In one way or another the idea that social class has a vital impact on politics has always been held, and has never been denied by political thinkers of any persuasion. The classical Greek political theorists, for example, were acutely aware of the need for all social classes to fit neatly into their stations in life, and Aristotle is often pictured as the champion of a society dominated by the middle class.
Nowadays there are two main approaches to the political relevance of class. One is Marxist, while the other is best described as the ‘social science’ approach to class. For a Marxist, class is fundamental to politics, since historical development is seen as a continuous series of class conflicts culminating in the final class conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. As the lowest of social classes, the proletariat cannot be challenged, after their future victory, by some other exploited class (none will exist) and therefore a classless communism will be the final form of society. Marxism also produces the simplest and neatest of all class definitions. Classes are defined by their relations to the means of production. Those who at any time ‘own and control’ the means of economic production (factories, mines, farms, etc.) are the ruling class in any society, and those who do not own them are forced to sell their labour power to those who do. This latter group form the proletariat and are ruled and exploited by the owners and controllers. There are very great difficulties in applying satisfactorily this most simple form of Marxist class analysis, and modern Marxists have devised many subtle and more complex theories to take account of empirical and theoretical problems. For example, most of the comfortably off people who would normally be regarded as middle or upper middle class do not actually own anything except a house and a car, and most ‘means of production’, such as factories, are owned by publicly-traded companies of which the bulk of shares are legally owned by institutions like pension funds, which may even belong to trade unions. For this reason there has been a tendency to concentrate on the ‘control’ element of the definition, but even this ignores the role of government.
The alternative treatment of class, which is to be found in the works of non-Marxist sociologists and political scientists, is stronger on empirical observation than theoretical formulation. Typically, a social scientist will use a notion of class which combines elements of social status (often based on unproved assumptions about the comparative social respect given to different occupations), wealth and income, and structural aspects of the economic location of individuals. These definitions of class are made for one overwhelmingly important reason—that quite simple distinctions drawn between occupations lead to categories that do seem to correlate highly with political and social beliefs and actions. Research into voting behaviour, for example, used to employ a simple two-class model. Those who earn their living in non-manual jobs (typically defined as the middle class) do in fact vote for the right wing parties much more often than for the left, while manual workers (the working class) vote more frequently for the left. Although class-voting models in political science are now more sophisticated, their basis is still occupational ranking. Such models of social structure may be more or less complicated, and may correspond more or less successfully to actual social and political behaviour. There are many difficulties inherent in these models too. For example, in countries with a sizeable agricultural sector, it is very hard to fit farmers and farm labourers into a class model. (Though this aspect is accepted in Marxist models as well.) Another typical problem is in assessing the class position of married women, whether they work or not.
A particular problem, both theoretical and empirical, is whether or not class has to be a conscious matter. Is it enough to categorize an individual by external facts about them, or does their own sense of what they are matter? Taking this into consideration leads to endless complications. For example, in the United Kingdom a surprisingly large minority of people whose jobs would put them at the top of the class scale actually report thinking of themselves as working class, while many skilled manual workers claim middle class status. At the theoretical level there has always been a problem of what Marxists call false consciousness—people holding beliefs and attitudes which seem to fit with an economic and social position which aids those actually above them on the class ladder.
However difficult it may be to construct class models, whether Marxist or otherwise, the brute facts of politics require them. Though not all parties have a class base, most do at least to some extent, and all societies have political parties whose appeal is based on representing the interests of fairly clear socio-economic groups. Some political parties (notably conservative parties but also some liberal parties) claim as part of their ideology to be classless or to regard class as irrelevant, but this does not necessarily mean that their voting support, or their policies, are any less class oriented. It is, nevertheless, a mistake simply to interpret evidence that people with specific and precise economic interests support one party rather than another as evidence of class politics; this may be no more than evidence that rational income–party connections are easily made. Class has to be a deeply structured factor, if it exists at all. As Weber said, class is about the way economic positions affect long-term life chances. Whatever subtle theoretical distinctions and empirical variances are shown, the existence of something that is more akin to class than to status or caste seems evident in most Western societies: not only the level, but the source, predict-ability and security of income and wealth holdings are connected closely to matters such as educational chances, consumption and saving habits, access to jobs and religious behaviour. Even accent and dress style correlate deeply with economic position in Western society. (See also new class.)
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