Max Weber - Class, Status, Party
- Determination of Class-Situation by Market-Situation
●Classes are not communities - they represent possible and frequent bases for communal action
●A class situation is:
○the chance for a supply of goods, external living conditions and life experiences where this chance is determined by power to dispose of goods or skills for the sake of income.■essentially, where goods and living conditions depend on market power and action
●A class is:
○a group of people with a specific causal component of their life chances
in common, where this component is represented:
■in economic interests in possession of goods and income opportunities ■under the conditions of the commodity/labour markets ●Disposition over material property in an exchange market creates life chances ○this advantages owners over non-owners, owing to the law of marginal utility ○market exchange advantages those who do not have to sell over those who do, and the latter group are forced to sell their services cheaply as a result ○hence property and lack of property are ‘the basic categories of all class situations’ ●Within the two categories of ‘property’ and ‘lack of property’, classes are differentiated according to the kind of property available, and the kind of services available ●The concept of class presupposes the game of chance in the market, and hence the existence of a market ○possession is not a category upon which classes are formed, whereas property is ○the fate of slaves is not determined by market activity, and hence slaves are not a class, but a status group
- Communal Action Flowing from Class Interest
●So, classes are created by economic interest, and even at at only by those interests tied up in the market ○but these interests are somewhat ambiguous, and do not necessarily lead to certain types of action ○direction of interests may vary according to whether communal action has followed from the common economic interest e.g. through a trade union ○the degree to which mass (and disparate?) actions are translated into communal and societal action will depend upon cultural and intellectual conditions ●In order for class action to occur, classes must not just see the contrast in life chances at
the market exchange, but recognise it as the result of:
○the given distribution of property ■basis of class action in antiquity, middle ages, feudalism etc (when food and agriculture were exploited for profit)
- / 1