Responses to Marx: Weber and Elite Theorists

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Responses to Marx Weber and Elite Theorists

• Sara Haviland
• Lindsay Hirschfeld
• Natalie Spring

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Marx

• MARXISM- Classes labeled based on their ownership
  

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Marx, continued

• Marx believed several things
• The Proletariat sells their labor to the
  Bourgeoisie and in the process become alienated
  from labor, product, species being, and society.
• The majority of the middle class (Petit
  Bourgeoisie) will eventually fall into the ranks
  of the Proletariat.
• Revolution must will occur in order for any
  massive societal change in status.

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So if Marx isnt right

• Maybe Weberian thought?

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Max Weber

• Trained as an economist, interested in the
  increasing rationalization of capitalist society
• Critique of Marxs notions of ownership based
  classes
• Stratification based on power.
• Power matters more than a jobs function or the
  state of ownership of the means of production.
• Classes, status groups, and parties are
  phenomena of the distribution of power within
  the community (Grusky, 132)

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Weber Class

• Class is defined by economic market opportunity
• Constituted when
• a number of people with a common causal aspect in
  their life chances,
• this aspect is economic in nature related to
  acquisition of goods and prospect of income,
• and this component is within the scope of the
  commodity or labor markets
• Class conflict exists between two or more classes
  involved in antagonisms conditioned by the market
  situation

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Weber Status

• Status groups, unlike classes, are communities
• Defined by the life chances given a certain
  amount of positive or negative prestige and honor
• Shown through ones style of life.
• Castes evolve when status stratification creates
  closed groups, which are guaranteed by laws,
  conventions, and rituals. Often underscored by
  ethnic differences.

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Status, continued

• As to the general effect of the status order,
  only one consequence can be stated the
  hindrance of the free development of the market
  occurs first for those goods which status groups
  directly withheld from free exchange by
  monopolization (Grusky, 140).
• Stratification based on patterns of consumption,
  rather than acquisition (which stratifies class).

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Weber Party

• Parties are groups interested in advancing
  certain causes
• Concerned with culling and exerting power
• Require communities with rational order and an
  available staff of persons
• Shaped differently based on whether society is
  stratified on class or status

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Class, Status, and Party

• Class any group of people in the same class
  situation, i.e. economically-defined life chances
  or market opportunity
• Status stratified levels of prestige and honor
  within the social order
• Party interest groups which are associated with
  the realm of power and power relations

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Weber Social Closure

• Mechanisms provide ways to close off
  opportunities to other classes, status groups, or
  individuals
• Most market relationships are open
• Relationships are closed for several reasons
• To maintain quality
• Protect certain groups against a shrinking number
  of advantages in relation to consumption
• Attenuation of opportunities for acquisition
  necessitates social closure to maintain, or
  enhance, position
• Credentialism is one method of social closure

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Weberian Approach, Restated

• Parkin challenges Marxian class conflict models,
  stating that the distinction between laborer and
  capitalist does not reveal exploitation in the
  modern economy, but rather shows mere
  differentiation
• Believes Webers idea of class definition by
  market opportunities, life-chances, and symbolic
  rewards is more accurate
• Class conflict can be understood as the relation
  of each class to modes of social closure
• Two types of social closure are exclusion and
  usurpation
• Property is a form of social closure
• Classes tend to reproduce themselves

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Parkins Social Classes

Collectivist exclusion
Individualist exclusion
Communal groups
Social classes
Segmental status groups
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Elite Theorists

• An adolescent period in the life course of
  Weberian Thought.
• A class that rules and one that is ruled

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Gaetano Mosca  "The Ruling Class

• Main point?
• There are two classes of people, the Rulers and
  the Ruled.
• Ruling Class-
• a. Few
• b. Perform all political functions,
• c. Collects and enjoys power.
• Ruled Class
• a. Numerous
• b. Controlled by legal means
• c. Give power to Rulers (no choice)

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Mosca, continued

• The ruling class uses legal means (which they
  control) to codify their power
• While the ruled might one day revolt, there is
  always a minority that will emerge to rule after
  a ruler is deposed.
• Mosca views the Ruling Class in legal terms now
  and presents varying ways people may ascend to
  the ruling class. (war, birth, religious elders,
  land, etc)

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C. Wright Mills The Power Elite

• Main Point?
• Those political, economic, and military circles
  which as an intricate set of overlapping cliques
  share decisionsin so far as national events are
  decided, the power elite are those who decide
  them.
• In America, since there was not a feudal period
  the bourgeoisie were able to monopolize prestige,
  power, and wealth. However, they also tend to
  deny that they hold power, and instead insist
  they are a scattered bunch of individuals.
  Regardless, the power elite influence the ways
  society views religion, education, and the
  family.

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Mills, continued

• Levels o Power (within the elite)
• Power Elite
• Professional Politicians
• Celebrities (but without power)
• History is merely one thing after another
  history is meaningless in that it is not the
  realization of any determinate plot.

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Michael Useem The Inner Circle

• Main Point?
• Power Elite is passé. The inner circle really
  runs America and Britain.
• The Inner Circle
• Top business leaders (CEOs who while running
  their own major corporations, also sit on
  numerous corporate boards. They are the ones who
  define what happens in politics in accordance for
  what is good for the members of their inner
  networks.
• The Inner circle works to support business. They
  socially are at the top, however business will
  always trump familial obligations or loyalties.
  While not unified in thought, they are the most
  prepared to act on behalf on their interests.

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Elite/Ruling Class Theorists, continued

• Pareto
• Three major assumptions about social strat.
  individuals are physically, morally, and
  intellectually differentthe social classes are
  not entirely distinct, even in countries where a
  caste system prevailsin modern civilized
  countries circulation among the various classes
  is exceedingly rapid (1935 in Hellers
  Structured Social Inequality, p. 34)

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Pareto, continued

• Elite are those who are the best at what they do
  can be divided into governing (directly and
  indirectly affect government) and non-governing
  elite
• Special cases some are governing elites though
  not entirely qualified, and different groups move
  in and out of elite status (circulation of the
  elites).
• Elites can circulate due to supply and demand
  considerations
• Elite class can be eroded as members of the lower
  class join it, or due to the shortcomings of its
  members

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Pareto, continued

• Elite class always changing usually in a slow
  manner but occasionally in a revolutionary manner
• Lower class may become superior in important ways
• Elite class may not maintain the force to squelch
  uprisings
• Elite class may not have the talents to rule, may
  be too decadent

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• How is this different from the Marxist
  perspective?

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• Are Social Classes Real?

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D. Grusky and J. Sørensen

• Problem po-mo and SI theorists feel class is
  somewhat irrelevant life chances, attitudes,
  and behaviors of individuals are not so strictly
  tied to class
• Response there is too much focus on social
  classes as big entities we should look at
  micro-classes which are more sensitive to site of
  production and individual outcomes
• Micro-class is occupation based occs have
  social closure, class cultures, rent extraction,
  collective action, class awareness, and
  subjective identification (Weeden and Grusky
  2003)

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Lukewarm Reception

• We recognize, however, that our proposed
  alternative diverges so far from the canon that
  it may be as difficult for defenders of the faith
  to embrace as the postmodernist critique. Indeed,
  Goldthorpe (2002, p. 214) characterizes our
  approach as a remedyworse than the disorder
  diagnosed (p. 214), while Portes (2000, p. 250)
  notes, supporters of Marxist theories may
  justifiably respond that, with friends like
  these, who needs enemies? (p. 250).
• -Weeden and Grusky 2003

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A. Sørensen

• What do we mean by class and status? What is the
  relative importance of each? What does power have
  to do with any of this, according to Weber?
• Sørensen wants to distinguish between positions
  in social structure and the individuals in those
  positions
• Rent-generating assets rent is payment in
  addition to the one needed to employ the assets
  individuals not obtaining the rent are worse off
  than they would have been without the rent
  payment to those owning the assets in fixed
  supply

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Questions for Discussion

• Having considered the strengths and weaknesses
  of the Marxist and Weberian concepts of class,
  reflect on the alternative Grusky/ J. Sørensen
  perspective and the A. Sørensen perspective.
• Are these two perspectives really about class in
  the Marxist or Weberian sense? Are the levels of
  analysis useful, theoretically and/or practically
  (i.e. for research)? What are the strengths and
  weaknesses of both?
• Which of these two perspectives is more
  plausible? Should we just go back to Weber,
  Marx, or waiting for something better?