore creates irrational conditions for consumption. This obstructs the free formation of markets, through monopolistic appropriation, and by obstructing the free disposition of individuals’ capacities to engage in gainful activity on their own account. This will be dealt with separately.72
70. This introduces a continuation of §11a).
71. This introduces a continuation of §1c), and so is c) to the b) with which §2 begins.