Weber: “Class, Status, and
Party
SOC116
What do we take away from the
introduction?
• Weber in "debate" with Marx
• Multidimensional view of stratification
• Importance of “rational organizaTION" or
association (Gemeinschaft) vs. simple
structural similarity
• Introduces us to paying attention to
inequality related to "style" or "breeding"
• Relationship of "legal order" to
stratification system
Economically Determined Power
and the Social Order
• The legal order (and I think Weber would include any
legal-rational organizational order) "directly influences
the distribution of power … within its respective
community."
• Power = "chances of realizing own will even against
resistance of others"
• Social honor  power. One can come from the other.
Either can be "guaranteed" by legal order. But these
things do not define them.
• Marx gave us the idea of a hierarchical class order in
society based on how much
• Classes, status groups, and parties are all phenomena
of power distribution in society
Determination of Class-Situation
by Market Situation
• "In our terminology, 'classes' are not
communities; they merely represent possible,
and frequent, bases for social action." THUS:
Class  community/group
• What is a class? "(1) a number of people have
in common a specific causal component of their
life chances, insofar as (2) this component is
represented exclusively by economic interests in
the possession of goods and opportunities for
income, and (3) is represented under the
conditions of the commodity or labor markets."
Communal Action Flowing from
Class Interest
• Just because two people share a class situation is no
reason to expect they will react the same way to events.
• No guarantee that either communal or society action will
arise from class situation (cf. Marx on class-in-itself vs.
class-for-itself). Can be mere "mass actions" (e.g.,
murmurings of workers)
• Degree to which mass action  communal action 
societal action is conditioned by cultural (incl.
Intellectual) factors (165a3)
• Classes become actors only when there is recognition of
situation arising from either (1) distribution of property
[e.g., peasants in middle ages] or (2) structure of
economic order [e.g., proletariat]. Point is that is has to
be conceptualized collectively as such in order for
RATIONAL association to emerge.
Types of Class Struggle
• Class does not necessarily constitute community (Gemeinschaft)
• Be careful about reifying class as Marx did when he suggested that
"classes" know their true interests even if individuals can be
deluded.
– Ecological fallacy critique? "That men in the same class situation …
react … to … economic [situations] …in the direction of those interests
that are most adequate to their average number … must not lead us to
that kind of pseudo-scientific [notion] that the individual may be in error
concerning his interests but that the class is infallible about its interests"
(165b2-3).
• Classes are not groups (and hence cannot automatically engage in
social action) but class situation does result from social action. But
it is the action of lots of "classes" interacting in the market. The
commonality, the identity across individuals, of class situation results
from market actions.
Types of Class Struggle
• Class does not necessarily constitute community
(Gemeinschaft)
• Thus: class situation  labor/commodity markets &
capitalistic enterprise BUT these presume legal order
(165b5).
– Note that this is not the same as Durkheim's "pre-contractual
basis of contract" but an echo of the same logic – markets
require an institutional structure behind them.
• AND, Property and ownership achieve their overarching
power to the degree that "other determinants of
reciprocal relations [interaction] are, as far as possible,
eliminated in their significance" (165b6).
• But … STATUS GROUPS get in the way of this (165b7)
Status Honor
• Status groups ARE normally communities (186.9) though
often amorphous. They are communities in that
members actually do look at one another and think "us."
• Status groups (Stände) : status situation “every typical
component of the life of men that is determined by a
specific, positive or negative, social estimation of honor.
There are many things on which honor can be based.
Property and power are possible bases, but not
guaranteed. “may be that only families coming under
approximately the same tax class dance with one
another” (166b3).
• Status distinctions related to but not same as class
distinctions (as when only folks in same tax class dance
with one another (166b3).
Status Honor
• Explain the difference Weber discusses
between German and American “clubs.” In
the American club, he says, “even the richest
boss” would treat his clerk as an equal while
playing billiards in a club. The German boss, by
contrast, would treat the clerk with “status
conscious 'benevolence'” (166b6). There is a
"false" sense of equality in U.S. among
gentlemen in their clubs -- it would not do to
emphasize one's "position" (economic) in such
circumstances.
Status Honor
• What is the main “indicator” of status
honor? 1) STYLE OF LIFE. 2)
restrictions on social intercourse (166b9);
• Brilliant paragraph at 167a2-8. Cf. Simmel
on "Fashion."
• Who dines with whom where, etc.
Endogamy. Who belongs to "society"?
Who gets into the best clubs? Who gets
invited to the parties?
"Ethnic" Segregation and
"Caste"
• How is caste system different from mere ethnic
groupings? It has a strict hierarchical ordering, “a
vertical social system of super- and subordination”
(167b6). In ethnic segregation, each group can assume
it's the best. In caste system the ordering is a collective
“fact.” Caste converts horizontal ethnic segregation into
vertical segregation.
• "sense of dignity" : positively privileged groups have a
dignity and sense of their own "beauty" that is "of this
world" while negatively privileged groups require a sense
of dignity that lies beyond the here and now.
• Lots of ways to form status groups but in contemporary
society there is a strong influence of the economic/class
situation.
"Ethnic" Segregation and
"Caste"
• Dignity is individual manifestation of social
honor. If group has lots of honor, dignity is
reflection of a self awareness of their
“excellence.” It's a non-transcendent
assessment. They are “of this world.” On
the other hand, groups with negative
status honor locate a sense of dignity in a
future, another life, something beyond the
here and now. This transcendent belief is
a source of religiosity.
Status Privileges
• Costume, food, carrying arms and other "material
monopolies." Material monopolies. Marriage
monopolies. Status closure ==> legal monopolies on
jobs and offices. Can be positive (only group A does
thing B) or negative (members of group A are not
allowed to do thing B) (168b6).
• Status groups are the bearers of conventions (i.e., most
conventions are somebody's conventions).
• Hints of Bourdieu and such here. Look at clusters of
honorific practices associated with positions, materials,
etc.
Economic Conditions and
Effects of Status Stratification
• Market knows nothing about status honor and status
order (in pure form) doesn't care how much money you
have (only whether you know how to behave).
• “The frequent disqualification of the gainfully employed
as such is a direct result of the principle of status
stratification, and of course, of this principle's opposition
to a distribution of power which is regulated exclusively
through the market” (169a3).
– I think he is pointing out that you can see the difference between
the two dimensions in the fact that sometimes the very act of
earning a good living makes it clear you don't belong in the
status group of the “really rich.”
Economic Conditions and
Effects of Status Stratification
• At 169a4-5 Weber suggests that the dimensions are, in
fact, orthogonal! Markets really care nothing about
honor and truth be told, status hierarchies may care
nothing about money. “The status order would be
threatened...if mere economic acquisition...could bestow
upon anyone...the same ...honor...”
• The parvenu is always despised. Compare McMansions
today. And other forms of crass arriviste style.
• “...general effect of the status order ... hindrance of the
free development of the market...”
• Honor abhors hard bargaining (169b6). But note how
this is a market distortion. As would be refusing to sell to
Xs who are perfectly interested in your product.
Economic Conditions and
Effects of Status Stratification
• “With some over-simplification, one might thus say that
classes are stratified according to their relations to the
production and acquisition of goods; whereas status
groups are stratified according to the principles of their
consumption of goods as represented by styles of life.
• Proposition: when the bases of the acquisition and
distribution of goods are relatively stable, stratification by
status is favored (170a3).
• Proposition: Every technological repercussion and
economic transformation threatens stratification by
status and pushes the class situation into the foreground
(170a4).
Parties
• “party oriented social action always
involves association” it is always a
rational drive toward a goal.
• How do parties vary?
– By the stratification of the community they try
to influence. In particular, the style of
domination.
Visualization
economic
order
legal order
parties
status
order