published version (ASR 2002) - University of Wisconsinâ€“Madison

Proof

832832832832832 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWAMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWAMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWAMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWAMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

832 American Sociological Review, 2002, Vol. 67 (December:832–853)

The Shadow of Exploitation in

Weber’s Class Analysis

Erik Olin Wright

University of Wisconsin–Madison

This analysis has two basic objectives: First, to understand as precisely as possiblethe inner structure of Weber’s concept of class, its similarities and differences fromMarx’s concept, and its relationship to the problem of exploitation; second, to use

this interrogation of Weber’s work to defend the importance of the concept of exploi-tation for sociological theory. To understand the foundations of Weber’s class analy-sis one must look beyond his most synoptic treatments of class in Economy andSociety and see how his concept of class is intimately linked to his investigations ofthe broad problem of rationalization in modern society. Class, in these terms, is theway economic power is distributed when economic action is organized to the great-

est degree in an instrumentally-rational manner. The problem of exploitation—theextraction of labor effort from workers—is treated, in this framework, primarily as aproblem of technical efficiency and economic rationality in creating work incentivesand effective discipline. This conceptualization leads to a relatively impoverishedunderstanding of the nature of antagonistic interests generated by class relations.

bor effort as a pivotal feature of class rela-tions and a central determinant of class con-flict. Instead, Weber treats the problem ofeliciting work performance within capital-ism as an instance of technical inefficienciesreflecting a tension between formal rational-ity and substantive rationality within capital-ist economic relations.

In this paper, I pursue two basic objec-tives: first, to understand as precisely as pos-sible the inner structure of Weber’s conceptof class, its similarities and differences fromMarx’s concept, and its relationship to theproblem of exploitation; second, to use thisinterrogation of Weber’s work to defend theimportance of the concept of exploitation forsociological theory. The first two sectionsthat follow set the context of the discussionby briefly situating the problem of class inWeber’s larger theoretical project and thenexamining a number of striking similaritiesbetween Weber’s and Marx’s concepts ofclass. Although Marxist and Weberian tradi-tions of sociology are often pitted againstone another, within the narrower arena ofclass analysis there is considerable overlap,particularly in their concept of class in capi-

f theoretical frameworks are identi-fied as loudly by their silences as by their

proclamations, then one of the defining char-acteristics of class analysis in the Weberiantradition is the virtual absence of a system-atic concept of exploitation. Nothing bettercaptures the central contrast between theMarxist and Weberian traditions of classanalysis than the difference between a classconcept centered on the problem of lifechances in Weber and a concept rooted in theproblem of exploitation in Marx. This is notto say that Weber completely ignores someof the substantive issues connected to theproblem of exploitation. For example, We-ber, like Marx, sees an intimate connectionbetween the nature of property relations incapitalism and the problem employers facein eliciting high levels of effort from work-ers. But he does not theorize this issue interms of a general concept of exploitation,nor does he see the problem of extracting la-

I

Direct all correspondence to Erik Olin Wright,Department of Sociology, University of Wiscon-sin–Madison, 1180 Observatory Drive, Madison,WI 53706 ([email protected]).

Editorial changes have been underlinedor otherwise noted on this proof.

Proof

EXPLOITATION IN WEBER’S CLASS ANALYSISEXPLOITATION IN WEBER’S CLASS ANALYSISEXPLOITATION IN WEBER’S CLASS ANALYSISEXPLOITATION IN WEBER’S CLASS ANALYSISEXPLOITATION IN WEBER’S CLASS ANALYSIS 833833833833833

talist society. The third section then charac-terizes the pivotal difference in their classconcepts through the contrast between “lifechances” and “exploitation.” A fourth sec-tion looks more closely at exploitation, pay-ing particular attention to the way Weberdeals with the problem of “extracting” laboreffort under conditions that Marxists woulddescribe as “exploitation.” Finally, the lastsection examines the ramifications for thebroader contours of a sociological analysisof class of Weber’s marginalization of theissue of exploitation.

THE LOCATION OF CLASS

ANALYSIS IN WEBER’S WORK

Unlike Marx, for whom class was a founda-tional concept in his broad theoreticalagenda, the problem of class plays a rela-tively peripheral role in Weber’s work.1 Itappears in his work in three principle ways.First, there are the rare explicit theoreticaldiscussions of class, most notably in thechapter fragments assembled posthumouslyin Economy and Society.2 Second, early in

Weber’s career there are a number of detailedempirical and historical studies in which theanalysis of class figures prominently—mostnotably his studies of East Elbian agriculturalworkers (Weber [1894] 1989), his researchon the causes of the decline of the RomanEmpire (Weber [1896] 1988), and his moregeneral work on the agrarian sociology ofancient civilizations, first published in thelate 1890s and then revised in 1909 (Weber[1909] 1988).3 Much of this work, especiallythe work on slavery in ancient civilizations,has a decidedly Marxian inflection and hashad almost no impact on the analysis of classwithin what has come to be known asWeberian sociology.4 Third, a great deal ofWeber’s work concerns the analysis of capi-talism as a social order—its origins, its inter-nal logic, its dynamics of development, itsramifications, its contrasts with other socialorders—and while the problem of class israrely explicitly foregrounded in these analy-ses, nevertheless much of what he says bears

1 Because of the peripheral status of class inthe Weberian oeuvre, it is surprising that so muchof the literature on class sees Weber as a centralsource. Sørenson (2000) suggests that Weber’sprominence in class analysis comes from the ac-cident that his work on class was translated intoEnglish:

The importance of the Weberian class concept inthe literature on class analysis is a bit curious. InEconomy and Society Weber deals with class intwo places but both are very short fragments.While Marx can be said to never have given asingle explicit development of the class concept,he certainly has class as the central concern ofanalysis in all of his writings. For Weber, there isneither a discussion nor an extensive analysis.Class simply seems not to have been an impor-tant concept for Weber. . . . Since only Marx andWeber [among the German writers on class] havebeen translated into English, Weber has becomethe main justification for developing class con-cepts that are alternative to Marx’s, despite thefragmentary nature of Weber’s writings about thisand the lack of importance of class concepts inhis writings. (P. 1527, note 3)

2 The chapter in Economy and Society in whichWeber proposes to define the concept of class(pt. 1, chap. 4, “Status Groups and Classes”) isunfinished. In a footnote to the first place in thetext in which Weber refers to this chapter, the

editors of the English edition of the text com-ment: “This chapter is . . . a mere fragment whichWeber intended to develop on a scale comparablewith the others. Hence most of the material towhich this note refers was probably never writ-ten down” (Weber [1922] 1978: 210, note 45).

3 A detailed exegesis of Weber’s work onagrarian class relations can be found in Käsler(1988).

4 The analysis in Weber’s 1896 study of thecauses of decline of ancient civilizations has aparticularly Marxian flavor to it. His central argu-ment is that the contradictions of slavery as a wayof organizing production was the fundamentalcause of the ultimate collapse of the Roman Em-pire. Although Weber’s later concerns with issuesof rationality and calculability in economic rela-tions are already present in this early work, itsmain preoccupation is with the difficulty of ex-tracting adequate surplus in a slave-basedeconomy once slavery is no longer based on cap-turing slaves in slave hunts, and the resultingtransformations of the political conditions of re-production of the Roman Empire. If one did notknow that this piece was written by Weber, mostpeople would assume it was a fairly sophisticatedMarxist analysis of how the development of thisparticular kind of class system tended to erode theconditions of its own reproduction. For furtherdiscussion of this Marxian influence in Weber’searly work, see Schroeter (1985:6–7). For a con-trary view, which denies that this work has a sig-nificant Marxian character, see Roth (1971).

Proof


on the problem of understanding classes incapitalist societies. For example, Weber’sThe Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capi-talism ([1904] 1958) is not simply about thecreation of the cultural-psychological condi-tions for modern capitalism to become a dy-namic force in the world; it is also about theways in which this “spirit” is embodied inthe distinctive orientations of people locatedin different class positions within capitalism.Weber writes, “The treatment of labour as acalling became as characteristic of the mod-ern worker as the corresponding attitude to-wards acquisition of the business man” (p.179).5

Most discussions of Weber’s work on classare based on the first of these clusters of writ-ings, especially on his brief explicit concep-tual analyses of class in Economy and Soci-ety ([1922] 1978).6 What has become theWeber-inspired tradition of class analysis islargely based on these fragmentary exposi-tions (e.g., Giddens 1973; Parkin 1971; Scott1996). Locating the concept of class withinWeber’s conceptual menu in these texts gen-erates the familiar contrast of “class” and“status,” the two most important terms in athreefold schema of stratification that alsoincludes “party.”7 Two primary analytical di-

mensions demarcate these categories: first,the “sphere” or “order” within which socialinteraction occurs (economic, communal, orpolitical),8 and second, the degree to whichthe category intrinsically invokes subjectiveidentity and collective forms of action. Thecombinations of these criteria differentiateclass, status, and party as illustrated in Table1. Within this analytical schema, class is de-fined within the sphere of economic interac-tion and involves no necessary subjectiveidentity or collective action. An individualcan be in a specific kind of class situationwithout this generating a specific form ofidentity or participation in collective action:“In our terminology, ‘classes’ are not com-munities; they merely represent possible, andfrequent, bases for social action” (Weber[1922] 1978: 927). Status groups are definedwithin the sphere of communal interaction(or what Weber calls the “social order”) andalways imply some level of identity in thesense of some recognized “positive or nega-tive social estimation of honor” (Weber[1922] 1978: 932). A status group cannot ex-ist without its members being in some wayconscious of being members of the group: “Incontrast to classes, Stände (status groups) arenormally groups” (Weber [1922] 1978:932).Status groups need not, however, imply anykind of collective action. Party, finally, al-ways implies collective action: “As overagainst the actions of classes and statusgroups, for which this is not necessarily thecase, party-oriented social action always in-

5 The details of Weber’s argument about thepsychological ramifications of the ethic of asceticProtestantism for the spirit of capitalism are fa-miliar. Two more specific citations will suffice.For the Protestant bourgeoisie, Weber (1904[1958]) writes, “as a performance of duty in acalling . . . [wealth] is not only morally permis-sible, but actually enjoined . . . the providentialinterpretation of profit-making justified the ac-tivities of the businessman” (p. 163). For theworker, on the other hand, “Labour must . . . beperformed as if it were an absolute end in itself,a calling. . . . The ability of mental concentration,as well as the absolutely essential feeling of ob-ligation to one’s job, are here most often com-bined with a strict economy which calculates thepossibility of high earnings, and a cool self-con-trol and frugality which enormously increase per-formance” (pp. 61, 63).

6 When Weber’s work is excerpted in antholo-gies on stratification, the selections concerningclass are almost exclusively from these few ex-plicit definitional statements of Economy and So-ciety (e.g., see Bendix and Lipset 1966; Giddensand Held 1982; Grusky 2001).

7 The chapter in Economy and Society that isthe principle source for commentaries on

Weber’s approach to class is titled “The Distri-bution of Power within the Political Community:Class, Status, Party” (Weber [1922] 1978:926–40). Nearly all of this chapter, however, is de-voted to class and status, with only one page atthe end discussing “party.”

8 The terms Weber ([1922] 1978) uses to dif-ferentiate these spheres of social interaction are“economic order,” “social order” or “the sphereof the distribution of honor,” and “the sphere ofpower” (p. 938). This is somewhat confusing ter-minology because class, status, and party all con-cern questions of power (and thus power shouldnot simply be identified with “party”), and allalso involve social action (and thus the socialshould not simply be identified with status). It isfor this reason that the terminological distinctionbetween economic, communal, and politicalseems more useful in the present context.

This partstill notclear to me.Am I miss-ing some-thing here?Insert“and”between“profit-making”and “justi-fied”?

Proof


volves association. For it is always directedtoward a goal which is striven for in aplanned manner” (Weber [1922] 1978:938).In these terms, members of a class become astatus group when they become conscious ofsharing a common identity, and they becomea party when they organize on the basis ofthat identity.9

The conceptual contrast between class andstatus for Weber is not primarily a questionof the motives of actors: It is not that statusgroups are derived from purely symbolicmotives and class categories are derivedfrom material interests. Although peoplecare about status categories in part becauseof their importance for symbolic ideal inter-ests, class positions also entail such sym-bolic interests, and both status and class areimplicated in the pursuit of material inter-ests. As Weber ([1922] 1978) writes, “mate-rial monopolies provide the most effectivemotives for the exclusiveness of a statusgroup” (p. 935). Rather than motives, thecentral contrast between class and status isthe nature of the mechanisms through whichclass and status shape inequalities of the ma-terial and symbolic conditions people’slives. Class affects material well-being di-rectly through the kinds of economic assetspeople bring to market exchanges. Status af-

fects material well-being indirectly, throughthe ways that categories of social honor un-derwrite various coercive mechanisms that,in Weber’s ([1922] 1978) words, “go handin hand with the monopolization of ideal andmaterial goods or opportunities” (p. 935).

When the wider body of Weber’s work istaken into consideration, especially his di-verse writings on capitalism, the problem ofclass becomes embedded in a different con-ceptual space. Here the pivotal question isthe relationship between the concept of classand the broad theoretical and historical prob-lem of rationalization of social relations.Table 2 indicates how class is located withrespect to this problem.10 As in Table 1, thisconceptual space is also defined by two di-mensions: first, the sources of social powerwithin social interactions, and second, thedegree of rationalization of social relations.Running throughout Weber’s work is a three-fold distinction in the sources of power thatindividuals use to accomplish their goals:social honor, material resources, and author-ity. Each of these, in turn, can be organizedwithin social interactions in highly rational-ized forms or in relatively nonrationalizedforms. Class, in these terms, designateshighly rationalized social relations that gov-ern the way people get access to and use

9 Jones (1975) argues that because of the in-herent qualities of collective action, members ofclass as defined by Weber could not even in prin-ciple act as a collective agent on the basis of theirclass interests because collective action requiresforms of identification and rationality beyondmere instrumental interests.

10 Unlike Table 1, which is derived from therelatively explicit, if underdeveloped, theoreticalstatements by Weber about the properties of theconcept of class and its contrast to other con-cepts, the typology in Table 2 is inferred fromvarious arguments dispersed throughout Weber’swork.

Table 1. Theoretical Location of the Concept of Class in Weber’s Explicit Formulations in Economyand Society

Attributes Intrinsic to Categories

Sphere of Category That Locatesof the Distribution of Power

Social Individuals within the Objective Subjective CollectiveInteractiona Distribution of Power Properties Identity Action

Economic Class Yes No No

Communal Status group Yes Yes No

Political Party Yes Yes Yes

a Weber’s terms for these spheres are “economic order,” “social order” or “sphere of the distribution ofhonor,” and “sphere of power” (Weber [1922] 1978:938).

Proof


Table 2. The Theoretical Location of “Class” in Weber’s Analysis of Rationalization

Degree of Rationalization of Social Relations

Rationalized Social Relations Nonrationalized Social Relations

Social honor Meritocractic prestige Ascriptive status groups

Material conditions Class: Ascriptively basedof life capital, labor consumption groups

Authority Rational-legal domination: Patrimonialbureaucracy administration

material resources.11 It is thus contrasted, onone hand, with nonrationalized ways of gov-erning access to resources, especiallyascriptively based consumption groups, andon the other hand, with rationalized forms ofsocial relations involving other sources ofsocial power.

Rationalization, of course, is perhaps themost complex multidimensional concept inWeber’s arsenal. Following Levine’s (1985:210) decomposition of Weber’s conceptualarray of rationalizations, the problem ofclass with Weber is primarily situated withinone particular form of rationalization: theobjective instrumental rationalization of so-cial order.12 In all societies, the ways people

gain access to and use material resources isgoverned by rules that are objectively em-bodied in the institutional settings withinwhich they live. When the rules allocate re-sources to people on the basis of ascriptivecharacteristics, and when the use of thosematerial resources is given by traditionrather than the result of a calculative weigh-ing of alternatives, then economic interac-tions take place under nonrationalized con-ditions. When those rules enable people tomake precise calculations about alternativeuses of those resources, and when they dis-cipline people to use those resources in morerather than less efficient ways on the basisof those calculations, then those rules can bedescribed as “rationalized.” This occurs, inWeber’s analysis, when market relationshave the most pervasive influence on eco-nomic interactions (i.e., in fully developedcapitalism). His definition of classes interms of the economic opportunities peopleface in the market, then, is simultaneously adefinition of classes in terms of rationalizedeconomic interactions. Class, in these terms,assumes its central sociological meaning toWeber as a description of the way people arerelated to the material conditions of life un-der conditions in which their economic in-teractions are regulated in a maximally ra-tionalized manner.

Two examples, one a discussion of ruralclass relations from early in Weber’s career

11 A number of commentators on differencesbetween Weber and Marx have emphasized thecentrality of the problem of rationalization inWeber’s analysis of capitalism (e.g., see Jones1975; Löwith [1932] 1982; Sayer 1991). Jonesand Sayer, in particular, link the problem of ra-tionalization explicitly to Weber’s analysis ofclasses.

12 Levine (1985) differentiates eight differentforms of rationality in Weber’s work. To thestandard distinction between instrumental ration-ality (the rationality of adopting the best meansfor given ends) and value rationality or substan-tive rationality (the rationality of choosing ac-tions that consistent with value commitments), headds conceptual rationality (the formation of in-creasingly precise and abstract concepts) and for-mal rationality (the creation of methodical,rationally defendable rules). Within each of thesefour types of rationality, he then distinguishes be-tween objective rationality (rationality inscribedin institutionalized norms) and subjective ration-ality, (rationality in mental processes). Afterelaborating these forms of rationalization thatoccur in Weber’s writing, Levine adds one dis-

tinction not found so explicitly in Weber’s work:Within each of the four forms of objective ratio-nalization, Levine differentiates what he termssymbolic rationalization and organizational ratio-nalization. The final result, then, is a typology of12 forms of rationalization (Levine 1985:210).

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Proof


and the second a discussion of industrialclass relations in Economy and Society, il-lustrate this close link in Weber’s thinkingbetween rationalization and class relations.Both Weber and Marx recognized the impor-tance of the destruction of traditional peas-ant rights in the countryside as a central partof the development of capitalism in agricul-ture. In Weber’s early writings on EastElbian rural labor, he describes the impactof this process on class relations in terms ofrationalization. Prior to the infusion of mar-ket relations in the countryside, Weber(1894] 1989) writes, the rural laborer “foundhimself confronted not with an ‘employer’but with a small-scale territorial lord. Thelow level of commercial ambition among es-tate owners was reinforced by the apatheticresignation of the labourer. . .” (p. 161). Theadvance of capitalism destroyed these tradi-tional labor relations. The resulting impacton class relations, Weber describes as a pro-cess of rationalization:

[I]n place of the landed aristocracy therenecessarily enters—with or without achange of person—a class of agricultural en-trepreneurs who are in principle no differentto commercial entrepreneurs in their socialcharacteristics.

This transformation in the general type ofrural employer has significant consequencesfor the position of the labourer. . . . [In thepatriarchal estate economy,] labour relationswere not arranged according to commercialprinciples and with the objective of profit-ability, but rather developed historically asa means of affording the landlords a suitableexistence. Under these conditions as littledeviation as possible was made from thenatural and communal economic founda-tions of this order. Thus a rural workingclass with common economic interests couldnot and did not exist in the principal regionsof the east.

Modern development seeks initially to intro-duce the principle of economic rationalityinto the wage forms within this natural eco-nomic order. Accordingly, the communalremnants (plots of land, threshing shares,grazing rates) are initially abolished. . . .

With this transformation a necessary condi-tion of the patriarchal relation collapses: theconnection to one particular estate. The dif-ferentiation between various categories oflabour are reduced and the employer be-comes as “fungible” for the rural worker ashe already is for the industrial labourer. In

other words, this process of developmentbrings the rural labourers steadily closer tothe form of a unified class of a proletariantype in its material conditions of life, a statealready attained by the industrial prole-tariat.” (Pp. 63, 172)

The emergence of a rural proletariat thusrepresents the transformation of forms of ac-cess to material conditions of life governedby tradition to one governed by calculationand pure economic interests.

The same basic argument appears inWeber’s analysis of the industrial workingclass. For Weber, as for Marx, a central de-fining characteristic of the “working class”is its complete separation (or “expropria-tion”) from the means of production. ForMarx, this is crucial because it enables capi-talists to exploit workers; for Weber this ex-propriation is crucial because it allows forthe full realization of economic rationalitywithin production. In his extended discussionof this separation in Economy and Society,Weber ([1922] 1978) stresses the relevanceof expropriation for economic rationality:

The expropriation of workers in general, in-cluding clerical personnel and technicallytrained persons, from possession of themeans of production has its economic rea-sons above all in the following factors: . . .The fact that, other things being equal, it isgenerally possible to achieve a higher levelof economic rationality if the managementhas extensive control over the selection andthe modes of use of workers, as comparedwith the situation created by the appropria-tion of jobs or the existence of rights to par-ticipate in management. These latter condi-tions produce technically irrational obstaclesas well as economic irrationalities. In par-ticular, considerations appropriate to small-scale budgetary administration and the inter-ests of workers in the maintenance of jobs(“livings”) are often in conflict with the ra-tionality of the organization. (Pp. 137–38,italics in original)

Similar discussions can be found in Weber’s([1909] 1958:53–56) analysis of the relation-ship between rationalization and free wagelabor in The Protestant Ethic13 and in his

13 “However all these peculiarities of Westerncapitalism have derived their significance in thelast analysis only from their association with thecapitalistic organization of labour. . . . Exact cal-

Proof


discussions of the inefficiencies in slavery(Weber [1909] 1988:53–56). In all of thesecases, the problem of the rationalization ofthe economic order is the central theoreticalproblem in which analyses of class and thetransformations of class relations are embed-ded. While class per se may be a relativelysecondary theme in Weber’s sociology, it is,nevertheless, intimately linked to one of hismost pervasive theoretical preoccupations—rationalization.

In the discussion that follows, I draw onboth of these theoretical contexts of Weber’sthinking about class—the contrast betweenclass and status as two forms of stratifica-tion, and the salience of rationalization indefining the theoretical relevance of class.Weber’s distilled contrast between class andstatus is particularly useful in clarifying thesubstantive criteria embodied in his defini-tion of class relations in terms of market-based life chances; the broader analysis ofrationalization will help to illuminate theways in which Weber deals with the problemof exploitation in capitalist society.

WEBER AND MARX ON CLASS:

CONVERGENCES

There is a long history of discussions of therelationship between Marx’s and Weber’ssocial theories, beginning with occasionalcomments by Weber ([1918] 1971) himself,most famously in his discussion of the Com-munist Manifesto in a speech to Austrian of-ficers towards the end of World War I. Al-though Weber was appreciative of Marx’stheoretical formulations, he was highly criti-cal of its excessive materialism and dismiss-ive of the utopianism of Marx’s theory ofhistory, with its optimistic deterministic pre-diction of the transcendence of capitalismand the disappearance of classes and thestate. Much of the subsequent discussion ofMarx and Weber has also revolved aroundthe sharp differences in the broad contoursof their respective general theoretical frame-works for understanding the trajectory ofhistorical change —in particular the contrastbetween Marx’s historical materialism as a

quasi-teleological theory of history, andWeber’s multidimensional theory of histori-cal development and contingency.14 Whenthe focus of comparison has centered onstratification issues, the central theme inmost discussions has also been the contrastbetween Marx’s preoccupation with a singleaspect of stratification—class—and Weber’scomplex multidimensional view, in whichthe relationship between class and otherbases of stratification, especially status, is ofcentral concern.15 Relatively less attentionhas been given to the fact that, in spite ofthe different salience of class within theoverall theoretical agendas of Marx and We-ber, there are deep similarities between theconcepts of class in these two traditions ofsocial theory.16 To give precision to the spe-cific problem of the location of exploitationwithin class analysis, I first review thesestrong similarities.

culation—the basis of everything else—is onlypossible on a basis of free labour” (Weber [1904]1958:22).

14 Although much of the commentary on We-ber and Marx’s overall frameworks focus on thedifferences in their approaches, some accountsemphasize significant convergences. For ex-ample, Löwith ([1932] 1982) discusses the rela-tionship between Weber’s concept of rationaliza-tion and Marx’s concept of alienation in theirtheories of modern capitalism, and Sayer (1991)analyzes their respective understandings of mo-dernity. For anthologies of comparative analysesof Marx and Weber, see Antonio and Glassman(1985) and Wiley (1987).

15 For a recent, analytically rigorous discussionof Marx’s and Weber’s approaches to class thatstresses the contrast between the multidimen-sional character of Weber’s approach and Marx’spreoccupation with a single dimension, see Scott(1996).

16 Some writers have noted similarities be-tween Weber’s and Marx’s class concepts.Bendix (1974:152) sees Weber’s analysis of classas departing from a “baseline that Marx had es-tablished”; Holton and Turner (1989:181) ob-serve that “both Marx and Weber are concernedwith market relations in the constitution ofclasses”; Giddens (1973) sees Weber, like Marx,characterizing capitalism as a “class society”—asociety within which class is the primary axis ofstratification. Still, in each of these cases, the ob-servation of similarity is given much less weightthan are the differences between Marx’s andWeber’s class concepts. Sayer (1991) is one ofthe few writers who regards the differences be-tween Marx’s and Weber’s approaches to bothclass and status to be of secondary importance.

Proof


Relational Rather than

Gradational Class Concepts

Both Marx and Weber adopt relational con-cepts of class. Neither defines classes sim-ply as nominal levels on some gradationalhierarchy. For both, classes are derived froman account of systematic interactions of so-cial actors situated in relation to each other.Classes for both Weber and Marx are thusnot primarily identified by quantitativenames like upper, upper-middle, middle,lower-middle, and lower, but by qualitativenames like capitalists and workers, debtorsand creditors. (For more on relational andgradational concepts of class, see Ossowski1963; Wright 1979, 1997:5–8.)

The Centrality of Property

Relations

Both Marx and Weber see property owner-ship as the fundamental source of class divi-sion in capitalism. For Marx, classes are de-fined by the “relation to the means of pro-duction,” where “relation” here means own-ership and control over resources used inproduction. Similarly, Weber ([1922] 1978)writes, “‘Property’ and ‘lack of property’are, therefore, the basic categories of allclass situations” (p. 927). What is more, We-ber, like Marx, sees propertylessness as anessentially coercive condition: “[Those whoare propertyless] have nothing to offer buttheir labor or the resulting products and . . .are compelled to get rid of these products inorder to subsist at all” (Weber [1922] 1978:927).17 He even acknowledges, like Marx,that for the working class the apparentlyfreely chosen, voluntary interactions of themarket are simply a formal reality, maskingan essentially coercive structure of social re-lations (which he refers to as “heterono-mously determined action”):

[Action that is motivated by self-interest canstill be] substantively heteronomously deter-mined . . . [in] a market economy, though ina formally voluntary way. This is true when-ever the unequal distribution of wealth, andparticularly of capital goods, forces the non-owning group to comply with the authorityof others in order to obtain any return at allfor the utilities they can offer on the mar-ket. . . . In a purely capitalist organization ofproduction this is the fate of the entire work-ing class. (Weber [1922] 1978:110)

Although this statement may lack the rhe-torical force of Marx’s account of the essen-tial unfreedom of the worker, the point isfundamentally the same: Being separatedfrom the means of production forces work-ers to subordinate themselves to capitalists.

Classes-as-Places versus Classes-

as-Collective-Actors

Central to the conception of class in bothWeber and in Marx is a distinction betweenclasses as objectively defined places and ascollectively organized social actors. The lan-guage they use to describe this contrast, ofcourse, differs. Weber ([1922] 1978:302,927) uses the expression “class situation” todesignate the objectively defined placeswithin social relations; Marx uses the ex-pression “class-in-itself,” and contemporaryMarxists have used the expressions “classlocation” or “class position” or “class struc-ture,” depending on the context. Weber([1922] 1978:305) uses the expression “classconscious organization” to designate class asa collectively organized social actor; Marxuses the expression “class-for-itself,” andcontemporary Marxists use a variety ofterms, such as “class formation” or “classorganization.” But regardless of terminol-ogy, the basic idea is similar: Structurallydefined classes may have a tendency to gen-erate collectively organized forms ofstruggle, but the two must be conceptuallydistinguished.

Classes and Material Interests

Both Weber and Marx see objectively defin-able material interests as a central mecha-nism through which class locations influencesocial action. By objectively definable ma-

17 In an earlier statement in Economy and So-ciety, while discussing economic motivations,Weber ([1922] 1978) writes: “[T]he motivationof economic activity under the conditions of amarket economy . . . for those without substan-tial property [include] the fact that they run therisk of going entirely without provisions . . .” (p.110). Also see Weber’s ([1927] 1961:209) dis-cussion of the “compulsion of the whip of hun-ger” in his General Economic History.

Proof


terial interests I mean that an outside ob-server can, in principle, specify whichcourses of action that are available to an in-dividual by virtue of their location in a so-cial structure would improve that person’smaterial conditions of life. Both Marx andWeber claim that (1) a person’s class loca-tion, defined by their relation to property,systematically affects material interests inthis sense; and (2) material interests so de-fined do influence actual behavior. Theseclaims are relatively uncontroversial forMarx, even though much debate has beenwaged over whether “class interests” inMarxism are “objective.” Weber, on theother hand, is often characterized as a theo-rist who emphasizes the subjective meaningsof actors and who rejects the idea of a deter-minate relation between objectively speci-fied conditions and subjective states of ac-tors. Nevertheless, in his discussion of class,material interests rooted in individuals’ ob-jectively defined class situations are seen asa determinant—albeit a probabilistic deter-minant—of their behavior. Weber [1922]1978) writes:

According to our terminology, the factorthat creates “class” is unambiguously eco-nomic interest, and indeed, only those inter-ests involved in the existence of the market.Nevertheless the concept of class-interest isan ambiguous one: even as an empirical con-cept it is ambiguous as soon as one under-stands by it something other than the factualdirection of interests following with a cer-tain probability from the class situation fora certain average of those people subjectedto the class situation. (Pp. 928–29, italicsadded)

Thus, Weber affirms that “for a certain aver-age of those people subjected to the classsituation” there is a “certain probability” thatthe “factual direction of interests” will coin-cide with class interests. Weber thus allowsfor deviations between individual behaviorand the material interests associated withclass situations, but he also argues that thereis at least a tendency, on average, for behav-ior to be in line with those interests.

Of course, the expression “a certain prob-ability” is rather vague and leaves open thepossibility that this probability could be ex-tremely low and thus the relationship be-tween objectively defined class interests and

the “factual direction of interests” could bevery weak. Two earlier passages in Economyand Society suggest that Weber in fact be-lieved that purely self-interested economicadvantage had a high probability of giving“factual direction” to motivations of mostpeople much of the time. The first passagecomes in a discussion of economic motiva-tions within the formation of organizations.Weber ([1922] 1978) writes:

Economic considerations have one very gen-eral kind of sociological importance for theformation of organizations if, as is almostalways true, the directing authority and theadministrative staff are remunerated. If thisis the case, an overwhelmingly strong set ofeconomic interests become bound up withthe continuation of the organization, eventhough its primary ideological basis may inthe meantime have ceased to exist. (Pp.201–202, italics added)

Even more starkly, in a discussion of eco-nomic activity in a potential socialist soci-ety, Weber believes that motivations will besimilar to those in a market society, and hethus expresses considerable skepticismabout the possibility that ideological com-mitments will matter very much in social-ism. In the long run, Weber ([1922] 1978)argues, most people will be motivated byself-interested material advantage, just as ina market economy:

What is decisive is that in socialism, too, theindividual will under these conditions [inwhich individuals have some capacity tomake economically relevant decisions] askfirst whether to him, personally, the rationsallotted and the work assigned, as comparedwith other possibilities, appear to conformwith his own interests. . . . [It] would be theinterests of the individual, possibly orga-nized in terms of the similar interests ofmany individuals as opposed to those of oth-ers, which would underlie all action. Thestructure of interests and the relevant situa-tion would be different [from a marketeconomy], and there would be other meansof pursuing interests, but this fundamentalfactor would remain just as relevant as be-fore. It is of course true that economic ac-tion which is oriented on purely ideologicalgrounds to the interests of others does exist.But it is even more certain that the mass ofmen do not act in this way and that it is aninduction from experience that they cannotdo so and never will. (P. 203, italics added)

Proof


This is a powerful affirmation of the factualpredominance of subjective orientations de-rived from objectively definable material in-terests: Although it is theoretically possiblethat ideological motivations could be impor-tant, the mass of people do not act on purelyideological grounds and, furthermore, “theycannot do so and never will.” For both We-ber and Marx, therefore, the material inter-ests structured by class locations have astrong tendency to shape the actual behaviorof people within those locations.

The Conditions for Collective

Class Action

If there is one aspect of class analysis whereone might expect a sharp difference betweenMarx and Weber, it is in their understandingof the problem of class struggle. Althoughboth may believe that class situations shapeindividual class behaviors via material inter-ests, Marx believed that capitalism inher-ently generates collectively organized classstruggles, eventually culminating in revolu-tionary challenges to capitalism, whereasWeber rejects this prediction. Yet, even here,there is more similarity in their views thanone might initially expect.

In assessing arguments of this sort, it isimportant to distinguish (1) the theoreticalanalysis of the conditions under which par-ticular predictions hold, in this case thatclass struggles are likely to emerge and in-tensify, from (2) the empirical expectationsabout the likelihood of those conditions ac-tually occurring. In these terms, Webershares much with Marx in terms of the firstconsideration, but disagrees sharply over thesecond.18

In Economy and Society in a section la-beled “social action flowing from class in-terest,” Weber ([1922] 1978) lays out someof the conditions that he feels are conduciveto collectively organized class struggles:

The degree to which “social action” and pos-sibly associations emerge from the mass be-havior of members of a class is linked to gen-eral cultural conditions, especially to thoseof an intellectual sort. It is also linked to theextent of the contrasts that have alreadyevolved, and is especially linked to the trans-parency of the connections between thecauses and the consequences of the classsituation. For however different life chancesmay be, this fact in itself according to allexperience, by no means gives birth to ‘classaction’ (social action by members of a class).For that, the real conditions and the resultsof the class situation must be distinctly rec-ognizable. For only then the contrast of lifechances can be felt not as an absolutely givenfact to be accepted, but as a resultant fromeither (1) the given distribution of property,or (2) the structure of the concrete economicorder. It is only then that people may reactagainst the class structure not only throughacts of intermittent and irrational protest, butin the form of rational association. . . . Themost important historical example of the sec-ond category (2) is the class situation of themodern proletariat. (Pp. 929–30)

This complex paragraph involves severalvery Marxian-like theses: First, the emer-gence of class associations depends on intel-lectual conditions; it is not simply the resultof unmediated spontaneous consciousness ofpeople in disadvantaged class situations.This is congruent with Marx’s view of therole of ideological mystification in prevent-ing class organization and the importance ofclass-conscious intellectual leadership inraising working-class consciousness, atheme stressed in different ways by laterMarxists such as Gramsci and Lenin.

Second, where class structures are experi-enced as natural and inevitable, as “abso-lutely given facts,” class mobilization is im-peded. Weber points here to the central issuethat Marx, especially in his discussion ofcommodity fetishism and capital fetishism,also identifies as the most important intel-lectual obstacle to class consciousness: thebelief in the naturalness and permanency ofthe existing conditions and thus the impossi-bility of any fundamental change. Much ofMarx’s work, in fact, can be viewed as anattempt at a scientific challenge to such ap-parent “naturalness” in the belief that suchdemystification would contribute to forgingrevolutionary consciousness.

18 Bendix (1974) recognizes that Weber shareswith Marx many elements of the theory of theconditions under which class mobilization islikely to succeed: “[C]lass organizations occuronly when an immediate economic opponent isinvolved, organization is technically easy (as inthe factory), and clear goals are articulated by anintelligentsia. . . . Weber accepted Marx’s reasonsfor the success of such organizations” (p. 152).

Proof


Third, the transparency of class relationsfacilitates class mobilization. Marx also be-lieved that class mobilization would be moredifficult where there were lots of intermedi-ary classes—petty bourgeois, peasants, pro-fessionals—than where class structures werehighly polarized and the causal connectionbetween the class structure and the condi-tions of people’s lives were transparent. Thisis an important part of Marx’s prediction thatcapitalism’s destruction of all precapitalisteconomic relations and the immiseration ofthe proletariat would lead to intensified classconflict.

Last, because of the relative transparencyof their class situation, the modern prole-tariat comes to understand that “the contrastof life chances . . . [is the result of] the struc-ture of the concrete economic order” (p.929). Modern capitalism therefore createsthe required kind of transparency for classassociations of workers to be likely.

Weber and Marx thus share many ele-ments in the theoretical specification of theconditions for class associations to emerge,and Weber shares with Marx at least the lim-ited expectation that these conditions will beminimally satisfied in the case of the mod-ern proletariat in capitalist economies so thatclass associations and class struggles arelikely to occur. Where they differ—and thisis a difference that matters—is in the empiri-cal prediction that the inner dynamics ofcapitalism are such that these conditions willbe progressively strengthened over time,leading to a systematic tendency for longterm intensification of class struggles withincapitalism. If Marx’s empirical predictionsabout these conditions had been correct, thenWeber would have shared with Marx the pre-diction that class conflicts would have a ten-dency to continually intensify in the courseof capitalist development. Where they differ,therefore, is in their predictions about thelong-term trajectory of capitalism more thanin their views about the conditions underwhich capitalism would engender a class-conscious organized working class.19

Class and Status

Finally, Marx and Weber even have somesimilar things to say theoretically in an areawhere sociologists generally think they aremost divergent: in their treatment of the re-lationship between class and status. A cen-tral issue in Weberian sociology is the en-during importance of status groups as asource of identity and privilege. As such,status groups are seen as competing withclass as bases of solidarity and collective ac-tion. Marx shared with Weber the views that(1) status groups impede the operation ofcapitalist markets, and further, that (2) theyconstitute an alternative basis of identity toclass formation. And Weber shared withMarx the view that (3) capitalist marketstended to erode the strength of status groupsand their effects on the system of stratifica-tion.20 Weber ([1922] 1978) writes:

When the bases of the acquisition and dis-tribution of goods are relatively stable,stratification by status is favored. Everytechnological repercussion and economictransformation threatens stratification bystatus and pushes the class situation into the

teenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, that in spiteof their common class interests, peasants hadlittle capacity for collective action because theywere so dispersed in the countryside and re-mained as separate entities with no interdepen-dency—like a “sack of potatoes.” Weber ([1894]1989) makes a similar point about East Elbianpeasants: “For the [agricultural] labourer then thepossibility of brutal personal domination thatcould be only escaped by flight gave way to com-mercial exploitation which, arising almost unno-ticed, was actually much harder to evade andwhich as a smallholder he was not in a positionto do. Formal equality then placed the labourersin a struggle of interests for which, dispersed farover the land as they were, they lacked the meansof resistence” (p. 171).

20 Mommsen (1985) makes the even strongerclaim that, from early in his career, Weber be-lieved that capitalism would not merely erodetraditional status orders, but destroy them: “Asearly as 1893 Weber predicted that within a fewgenerations, capitalism would destroy all tradi-tion-bound social structures and that this processwas irreversible” (p. 234). Most sociologistsdrawing on Weber’s work assume that status re-mains a salient dimension of stratification eventhough capitalism would significantly reduce itsweight as a mechanism of identity and exclusion.

19 Another instance in which Weber sharesMarx’s theoretical analysis of conditions for ef-fective, collective class mobilization, is in theirrespective analyses of the peasantry. Marx([1852] 1970) is famous for arguing, in The Eigh-

Proof


foreground. Epochs and countries in whichthe naked class situation is of predominantsignificance are regularly the periods oftechnical and economic transformations. (P.938)

Using different rhetoric, Marx and Engels([1848] 1968) in the Communist Manifestomade parallel arguments:

Constant revolutionizing of production, un-interrupted disturbances of all social condi-tions, everlasting uncertainty and agitationdistinguish the bourgeois epoch from all ear-lier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations,with their train of ancient and venerableprejudices and opinions, are swept away. (P.38)

The reference to “all fixed, fast-frozen rela-tions” taps the same kinds of categories thatWeber theorized as “stratification by status,”and Marx and Engels, like Weber, see theserelations threatened by “revolutionizing ofproduction, . . . disturbances of all socialconditions,” or what Weber termed “periodsof technical and economic transformations.”So, both Marx and Weber see capitalism asundermining status groups and fostering apredominance of what Weber called “nakedclass situation.” They may have differed intheir beliefs about the long-term conse-quences of this development for class mobi-lization and struggle—Marx believed itwould reinforce tendencies towards polar-ized class struggle, whereas Weber believedthat the development of capitalism was pro-ducing a much more complex class structureless vulnerable to polarized struggle21—but

both saw capitalism as systematically erod-ing the salience of traditional status groups.

WEBER AND MARX ON CLASS:

CENTRAL DIFFERENCES

If the above analysis is correct, then bothWeber and Marx deploy varieties of prop-erty-centered relational concepts of class inwhich, among other things, (1) objectivelydefinable material interests play a centralrole in explaining class action, (2) classstructure and class struggle are distinguished,(3) collective class action is facilitated byclass polarization, and (4) the dynamic pro-cesses of capitalism create conditions favor-able to class playing a pervasive role in sys-tems of stratification. Where they differ mostsharply is in their understanding of the causalmechanisms that are linked to such property-relational classes. For Weber, the pivotal is-sue is how classes determine the life chancesof people within highly rationalized forms ofeconomic interactions—markets; for Marx,the central issue is how class determines bothlife chances and exploitation.22

The basic idea of the determination of lifechances by class is laid out in Weber’s([1922] 1978) frequently cited passage:

We may speak of a “class” when (1) a num-ber of people have in common a specificcausal component of their life chances, in-

21 In Weber’s ([1918] 1971) “Speech for theGeneral Information of Austrian Officers inVienna,” in which he puts forth an extended dis-cussion of Marxism and the prospects of social-ism in Germany, Weber explains how changes inclass structure tie the interests of large numbersof people to the bourgeoisie:

Parallel to these very complex processes, how-ever, there appears a rapid rise in the number ofclerks, i.e., in private bureaucracy—its growthrate is statistically much greater than that of theworkers—and their interests certainly do not liewith one accord in the direction of a proletariandictatorship. Then again, the advent of highly di-verse and complicated ways of sharing interestsmeans that at the present time it is quite impos-sible to maintain that the power and number ofthose directly or indirectly interested in the bour-geois order are on the wane. (P. 207)

22 This is not the only way to characterize thecore difference between Marx’s and Weber’sconceptualization of class. Other synoptic con-trasts include: production versus exchange(Burris 1986; Collins 1986), unidimensional ver-sus multidimensional (Burris 1986; Scott 1996),and dichotomous versus pluralistic class concepts(Giddens 1973). Other authors who discuss thelife chances versus exploitation contrast includeCrompton and Gubbay (1977:3–20) and Wright(1997). Sayer (1991) also identifies the problemof exploitation as the central difference betweenMarx and Weber’s approach to class, although heis skeptical that this matters very much: “On thequestion of exploitation there remains an un-bridgeable gulf between Marx and Weber, whichreflects the very different economic theories—re-spectively political economy and marginalism—upon which their sociologies of capitalism arepredicated. How important this is, I would argue,is debatable. . . . [A]ltogether too much ink hasbeen wasted over their supposed differences”(pp. 104–105).

Proof


sofar as (2) this component is representedexclusively by economic interests in thepossession of goods and opportunities forincome, and (3) is represented under theconditions of the commodity or labor mar-kets. This is “class situation.”

It is the most elemental economic fact thatthe way in which the disposition over mate-rial property is distributed among a pluralityof people, meeting competitively in the mar-ket for the purpose of exchange, in itself cre-ates specific life chances. . . .

But always this is the generic connotation ofthe concept of class: that the kind of chancein the market is the decisive moment whichpresents a common condition for theindividual’s fate. Class situation is, in thissense, ultimately market situation. (Pp. 927–28)

“Opportunity” in this context is a descrip-tion of the feasible set individuals face, thetradeoffs they encounter in deciding what todo to improve their material conditions. TheWeberian claim is that in a market society—a society in which people acquire the where-withal to live by exchanging things with oth-ers in an instrumentally rational way—suchopportunities are caused by the quality andquantity of what people have to exchange.When markets are fully and pervasivelypresent, opportunities are not mainly causedby economically irrelevant ascriptive at-tributes or by individuals’ control of vio-lence, but by the resources a person canbring to the market for exchange. Owningthe means of production gives a person dif-ferent alternatives from owning credentials,and both of these differ from simply owningunskilled labor power. Furthermore, in amarket economy, access to market-derivedincome affects a broad array of life experi-ences and opportunities for oneself and one’schildren. The study of the life-chances ofchildren based on parent’s market capac-ity—the problem of class mobility—is thusan integral part of the Weberian agenda ofclass analysis. Within a Weberian perspec-tive, therefore, the salient consequence thatflows from people’s links to different kindsof economic resources deployed in marketsis the way these links confer on them differ-ent kinds of economic opportunities and dis-advantages, thereby shaping their materialinterests.

This definition is intimately connected tothe problem of rationalization. When peoplemeet to make an exchange in a market, theyrationally calculate the costs and benefits ofalternatives on the basis of the prices theyface in the market. These prices provide thekind of information required for people tomake rational calculations, and the con-straints of market interactions force them tomake decisions on the basis of these calcu-lations in a more or less rational manner.Weber is, fundamentally, less interested inthe problem of the material deprivations andadvantages of different categories of peopleas such, or in the collective struggles thatmight spring from those advantages and dis-advantages, than he is in the underlying nor-mative order and cognitive practices—in-strumental rationality—that are embodied inthe social interactions that generate these lifechances.

Marx would agree with Weber that theownership of different resources used inmarket exchanges affects life chances. Andlike Weber, he recognizes that exchanges inthe market constitute interactions based oncalculation and instrumental rationality.23

But in Marx’s class analysis, the effect ofexchange on life chances is only half thestory. Of equal significance is how propertyrelations shape the process of exploitation.Both “exploitation” and “life chances”identify inequalities in material well-beingthat are generated by inequalities in accessto resources of various sorts. Thus, both ofthese concepts point to conflicts of interestover the distribution of the assets. What ex-ploitation adds to this is a claim that con-flicts of interest between classes are gener-ated not simply by conflicts over the distri-bution and value of resources people bringto exchanges in the market, but also by thenature of the interactions and interdepen-

23 In Capital ([1867] 1967, vol. 1), Marx de-scribes exchange relations between labor andcapital as taking place in a sphere in which “[t]heonly force that brings them together and putsthem in relation with each other, is the selfish-ness, the gain and the private interests of each”(p. 176). Although he does not use the languageof rational instrumental action, the descriptionhere is entirely in line with Weber’s view of mar-ket exchange.

Proof


dencies generated by the use of those re-sources in productive activity.

Exploitation, for Marx, identified the pro-cess by which labor effort performed by onegroup of economic actors is extracted andappropriated by another group. That appro-priated labor is referred to as “surplus la-bor,” meaning laboring activity above andbeyond what is required to reproduce the la-borers themselves. In capitalism, for Marx,this appropriation occurs because employersare able to force workers to work longerhours and perform more labor than is em-bodied in the products that they consumewith their wages. Expressed in the classicallanguage of the labor theory of value, the la-bor value of what they produce is greaterthan the labor value of what they consume.The difference—surplus value—is appropri-ated by the capitalist. This appropriation isexploitation.24

The concept of exploitation, defined in thisway, is used by Marx in two general explana-tory contexts. First, Marx sees exploitationas the source of profits in capitalism: Capi-talists appropriate surplus value from work-ers that, when capitalists sell the commodi-ties embodying that surplus value, is turnedinto money profits. Profits, in turn, are es-sential for investment and capital accumula-tion. In this way, exploitation figures cen-trally in Marx’s account of the dynamics ofcapitalism. Second, Marx sees exploitationas central to explaining the particular char-acter of conflict between workers and capi-

talists. Exploitation constitutes a social rela-tion that simultaneously pits the interests ofone class against another, binds the twoclasses together in ongoing interactions, andconfers upon the disadvantaged group a realform of power with which to challenge theinterests of exploiters. This is an importantpoint. Exploitation depends on the appropria-tion of labor effort in ongoing social interac-tions. Because human beings are consciousagents, they always retain significant levelsof control over their expenditure of effort.The extraction of effort within exploitativerelations is thus always to a greater or lesserextent problematic and precarious, requiringactive institutional devices for its reproduc-tion. Such devices can become costly to ex-ploiters in the form of the costs of supervi-sion, surveillance, sanctions, and so on. Theability to impose such costs constitutes aform of power among the exploited.

The exchange relations that shape lifechances also involve conflicts of interest.Yet, in an idealized competitive market inwhich direct coercion is absent from the ex-change process itself, these conflicts aremuted by the apparent voluntariness of theact of exchange. As Weber ([1922] 1978) re-marks, “‘Exchange’ is a compromise of in-terests on the part of the parties in the courseof which goods or other advantages arepassed as reciprocal compensation. . . . Ev-ery case of rationally oriented exchange isthe resolution of a previously open or latentconflict of interests by means of a compro-mise” (p. 72). Marx ([1867] 1967), similarly,sees the market exchanges between workersand capitalists as involving reciprocity anda degree of commonality of interests:

[Exchange between labor and capital im-plies] [e]quality, because each enters into re-lation with the other, as with a simple ownerof commodities, and they exchange equiva-lent for equivalent. . . . The only force thatbrings them together and puts them in rela-tion with each other, is the selfishness, thegain and the private interests of each. Eachlooks to himself only, and no one troubleshimself about the rest, and just because theydo so, do they all, in accordance with thepre-established harmony of things, or underthe auspices of an all-shrewd providence,work together to their mutual advantage, forthe common weal and in the interest of all.(P. 176)

24 Although Marx elaborated the concept ofexploitation in terms of the labor theory of value,as a sociological concept exploitation does notdepend on this technical apparatus. As I have ar-gued (Wright 1997:4–17), class exploitation canbe understood as a social relation in which (1)the material well-being of exploiters occurs at theexpense of the well-being of the exploited, (2)this inverse relation depends upon the exclusionof the exploited from access to material re-sources, and (3) this exclusion from access to re-sources enables exploiters to appropriate of thelabor effort of the exploited. Taken together,these three criteria imply a relationship in whichthe advantaged groups depend on the efforts ofthe disadvantaged groups for the reproduction oftheir advantages. For a trenchant philosophicaldiscussion of why the concept of exploitationdoes not logically depend on the labor theory ofvalue, see Cohen (1988).

Proof


Within production, on the other hand, thecontainment of the conflict of interests be-tween the performers of labor effort and theappropriators of that effort requires the on-going exercise of domination through com-plex forms of surveillance, discipline, andcontrol of the labor process. The conflictover exploitation is not settled in the recip-rocal compromise of a contractual moment;it is continually present in the ongoing inter-actions through which labor is performed.

The central difference between Marx’s andWeber’s concept of class, then, is that theWeberian account revolves exclusivelyaround market transactions, whereas theMarxist account also emphasizes the impor-tance of conflict over the performance andappropriation of labor effort that takes placeafter market exchanges are contracted. Thiscontrast is illustrated in Figure 1 (modifiedand simplified from Wright [1997:34]).Weber’s class analysis revolves around asingle causal nexus that works through mar-ket exchange; Marxist class analysis in-cludes the Weberian causal processes, butadds to them a causal structure within pro-duction itself. The Marxist concept of classdirects our attention both theoretically andempirically toward the systematic interac-tion of exchange and production.

One of the striking implications of thiscontrast between the Weberian and Marxistconcepts of class is that Weber—at least inhis most mature work when he is formaliz-ing his concepts—rejects the idea that slaves

are a class, whereas for Marxists slaveryconstitutes one form of precapitalist classrelations.25 Weber ([1922] 1978) writes:

Those men whose fate is not determined bythe chance of using goods or services forthemselves on the market, e.g., slaves, arenot, however, a class in the technical senseof the term. They are, rather, a status group.(P. 928) 26

For Weber ([1922] 1978), slaves are a spe-cific instance of a general theoretical cat-egory—status groups—that also includesethnic groups, occupational groups, andother categories “that are stratified accord-ing to the principles of their consumption ofgoods as represented by special styles of life”(p. 937). These groups differ by the mean-

25 For an alternative view of the relationshipbetween class and status in Marx’s and Weber’streatment of slavery and feudalism, see Sayer(1991), who argues that Marx used the word“class” in two quite different ways. In one sense,class is a generic term covering all systems ofexploitation linked to production; in the othersense, it is specific to capitalism. This second us-age of the word, Sayer argues, is the more funda-mental to Marx’s theory and thus, like Weber,Marx believed that only in capitalism were therefully developed classes.

26 In Weber’s early work on agrarian econo-mies in ancient civilizations, which is marked bya much more Marxian kind of analysis than is hislater work in Economy and Society, slaves weretreated as a class, and their relationship to slave-owners was treated as involving exploitation.

Basic CausalStructure of Weber’s

Class Analysis

Basic CausalStructure of Marx’s

Class Analysis

Differential control overincome

(life chances)

Differential control overincome

(life chances)

Differential control overlabor effort

(exploitation)

Market capacity ininstrumentally rational

exchange relations

Market capacity ininstrumentally rational

exchange relations

Location withinproduction relations of

domination andsubordination

Relationship toeconomic assets

Relationship toeconomic assets

Figure 1. Core Elements in Weber’s and Marx’s Analysis of Class

Proof


ings and criteria that accord differential so-cial honor to different “styles of life,” and“slavery” is just one way of organizing suchstatus rankings. In contrast, Marxists wouldsee slavery as, primarily, a special instanceof a different general theoretical category—class—that includes capitalists and workersin capitalism, lords and serfs in feudalism,slaves and slave-owners in slavery. Althoughthese categories differ in lifestyles and thecultural criteria used to impart symbolicrankings, the crucial issue is their differencesin mechanisms of exploitation—the ways inwhich labor effort is appropriated from onecategory by another. Marx, of course, likeWeber, recognized that in precapitalist soci-eties social division was organized aroundstatus orders involving personal dependenceand extra-economic coercion. But for Marxthe most salient feature of such status orderswas how they underwrote distinctive formsof exploitation. It is this which justifies treat-ing these as varieties of the abstract category“class relations” within a class concept cen-tering on exploitation.

THE SHADOW OF EXPLOITATION

IN WEBER

Although Weber’s definition of the conceptof class says nothing explicitly about exploi-tation, it is nevertheless the case that in vari-ous places in Economy and Society and else-where Weber touches on the substantiveproblems that, within Marxist coordinates,would be characterized as involving the ex-ploitation of labor. How Weber deals withthese problems is revealing of the inner logicof his general approach to class analysis.27

Weber engages the problem of the perfor-mance and appropriation of labor effortwithin the system of production primarily asan issue of work discipline, the “incentivesto work,” and economic efficiency. Thisidentification of the problem of extraction oflabor effort and technical efficiency is oneof the themes in Weber’s ([1904] 1958) dis-cussion in The Protestant Ethic of the prob-lem of using piece-rates as a strategy for get-ting workers to work harder. Here is the rel-evant passage:

One of the technical means which the mod-ern employer uses in order to secure thegreatest possible amount of work from hismen is the device of piece-rates. In agricul-ture, for instance, the gathering of the har-vest is a case where the greatest possible in-tensity of labour is called for, since, theweather being uncertain, the difference be-tween high profit and heavy loss may de-pend on the speed with which the harvestingcan be done. Hence a system of piece-ratesis almost universal in this case. And sincethe interest of the employer in a speeding upof harvesting increases with the increase ofthe results and the intensity of work, theirattempt has again and again been made, byincreasing the piece-rates of the workmen,thereby giving them an opportunity to earnwhat for them is a very high wage, to inter-est them in increasing their own efficiency.But a peculiar difficulty has been met withsurprising frequency: raising piece-rates hasoften had the result that not more but lesshas been accomplished in the same time, be-cause the worker reacted to the increase notby increasing but by decreasing the amountof work. . . . The opportunity of workingmore was less attractive than that of work-ing less. . . . This is an example of what ishere meant by traditionalism. A man doesnot “by nature” wish to earn more and more

27 The issue here is not the use of the word “ex-ploitation.” Even in English this term can meansimply taking advantage of some kind of oppor-tunity, as in “exploiting natural resources,” andthus the real meaning of the term must be derivedfrom the context of its use. In any case, a varietyof different German words can be translated intothe English term “exploitation.” The word doesappear in a few places in the English translationof Economy and Society and even more fre-quently in Weber’s earlier work on slavery. InEconomy and Society, the words in the originalGerman text that are translated as “exploitation”are never the German term used in Marxist tech-nical discussions of exploitation, Ausbeutung, or

even the relatively morally charged termAusnutzung (which suggests taking unfair advan-tage). Rather, Weber used the much more neutralterms Benutzung or Verwertung, which basicallymean “to use.” In his earlier work on slavery, onthe other hand, Weber sometimes uses Ausnut-zung and occasionally the more technical Marx-ist term Ausbeutung, again reflecting the greaterMarxian character of that work. In one place, heuses the expression exploitationsrate, thus di-rectly invoking the Marxist meaning of exploita-tion. In his later work, this Marxian usage iscompletely absent. I thank Phil Gorski for prov-ing me with guidance on these linguistic issues.

Proof


money, but simply to live as he is accus-tomed to live and to earn as much as is nec-essary for that purpose. Whenever moderncapitalism has begun its work of increasingthe productivity of human labor by increas-ing its intensity, it has encountered the im-mensely stubborn resistance of this leadingtrait of pre-capitalistic labor. (Pp. 59–60)

Weber ([1904] 1958) concludes that thistechnical problem can be effectively solvedonly when the laborer adopts a set of atti-tudes toward work—the Protestant workethic—that generates a moral imperative forhim or her to expend a maximum of effort:

Labour must, on the contrary, be performedas if it were an absolute end in itself, a call-ing. But such an attitude is by no means aproduct of nature. It cannot be evoked bylow wages or high ones alone, but can onlybe a product of a long and arduous processof education.” (P. 61)28

Weber ([1922] 1978) discusses at greaterlength in Economy and Society the motiva-tion of workers to expend effort in a discus-sion of the “conditions affecting the optimi-zation of calculable performance by labor”(p. 150). “Optimization of calculable perfor-mance” is a specific problem within thebroader discussion of the conditions that fos-ter or impede technical rationality in eco-nomic organization. Weber ([1922] 1978)cites three primary conditions for this opti-mization to occur: “(a) the optimum of apti-tude for the function; (b) the optimum ofskill acquired through practice; (c) the opti-mum of inclination for the work” (p. 150).

The third of these concerns the performanceof labor effort. Weber ([1922] 1978) writes:

In the specific sense of incentive to executeone’s own plans or those of persons super-vising one’s work [the inclination to work]must be determined either by a strong self-interest in the outcome or by direct or indi-rect compulsion. The latter is particularlyimportant in relation to work which executesthe dispositions of others. This compulsionmay consist in the immediate threat ofphysical force or of other undesirable con-sequences, or in the probability that unsatis-factory performance will have an adverseeffect on earnings.

The second type, which is essential to a mar-ket economy, appeals immensely morestrongly to the worker’s self-interest. (P. 150)

Weber then discusses a variety of conditionsthat need to be met in order for this “indirectcompulsion,” to be effective. He ([1922]1978) cites three factors: (1) That employershave a free hand in hiring and firing work-ers: “It also necessitates freedom of selec-tion according to performance, both qualita-tively and quantitatively, though naturallyfrom the point of view of its bearing onprofit” (p. 150). (2) Workers lack both own-ership and control over the means of produc-tion: “It presupposes the expropriation of theworkers from the means of production byowners is protected by force” (p. 150). (3)Workers bear the responsibility for their ownreproduction: “As compared with directcompulsion to work, this systems involvesthe transferral [of] . . . the responsibility forreproduction (in the family) . . . to the work-ers themselves ” (p. 151).

Where the above three conditions are met,workers will expend the optimum amount ofeffort from the point of view of profits of thecapitalist. Where the conditions are not met,labor effort will tend to be restricted, result-ing in a decline in technical rationality. Inparticular, Weber ([1922] 1978) discussessituations in which the first condition is vio-lated—conditions in which workers them-selves retain some significant degree of con-trol over the deployment of their labor:

[O]pportunities for disposal of labor ser-vices may be appropriated by an organiza-tion of workers, either without any appro-priation by the individual worker or withimportant limitations on such appropriation.

28 In The Protestant Ethic, Weber ([1904]1958) also discusses the reasons why “Low wagesare by no means identical with cheap labor,” aslow wages may lead to a decline in effort and dili-gence: “Low wages fail even from a purely busi-ness point of view wherever it is a question ofproducing goods which require any sort of skilledlabour, or the use of expensive machinery whichis easily damaged, or in general wherever anygreat amount of sharp attention or of initiative isrequired. Here low wages do not pay, and theireffect is the opposite of what was intended” (p.61). Here Weber is laying out the essential argu-ments of what is now tellingly referred to as “ef-ficiency wage theory.” Again, the extraction oflabor effort is treated as a problem of instrumen-tal rationality and efficiency rather than as a prob-lem antagonistic interests.

Proof


This may involve absolute or relative clo-sure against outsiders and also prohibition ofthe dismissal of workers from employmentby management without consent of theworkers, or at least some kind of limitationson powers of dismissal. . . .

Every form of appropriation of jobs inprofit-making enterprises by workers . . .[results in] a limitation on the formal ratio-nalization of economic activity. (P. 128)

At the core of this limitation on formal ra-tionalization is the problem of labor effort.If workers appropriate their jobs but ownersstill appropriate the products of labor, tech-nical rationality is limited “through a ten-dency to restrict the work effort, either bytradition, or by convention, or by contract;also through the reduction or complete dis-appearance . . . of the worker’s own interestin optimal effort,” (Weber [1922] 1978:129). Weber goes on to argue that the prob-lem of getting a technically rational level ofwork effort from workers who control theirjobs is similar to the problem of gettingwork effort from slaves:

The very opposite forms of appropriation—that of jobs by workers and that of workersby owners—nevertheless have in practicevery similar results. [When workers are ap-propriated by owners] it is natural that ex-ploitation of labor services should, to a largeextent, be stereotyped; hence that worker ef-fort should be restricted and that the work-ers have little self-interest in the output. . . .Hence, almost universally the work effort ofappropriated workers has shown a tendencyto restriction. . . .When jobs have been for-mally appropriated by workers, the same re-sult has come about even more rapidly. (Pp.129–30)

If one wants the technically most efficientperformance of labor effort by workerswithin production, therefore, workers mustnot only be expropriated from the means ofproduction, but must also lose any real con-trol over their jobs and the labor process.

One situation in which Weber ([1922]1978) sees that the appropriation of jobs byworkers might not lead to restriction of workeffort is where the workers are also ownersof the means of production: “The appropria-tion of the means of production and personalcontrol . . . over the process of workers con-stitute one of the strongest incentives to un-

limited willingness to work” (p. 152). Butthis situation creates other irrationalities, es-pecially because “the interests of workers inthe maintenance of jobs (‘livings’) is oftenin conflict with the rationality of the organi-zation” (p. 138). Thus, although it might bethe case in a worker-owned cooperative thatworkers would work very hard, they wouldengage in technically irrational behavior intheir allocation of labor and their unwilling-ness to hire and fire labor as the market re-quired.

Weber’s stance toward the problem ofwork effort in these passages is broadly inline with that of contemporary neoclassicalmicro-economics. Most neoclassical econo-mists see any restriction by workers ofmanagerial control of labor and the laborprocess as generating efficiency losses, bothbecause of technically suboptimal alloca-tions of resources and because of restrictionsof labor effort by workers. Like Weber, theseeconomists believe that control of the work-place by workers leads to worker opportun-ism—workers serving their own interests atthe expense of efficiency. The only real so-lution to such opportunism is preventingworkers from appropriating their jobs andmaking the alternative to conscientious per-formance of work especially unpleasant.Thus, they would endorse Weber’s statementthat “[f]ree labor and the complete appro-priation of the means of production [by theowner] create the most favorable conditionsfor discipline” (Weber [1922] 1978:138).

For Weber, the problem of the perfor-mance and appropriation of work effort is,thus, above all a question of the degree andforms of rationality in economic organiza-tion. This does not mean that Weber ([1922]1978) was unaware that these forms of ra-tionality may impose harms on workers:“The fact that the maximum of formal ratio-nality in capital accounting is possible onlywhere the workers are subjected to domina-tion by entrepreneurs is a further specific el-ement of substantive irrationality in themodern economic order” (p. 138). Indeed, asMommsen (1985), Löwith ([1932] 1982),Schroeter (1985), and others have noted,running throughout Weber’s work is theview that rationalization has perverse effectsthat systematically threaten human dignityand welfare, particularly because of the

Proof


ways in which it intensifies bureaucraticdomination.29 Weber thus hardly held a be-nign view of capitalism and the work orga-nization it entailed. Nevertheless, he did nottreat this problem of extracting work effortas central to the class relations of capitalismand the conflicts of interests that those rela-tions engendered.

RAMIFICATIONS

All in all, the formal characteristics of theconcept of class in capitalist societies arerather similar in Weber and Marx. They dif-fer primarily in the broader theoretical con-text in which these definitions are embeddedand in their accounts of the central causalmechanisms that are linked to class rela-tions. For Weber, these mechanisms are pri-marily centered in the ways in which owner-ship of property affects life chances via in-strumentally rational exchanges in the mar-ket; for Marx, they concern the ways inwhich ownership of property affects lifechances and exploitation through the inter-play of markets and production. AlthoughWeber also, if only in passing, touches onissues closely related to exploitation, par-ticularly the problem of labor discipline anddomination, he does not integrate these con-cerns into the general concept of class buttreats them primarily as issues in the techni-cal efficiency of systems of production.

One might still ask, so what? Does this re-ally matter? Even if Weber underplayed the

importance of extraction of labor effort,there is nothing in his framework that ac-tively blocks attention to this issue. And in-deed, class analysts in the Weberian traditionhave paid varying degrees of attention to theproblem of work discipline, labor effort, andrelated matters.

Nevertheless, there are consequences ofelaborating the concept of class strictly interms of market relations and life chanceswithout a systematic connection to the prob-lem of exploitation. Conceptual frameworksmatter because, among other things, they di-rect thinking and research in particular ways.Here I would emphasize two issues: First,the ways in which explicitly linking exploi-tation to the concept of class changes theway class conflict is understood, and second,the ways exploitation infuses class analysiswith a specific kind of normative concern.

The concept of exploitation draws atten-tion to the ways in which class conflicts donot simply reflect conflicting interests overthe distribution of a pie. Rather, to charac-terize class relations as exploitative empha-sizes the ways in which exploiting classesare dependent upon the exploited class fortheir own economic well-being, and becauseof this dependency, the ways in which ex-ploited classes have capacities for resistancethat are organic to the class relation. Becauseworkers always retain some control over theexpenditure of effort and diligence, theyhave a capacity to resist their exploitation;and because capitalists need workers, thereare constraints on the strategies available tocapitalists to counter this resistance.3029 Mommsen (1985) describes Weber’s stance

toward capitalism this way:

Although he vigorously defended the capitalistsystem against its critics from the Left, . . . he didnot hesitate to criticize the system’s inhuman con-sequences. . . . His concern for the preservation ofhuman dignity under the societal conditions cre-ated by and typical for mature capitalism (particu-larly the severe discipline of work and exclusionof all principles of personal ethical responsibilityfrom industrial labor) is entirely consistent withMarx’s effort to find a way of overcoming the so-cial alienation of the proletariat under industrialcapitalism. (P. 235)

Where Weber most deeply differed from Marx isin Weber’s belief that socialism, in whateverform, would only intensify this oppression, andthus no viable alternative to capitalism would bepossible (unless one was willing to accept a dra-matic decline in technical rationality).

30 As I have argued elsewhere (Wright 1997:11–12), the ways in which exploitation acts as aconstraint on the exploiter is revealed in histori-cal situations in which sharp conflicts over ex-clusion from economic resources occur in the ab-sence of exploitation. There is a morally abhor-rent folk-saying from nineteenth-century UnitedStates, “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.”Such a saying has a kind of grotesque “rational-ity” in the context of the struggles between Eu-ropean settlers and indigenous people over con-trol of the land: Although there were sharp andviolent conflicts with Native Americans overtheir expulsion from the land, in general the la-bor effort of Native Americans was not exploited,and thus the white settlers did not depend uponNative Americans for their own prosperity. Na-

Proof


Exploitation thus entails a specific kindof duality: conflicting material interestsplus a real capacity for resistance. This du-ality has implications for the way we thinkabout both the individual and collectivepower of workers: As individuals, thepower of workers depends both on the scar-city of the kind of labor power they have tooffer in the labor market (and thus theirability to extract individual “skill rents”through the sale of their labor power) andon their ability to control the expenditure oftheir individual effort within the labor pro-cess; as a collectivity, workers’ power de-pends on their ability to collectively regu-late the terms of exchange on the labor mar-ket (typically through unions) and theirability to control the organization of work,surveillance, and sanctions within produc-tion. The concept of exploitation, therefore,suggests a research agenda in which classconflict and the balance of class powermust be understood in terms of the system-atic interplay of interests and capacitieswithin both exchange and production.

When the appropriation of labor effort istreated, not in terms of the basic social rela-tions that bind together workers and capital-ists, but in terms of the formal rationality ofthe “conditions affecting the optimization ofcalculable performance by labor” (Weber[1922] 1978:150), the issue of the perfor-mance of labor effort becomes analyzed pri-marily as a technical problem of overcom-ing the traditionalism or opportunism ofworkers as individuals. Capitalists face awide range of problems in enhancing ratio-nal calculability in economic action. Oneproblem revolves around the work perfor-

mance of employees. The most fundamentalsolution to this problem is for workers to de-velop the right kinds of attitudes, as de-scribed in The Protestant Ethic and theSpirit of Capitalism. When workers see theperformance of labor effort as a calling—when they have the proper work ethic—thenthe problem of optimizing the calculableperformance of labor is greatly reduced, per-haps even eliminated. In the absence of thisethic, then, even with close supervision, theactual extraction of optimal levels of effortis an enduring problem. Instead of under-standing the capacity of workers to controltheir own effort as a fundamental source ofclass-based power available to workers intheir class struggles with capitalists, Webersees this control as one of the obstacles toforming a fully rationalized economic order.

Beyond the issue of the conceptual map-ping of research agendas, Marx’s andWeber’s conceptual frameworks direct classanalysis toward different sets of normativeconcerns linked to the material interests ofdifferent classes. Both theorists ask ques-tions and pursue agendas rooted in their val-ues, although Weber is undoubtedly moreself-conscious than Marx about trying tokeep his values from shaping his conclu-sions.31 The issue here is that the specificway the concept of class is built directs at-tention toward different kinds of normativeagendas.

Weber’s treatment of work effort as prima-rily a problem of economic rationality di-rects class analysis toward a set of norma-tive concerns centered above all on the in-terests of capitalists: efficiency and rational-ization. Although Weber is not blindly un-critical of capitalism and recognizes that,from the point of view of workers, the orga-nization of work may be “substantively irra-tional,” throughout his discussion of work

tive Americans were thus “dispensable” from thesettlers’ point of view. The parallel aphorisms inthe case of slavery or workers in capitalist firmsmight be something like, “The only good slave isa docile slave,” or “The only good worker is anobedient worker” (or in Weber’s analysis, “aworker with a Protestant work ethic”), but itwould make no sense to say, “The only goodslave is a dead slave,” or “The only good workeris a dead worker.” It is in this sense that exploi-tation acts as a constraint on the strategies of ex-ploiters: They must seek ways of responding toresistance of the exploited that reproduce, ratherthan destroy, their interactions with the ex-ploited.

31 Weber, of course, is famous for arguing thatsocial science should attempt to be “objective”in the sense of trying to restrict its moral con-cerns to the posing of questions rather than to thesubstance of research and the selection of an-swers. Marx also believed in scientific objectiv-ity, but was skeptical that in social analysis theanalyst could in practice keep the substance ofideas from being influenced by the analyst’s ownrelationship to social forces—especially class in-terests—in the society.

Proof


effort the emphasis is on how arrangementsthat enhance worker control and autonomyare technically irrational. Whether or notWeber was sympathetic to the conditions ofworkers, this preoccupation is very much inline with the interests of owners and manag-ers. In contrast, the Marxist tradition of link-ing the problem of work effort to exploita-tion directs class analysis toward normativeconcerns centered on the interests of work-ers. The issue becomes not simply a ques-tion of which arrangements are the mosttechnically efficient from the point of viewof profit maximization but of how particularways of organizing exchange and productionimpose harms on workers. Marxists recog-nize that increasing exploitation is “effi-cient” from the point of view capitalist eco-nomic organization, but the conceptualframework constantly brings to the fore-ground the ways in which this imposesharms on workers and poses the question“under what conditions can such harms bechallenged and eliminated?”

Erik Olin Wright is Vilas Professor of Sociologyat the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Hiswork has mainly centered on the development ofthe Marxist tradition in sociology, with particu-lar focus on class analysis. His most recent booksare Class Counts (Cambridge University Press,1997; student ed., 2000), and (jointly with Ar-chon Fung) Deepening Democracy: innovationsin empowered participatory governance (Verso,2003).

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