Part III - The Structure of Modern Stratification

Theories of Class

1. Marx and Post-Marxists

This section contains, first, the "original" formulation of class theory as put forth by Marx and subsequent refinements and alterations by analysts of class following the Marxist tradition. Not much needs to be said about Marx himself in this context, except the very basic points - specifically, the points of Marxist analysis that later came to be empirically contradictory in light of the later development of capitalism. Such are the ideas that assert the dichotomic and polarized structure of class relations within capitalism, in the form of the conflict of Bourgeoise and Proletariat. Marx developed this idea by horning and developing his concept of the universal alienation of men from the labor of products, from the processes of production, from men's own nature, and from fellow men. Further, according to Marxist scheme all "intermediate" locations in the class structure are supposed to polarize toward either to the diametrically opposite direction of bourgeoise or proletariat. The increasing worsening economic condition of the proletariat, as well as the tendency toward more acute and thorough exploitation, are to eventually lead to the revolutionary action by the proletariat to institutionalize the socialism. Briefly, this is the core of Marx' own analysis. The central tenet of this formulation is the vision of the capitalist society developing into further and further bipolarized world of bourgeoise and proletariat antagonism. Yet, clearly that is not quite what happened in the course of the development of modern capitalism in contemporary industrial nations. Instead, the contemporary capitalism seems to be characterized by the increasingly larger presence of the so-called middle class. The question of just how these seemingly contradictory classes that fit into neither of the bourgeoise or proletariat class can be theorized about and accommodated within the Marxist framework is the central concern of most of the subsequent Marxist analysis of class, and that is exactly what all of the readings in this section are also concerned about. They are certainly having a rather difficult time in grappling with one of the problematic legacy left by Marx.

In his now classic work, "Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society", Dahrendorf seems to have given up on one of the most fundamental notion of Marx' analysis of class - that class should be defined in terms of its material basis in the forces of production. In light of the growing presence of managers, as well as the decomposition of workers into differentially skilled groups, Dahrendorf came to conclude that simple dichotomic Marxist formulation based on the ownership, or the lack of ownership, of the means of production is no longer tenable. So his solution: Class should be conceived of as the relationship based on the differential distribution of authority, not the material basis. Further, as the relationship based on differential possession of authority depends on which institutions one is looking at, i.e., depending on political, social, economic, or religious spheres, people have different amount of authority, often those having lots of it in one sphere have none or little in other, this new conception of class is valid only for the analysis of specific "imperatively coordinated association". It is no longer valid for the analysis of class as such for the society as a whole.

In essence, Dahrendorf took a critical and perhaps irrevocable step by denying the material basis for the analysis of class. On the other hand, what Erik Olin Wright has tried to show was that Marxist analysis of class can be reformulated to accommodate the increasingly complex contemporary class structure while retaining the material basis as the fundamental defining factor of the class. Accordingly, in his "Varieties of Marxist Conceptions of Class Structure", an attempt is made at saving the original polarized formulation of Marxist analysis by identifying Managers and Supervisors, as well as small employers and semi-autonomous wage earners as occupying the "contradictory locations" within class relations. Further, the position of the petty bourgeoise is conceived as the remnant of the former feudal order. For Wright, these intermediate classes are contradictory in the sense that they have control over some, but not all, of the three resources in the forces of production: money capital, physical capital, and labor.

The article of "A General Framework for the Analysis of Class Structure" essentially attempts to make this scheme equally well applicable to the analysis of not only historically specific contemporary capitalism but to feudalism, state bureaucratic socialism, and socialism as a presage for communism as well. First, in this article, drawing upon the work of John Roemer, the need to conceptualize the ultimate basis of the relationship of exploitation as resting upon the resources in production, and not in market exchange, is stressed. Then, Wright classifies each of feudalism, capitalism, state bureaucratic socialism, and socialism as differentiated essentially by the difference of the principal asset of production that is unequally distributed. So, in case of feudalism, it is the labor power - for serfs cannot in any real sense control even his own labor power. When we move to capitalism, at least labor power is equally distributed, but then people are now unequal in terms of the property relations in the means of production. Under state bureaucratic socialism, it is the ability to control organizations that is differentially distributed. Under socialism that may eventually lead to communism, while differential distribution of the prowess for organizational control is dissolved through democratic control of the organization, yet the differential distribution of skills remains. The difference of communism and this form of socialism is that whereas in the latter exploitation of surplus value based on the differential distribution of skills remains, the former eradicates this factor as well. Because principal assets characterizing the class structure of each form of regime type have been identified, it now follows that based upon the possession of this principal asset the two primary - one dominant and the other exploited - classes under each regime type can now be identified. For feudalism, they are the lords and serfs. For capitalism, capitalists and workers. For state bureaucratic socialism, managers/bureaucrats and nonmanagement. For socialism, experts and workers. So in effect, we can see that Wright has effectively arrived at quite systematic categorization of the class structure, that is applicable to historically different forms of regime types and retains the crucial Marxist concern of principality accorded to the material control. Further, with this scheme we can also systematically identify those in "contradictory" locations within the class structure by finding out who are not the part of the two main classes under any particular regime. Here, the evolutionary scheme of the Marxist analysis that perceives the society as linearly progressing from feudalism to capitalism, then to state bureaucratic soclialism to pure socialism, and finally to communism must be pointed out. Then, it is interesting to note that the principal contradictory locations are always the ones who would be the dominant class in the next higher regime type in Marxist evolution scheme - i.e., bourgeoise under feudalism, managers and bureaucrats under capitalism, and intelligentsia and experts under state bureaucratic socialism.

Finally, the short article by Immanuel Wallerstein is also an interesting contribution - it conceives of the relationship between the "core" and "periphery" nations within the world capitalistic economic order as analogous to that of the bourgeoise - proletariat relationship, thereby extending the Marxist analysis from the analysis of the economy of one particular nation to the analysis of the international relations. Like most of the Marxist analysts, Wallerstein perceives of the state as the institution whose sole function is representing the dominant interests to augment the exploitation of those creating surplus value.

2. Weber and Post - Weberians

Max Weber has added substantial contribution to the theory of class, adding new elements and making some key reformulations to the clear-cut but simple picture supplied by Marx in the form of polarized class relations in capitalism. Following, in their own ways two post-Weberians authors looked at here pick up on Weber's work to further their own theoretical formulations regarding class structure of contemporary society - specifically, Giddens does this task basically by critically assaying one of the potential implication of Weber's work, while Parkins does this by using the Weberian concept of closure to refine the Marxist analysis of class relations.

First, let's summarize the portion of Weber's contributions to the class theory that have been particularly influential on the works of later Post-Weberian writers. First, most obviously, Weber distinguished clearly between class and status stratification. The former is purely economic, while the latter is about the differential distribution of honor. Further, Weber maintained these two mechanisms can operate independently of each other in theory, even though empirically they are often correlated with each other. In terms of class stratification, Weber made a key reformulation to the Marxist conception that was to become the key guiding principle to all the post-Weberian writers: instead of defining class relations as based primarily on the control and ownership of forces of production, Weber maintained that class relation is a market relation - that is, the differential power distribution in the sphere of market exchange determines people's class location. The sometimes misunderstood notion of power is also worth mentioning here, as for Weber power is not yet another level of stratification system comparable to class and status but rather the overarching concept under which both class and status relations operate as the relationship of the differential distribution of power.

Also importantly, Weber distinguished the existence of different subclasses within both the dominant and the subordinated class, thereby radically refining the dichotomic Marxist conception of class relations. This reformulation is enabled by Weber's shift of focus from the sphere of production to that of market, as there could be many strands of subtly different relationships within the market exchange relationship. Further, Weber divided the concept of class as consisting of three distinctive types: property class, acquisition class, and social class.

Finally, Weber gave substantial consideration to different forms of open and closed social relationships that could exist in a society. This obviously has an indelibly important connection to the stratification system, as the ability of the dominant class to close off the access to its privileges and status is the key factor in the maintenance of the stratification system. From this perspective, Weber regards the contemporary system of education, training, and examination as serving the purpose of protecting the exclusionary interests of the privileged class and restricting access to their position from all those excluded.

Next, a rather difficult piece by Giddens, prose-wise, is actually quite straightforward in idea. Giddens pushes the implication of the Weberian formulation of class further, and worries that if market relations determine the class relations - then infinite types of class relations are possible as new market relations arise. Then what does the class relation consist of substantively? Does the class relationship have any socially real identity? This is basically the question addressed by Giddens, and his answer is yes - Giddens' theoretical formulation is essentially an exposition on what does this class relationship substantively consist of in terms of the subjective identification of individuals.

Briefly, class comes to appear to be "real" subjectively to people through the two mechanisms of mediate and proximate structuration of class relationships, Giddens states. The former stands for the overall connecting links between market on the one hand and structured systems of class relationships on the other, while the latter stands for the "localised" factors which condition or shape class formation. In the context of the contemporary capitalism, Giddens notes that for the former process the structuration of the class relation as a real entity is facilitated to the extent that mobility closure exists in relation to any specified forms of market capacity. "Market capacity" in this context includes the ownership of property in the means of production, possession of educational or technical qualifications, and possession of manual labor power. So, roughly, this is the mechanism that operates on the broad societal level - and is supposed to lead to, broadly, the three-tiered system of "upper", "middle" and "lower" class. On the other hand, there are proximate structuration processes that operate on the local level to complete the process of class formation. There are three components to this also: the division of labor within the productive enterprise, the authority relationships within the enterprise, and the influence of "distributive groupings" based on the common pattern of the consumption of economic goods (this formation process should be separated from the "status" grouping, Giddens asserts, which involves the positive or negative social estimation of the groupings based on the different pattern of consumption). So, all in all, these "mediate" and "proximate" processes of structuration lead to the formation of substantively and subjectively real class relations.

Meanwhile, Parkin's Marxism and Class Theory: A Bourgeoise Critique reformulates the concept of class by utilizing one of the key aforementioned concept Weber developed - that of social closure. This Marxism-inspired reformulation is Post-Weberian in the sense that it draws upon this key Weberian concept to downplay the importance of the control of the forces of production as the key defining characteristic of class. Instead, Parkin redefines the class as a system of relationship between certain set of groups characterized by mutual process of exclusion and usurpation (which, by definition, only occurs as a response to the exclusion). This process of exclusion, in the context of contemporary capitalist society, makes use of two main devices: the institutions of property, and the academic or professional qualifications and credentials (Notice that the view holding academic and professional credentialism as the exclusionary device, rather than a legitimate means to fit the "most appropriate" personnel to the appropriate position, is distinctively in line with Weber's own idea).

3. The Ruling Class and Elites

Questions regarding elites of the society have always been one of the foremost concern in the stratification research - who compose of the elites, or at least the leaders of the society, what are the methods for their recruitment, what are the nature of the power they wield - selections in this section are all classic articles that have either defined, or reformulated, the way sociologists answer these questions in a fundamental way.

First, Mosca's "The Ruling Class" piece written nearly a century ago has laid a groundwork for what later came to be known as the "elite theory". Its assertive and unflailing claim is the inevitability of the existence of elites, or the ruling class, and the ruled class in any type of human society. Elites are always the minority, and not only do they have better organizational power due to their smaller numbers ideally they are supposed be endowed with certain intellectual and moral superiority that distinguishes them from the rest of the society. The method of recruitment for Mosca's ruling class, then, is based largely on hereditary measure. Though appearing very crude by today's standards, Mosca also gives his own historical analysis of how different societies in history structured their elite composition. Among the topics covered in this respect are, the almost universal presence of military leaders in "primitive" societies; the transition from feudal rule to bureaucratic rule that is characterized by the rise of formal bureaucracy; the presence of religious elites who are also the wielders of political power in significantly large number of states.

Next, C. Wright Mills' "The Power Elite" has had the impact comparable to that of Mosca's article on the course of the theorizing on American stratification system. Its most well known legacy that has greatly influenced number of American sociologists is the identification of the economy, the military, and the political elites as the holders of national power - national power in the sense that their decisions can have significant effects on the national scale. Elites in each of these spheres do not operate independently of each other, but are intricately interdependent on one another for functioning. Mills notes that elites in other walks of life - such as religion, education, or any of the powerful families - are largely placed under the control of the "big three". Another key claim made by Mills is that it is faulty to conceive of elites as merely the ones who have the most of the scarce rewards of life, such as wealth. For Mills, the elites must always be the ones who could exercise power in the Weberian sense, and as such, they are the ones who hold the command of the major institutions of the society. Only a position as the power holder of the major institutions of society could endow an individual with such power that could achieve his/her own wills even against the will of the subordinated. Additionally, Mills seems to have given an interesting twist to the Mosca claim that elites should be endowed with certain moral and intellectual superiority, by reversing the causal order. Whereas for Mosca moral and intellectual superiority is one of the defining characteristic of elites, Mills notes that while this may not be the case it is always possible that the very fact that elites rule and lead eventually give them certain superior personal characteristics appropriate to their position.

Meanwhile, "Elites and Power" article by Giddens tries to clarify a major definitional problem that has been the source of confusion in theory and research on stratification. This is the precise definition of four often confused and unsystematically used terms: Ruling class, Governing class, Power elite, and leadership groups. Giddens systematically classifies these four terms according to the two criteria of elite formation (this criteria further divided into that of open or closed pattern of recruitment and high or low level of integration), and strength of power-holding (this criteria further divided into that of consolidated vs. diffused power and broad or restricted issue strength). For the precise categorization, see the chart on p. 174.

Michael Useem's "The Inner Circle" tries to provide for an answer to another central question regarding elites power, having particularly to do with the business elites. That is, are business elites unified in pressing for the interests of the big business in the political actions, thereby forming a coherent elite groups capable of concerted action, or else are they actually disjointed and concerned with diverse interests so that there is no hope of them exercising any sort of unified political power? Useem provides for the answer that goes in between these two extreme positions - albeit perhaps gravitating slightly more to the former view - by introducing the concept of the "inner circle". The "inner circle" is the group of selected business elites who typically have ties to multiple number of big corporations, thereby transcending the boundaries of one particular firm or company, that acts to make fairly concerted actions to push for the interests of the big businesses as a whole. They give coherence and direction to the politics of business. Useem also notes that their activities have become particularly influential politically in the 70s and 80s in Great Britain and the United States. Yet, Useem's view is not exactly the same as the first extreme view maintaining the presence of perfectly unified big business front, for for Useem the "inner circle" does not act as one single political body that could mobilize all of its supposed members. Rather, the unit of political action is actually the particular segments within the inner circle who come to share interests in certain specific issues.

Now, why has the "inner circle" emerged historically? To this, Useem also has prepared for an answer. His idea is that its formation is due to unconscious change in the governing principle of social organization at the societal level as history has moved from the era of first what Useem calls family capitalism, to managerial capitalism, and now increasingly to institutional capitalism. In each of these eras what is deemed to define the organization of society is different: under the family capitalism, the organization is governed by upper-class principle. In this scheme business relations are merely the means to preserve this ultimately important concerns based on ascribed status. Under the managerial capitalism, corporate principle comes to the forefront. In this scheme the concern of each individual firms as profit-seeking organizations are perceived as the most important organizational principle. Finally, under the institutionalism capitalism, the organizational principle transcends the concern of the single firm. The organizatinal principle now comes to the classwide principle - social organization is organized according to a set of interrelated, quasi-autonomous networks encompassing virtually all large corporations. So, in effect - for Useem the inner circle emerged as a result of the shift in organizational principle of the society to that of the classwide principle.

On the whole, Shils' "The Political Class in the Age of Mass Society " does not seem to be as well organized compared to other four selections. Basically, the idea is that the change in broader social structure - that, in contemporary mass democracy so many more tasks are deemed as the tasks for governments than in any other types of historically known regimes, and the subsequent notion that governments thus come to be under far greater level of scrutiny than ever before - makes the formation of the elite class in Mosca's sense impossible.

Gradational Status Groupings

1. Reputation, Deference, and Prestige

Two introductory articles to bring up some of the representative thoughts in the genre of "gradational status groupings", with the aim of identifying multiple number of gradationally tiered status groups in certain societies.

The first article, "Social Class in America", tries to identify the structure of class system in various regions of America. Even though the article is titled "class", what the authors are trying to identify here are more aptly considered as the status groupings, insofar as their classification is based on the reputational prestige of various social groups. However, since prestige and reputation in this context are heavily reliant on the economic aspects, then there is some justification in calling their groupings "class" as well. Anyway, the class system the authors identify in America can broadly be categorized as a six-class or five-class system, consisting of upper class, upper-middle and lower-middle classes, and upper-lower and lower-lower classes. A five class system becomes a six class system by dividing the upper class into the upper-upper (or, the old upper) class and the lower-upper (or, the new upper) classes. The presence of the upper-upper class is largely due to the presence of the "old" and established upper classes whose by means of their rooted presence in a community comes to attain para-aristocratic reputation separating them clearly from the "new" upper classes who has created wealth largely with their own work. Quite obviously, the presence of this class is contingent upon the fairly long duration of stable enough community history to allow the upper-upper classes to entrench themselves sufficiently; that is only possible when there are enough number of them established well enough so most of their social lives could be conducted endogenously without too much intermingling with the "new" upper classes. Naturally, then, this six-class system with the old upper class is most commonly found in New England and some parts of the Deep South, while communities in the Middle and Far West often lack this old upper class and thus have the five-class system.

While the aforementioned discussion of the class system in America is actually more of a status system in that the authors mainly looked for the reputation of each classes perceived by others for the classification, there is still a tinge of objective classification insofar as the end result is a fairly rigid five or six class system. In contrast, the essay of "Deference" by Shils attempts to reject any sort of objective classification of the status system as futile and argue for the purely subjective nature of the status system by introducing his own notion of "deference" that is more or less analogous to the concept of status but differs precisely at this point of the denial of any type of objective foundation. Briefly, deference is defined by Shils as any actions of estimation - that is, either appreciation or derogation - people show toward each other in interaction. This action is based on what Shils calls the "deference entitlements", characteristics or properties as income and educational attainment that lead people to act in terms of these evaluative appreciation or derogation. It is notable that while in certain social situations what may be called the "deference actions" - those actions carried out solely in the purpose of the exhibition of one's perceived location in the deference system - take place, ordinarily most actions of deference are embodied within other actions with distinctive purposes. Now, how can this deference system have some sort of systematic and ordered arrangement in a society, despite the fact it should be based entirely on the subjective estimation of others and themselves people have as individuals? To this, the concept of the "centre" enters. The centres of society are those positions which exercise early power and which mediate man's relationship to the order of existence. In the context of the modern nation state, then, this concept of centre is intricately related with the idea of the "national deference system" as the subjective position in the deference system tends to be defined in terms of one's distance from the national centre of power. Intermingled with the national deference system is the local deference system operating locally, in theoretical terms, independently of the deference system based on the distance from the national centre. The mutual assimilation of these two systems of deference are supposed to result in the creation of deference-strata, a concept broadly analogous to the class or status system of the society as a whole. However, it is important to note that for Shils this formation is an entirely subjective process and, as such, cannot be identified through any type of objective criteria. Neither does the system have clear boundaries, rather the system is based on the evaluative judgement made by individuals regarding themselves and others and as such, boundaries are inarticulate and only approximately defined. Evidence used by individuals to make these evaluative judgements are always fragmentary.

Implicitly, then, Shils is making a suggestion as to how future researches on stratification system should be done - it cannot make use of objective criteria and try to fit people into these preconceived categories. Instead, what is needed is the detailed analysis of the processes of how people make use of the deference system to make evaluative judgments regarding themselves and others. Here we have, then, a similar sort of concern with the interactive process as that of the postmodern theorists - the process is interactive in that the system is never static but is in turn effected by the very actions of individuals that led to the tentative formation of the system in the first place.

Occupational Hierarchies

One of the most popular theme in the field of the stratification research is the development of gradational hierarchy scale based on occupation, one of the most popular criteria as a determinant of one's location in the stratification system. In carrying out this endeavor, a few questions have been particularly central to the debate - the question of how should the occupational hierarchy be measured using what sort of scale, and even if this scale has been successfully built, what does the scale stand for exactly and what are the proper interpretations - these are some of the fundamental questions that have been consistently the pivotal point in the debate regarding occupational hierarchy study.

First of all, what sort of scales should be used in measuring occupational hierarchy? Two potential candidates are mentioned in the selections of this section, namely that of the prestige score - based on data on the collection of subjective evaluation of occupations people have given through surveys or interviews - and the socioeconomic score reflecting the objective characteristics as income or the educational level required. In fact, the debate on which are more effective measurement of the occupational hierarchy, as well as what each of them truly do represent about it, is the central question addressed in this genre.

In this context, the first article - now considered the true classic in the sense it has provided for the socioeconomic index that has come to be used by countless number of later social scientists - by Blau and Duncan is basically an attempt at creating the effective measurement scale. Their problem was that while at the time they had certain measures of prestige scores of some selected occupations available, the diversity of occupations existing in American society was much too much to account for all of them. They attempted to create the measurement of occupational hierarchy that incorporates more or less all existing occupations in America. So, The Socioeconomic Index they have introduced were calculated as follows: for the subset of occupations for which ratings exist, regress the ratings of occupations on aggregate characteristics (income and education, proportion of those with high school diploma, was used) of those who occupy these occupations. Then, use that regression equation to derive scores for all occupations. From this procedure one could immediately see it has elements of both objective socioeconomic measurement and the subjective prestige score, insofar as it relies on the initial starting point of existing prestige scores for some occupations. So, while this SEI Index have become immensely popular and influential, it also led to some real confusions as to what it really represents. Blau and Duncan themselves seemed to have been aware of this problem - and they have noted that this score could be taken as estimates of unknown prestige score, or simply values on a scale of occupational socioeconomic status. It is precisely at this point of what this score truly represents that Robert W. Hodge picks up on to assert his own positions. To this regard, Hodge does not expect much from Blau and Duncan SEI Index - his conclusion is that it does not do any better but merely represent what its mathematical formula literally stands for (p. 224). It cannot stand to represent the occupational hierarchy at any deeper level. Indeed, Hodge criticizes the commonly accepted interpretation of this index as truly representing the social and economic status of individuals, as the calculation of the index utilized both the measure for education and income. Nor, Hodge asserts, this score should be interpreted as a prediction for the unknown prestige score, as the equation cannot account for all of the variance in prestige ratings. There is one more criticism of this score Hodge makes. That is, it is a contexual variable - whose effect is a function of the characteristics of the other individuals with whom the subject shares group memberships. The problem of the contexual variable is that it is impossible to test its independent effects empirically. In that sense, Hodge notes that the pure prestige scores are the better occupational hierarchy, if for no other reason than that it is not a contextual variable. However, Hodge also admits that prestige scores do not fare as well in an actual empirical test compared to the SEI index in the fashion of Duncan's. This point has been elaborated by Featherman and Hauser. They have also looked at the issue of the relative strength of SEI score and the prestige score, and conclude that the usage of the former is more effective in representing overall occupational hierarchy. The central claim made here is that the socioeconomic scores for occupations are more central representation of the dimensions of occupations pertinent to occupational mobility, as well as the processes of status attainment.

The claim made by Featherman and Hauser certainly does not mean that the prestige score is considered useless in the measurement of occupational hierarchy by all researchers, and in this regard Donald Treiman may be said to be one of the principal figure articulating the usefulness of the prestige score and why that is the case. Treiman emphasizes the remarkable reliability of the prestige score, by focusing on its three characteristics. First, the results are the same regardless of the wording of the questionnaire. Second, regardless of the social characteristics of the respondents - rich or poor, urban or rural, old or young - they all have same perceptions regarding the occupational prestige. Third, same sort of occupations exist in any parts of the world, developed or developing, and again the prestige score for similar sort of occupations in any parts of the world is remarkably consistent. What does this remarkable reliability of the prestige score mean? Treiman gives a functional answer to this question. That is, the prestige score represents the differential degree of functional importance of the occupations for society. In another word, prestige score is seen as truthfully representing the relative amount of power each occupations command, in terms of the skills, authority, and economic control occupations have access to, and perhaps even the "moral worth" of the occupation.

In direct contrast, Goldthorpe and Hope diametrically opposes such functional interpretation. In their own work explicating on how the prestige score should really be interpreted, they are particularly critical of the interpretation that accords the prestige score any sort of functional importance or the moral worth of the occupation. Rather, they claim that the prestige score merely represents, usually only vaguely, the relative "goodness" of the occupation in terms of its capacity to provide for what are generally regarded as desirable things to have in society, such as income and security. There is no room for any functional importance to enter here, and the fact that those from varied strata of life all express similar views regarding the prestige score of diverse occupations has nothing to do with their views on what is just or how things ought to be. As they think that the prestige score only vaguely represents the relative desirability of occupations, again in rather clear contrast to Treiman they do not expect much overall from the prestige score. They further argue that the prestige score cannot really represent regarding the "deference system" in Shil's sense, as such precision regarding the prestige score has never been established, nor it should act as the proxy for the socio-economic status, rather it would be much better off to seek to measure the socio-economic characteristics directly.

Finally, Sorensen. His basic claim is that traditional Marxist explanation of the origin of inequality is useless, for it rests on the abandoned concept of the theory of labor value. That is, the explanation of the origin of inequality as propounded by Marx based on the class position rests on the unobservable notion of labor value exploitation. Then, is there any alternative explanation of the origin of social inequality within the Marxist framework that does away with the theory of labor value? To this question Sorensen looks for the Weberian influenced notion of the market power concept as a potential alternative in locating the origin of inequality. Then, briefly Sorensen goes on to argue that inequality stems from the fact that certain exchange relationships in markets involve the creation of a "rent" for some segments of the population. An asset can be considered "rent" whenever one can extract more profits from it than the amount of investment needed to secure that asset in the first place. Such things as fertile land and superior ability may be considered the "rent". And in fact, this existence of the "rent" producing occupation in the labor market structure is identified as the source of class formation. Yet mere existence of exploitation based on rent generation is not in itself enough to result in the formation of solidified class interests. Certain properties in jobs generating stable interests and stable membership are needed for the solidified class to arise, and identfication of these properties - such as the existence of closed employment relationship - is elaborated in pp. 235-9.