114 — Max Weher M@ WEBER AND POST-WEBERIANS 13 I Max Weber Class, Status, Party Economically Determined Power and the So Order Law exists when there is a probability that an order will be upheld by a specific staff of men who will use physical or psychical compulsion with the intention of obtaining conformity with the order, or of inflicting sanctions for infringement of it. The structure of every legal order directly influences the distribution of power, economic or otherwise, within its respective community. This is true of all legal orders and not only that of the state. In gen- eral, we understand by ‘power’ the chance of a man or of a number of men to realize their own will in a communal action even against the resistance of others who are participating in the action. “Economically conditioned” power is not, of course, identical with ‘power’ as such. On the contrary, the emergence of economic power may be the consequence of power ex- isting on other grounds. Man does not strive for power only in order to enrich himself economically. Power, including economic power, may be valued ‘for its own sake.’ Very frequently the striving for power is also con- ditioned by the social ‘honor’ it entails. Not all power, however, entails social honor: The typical American Boss, as well as the typical big speculator, deliberately relinquishes social honor. Quite generally, ‘mere economic’ power, and especially ‘naked’ money power, is by no means a recognized basis of social honor. Nor is power the only basis of social honor. Indeed, social honor, or prestige, may even be the basis of political or economic power, and very frequently has been. Power, as well as honor, may be guaranteed by the legal order, but, at least normally, it is not their primary source. The legal ordei an additional factor that enhances the chance to hold power or honor; but it cannot always secure them. rather The way in which social honor is distrib- uted in a community between typical groups participating in this distribution we may call the ‘social order.’ The social order and the eco- nomic order are, of course, similarly related to the ‘legal order.’ However, the social and the economic order are not identical. The eco- nomic order is for us merely the way in which economic goods and services are distributed and used. The social order is of course condi- tioned by the economic order to a high de- gree, and in its turn reacts upon it. Now: ‘classes,’ ‘status groups,’ and ‘parties’ are phenomena of the distribution of power within a community. Max Weber. “Class, Status, Party,” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, edited by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, and translated by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, pp. 180-195. Translation copyright © 1946, 1958 by H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. Used by permission of Oxford University Press, Ine.Determination of Class-Situation by Market-Situation In our terminology, ‘classes’ are not communi- ties; they merely represent possible, and fre- quent, bases for communal action, We may speak of a ‘class’ when (1) a number of people have in common a specific causal component of their life chances, in so far as (2) this com- ponent is represented exclusively by economic interests in the possession of goods and op- portunities for income, and (3) is represented under the conditions of the commodity or labor markets, [These points refer to ‘class sit- uation,’ which we may express more briefly as the typical chance for a supply of goods, ex- ternal living conditions, and personal life ex- periences, in so far as this chance is deter- mined by the amount and kind of power, o lack of such, to dispose of goods or skills for the sake of income in a given economic order. The term ‘class’ refers to any group of people that is found in the same class situation.] Ie is the most elemental economic fact that the way in which the disposition over material property is distributed among a plurality of people, meeting competitively in the market for the purpose of exchange, in itself creates specific life chances. According to the law of marginal utility this mode of distribution ex- cludes the non-owners from competing for highly valued goods; it favors the owners and, in fact, gives to them a monopoly to acquire such goods. Other things being equal, this mode of distribution monopolizes the oppor- tunities for profitable deals for all those who, provided with goods, do not necessarily have to exchange them. Ie increases, at least gener- ally, their power in price wars with those who, being propertyless, have nothing to offer but their services in native form or goods in a form constituted through their own labor, and who above all are compelled to get rid of these products in order barely to subsist. This mode of distribution gives to the propertied a mo- nopoly on the possibility of transferring prop- erty from the sphere of use asa ‘fortune,’ to the Class, Status, Party — 115 sphere of ‘capital goods’ that is, it gives them the entrepreneurial function and all chances to share directly or indirectly in returns on capi- tal, All this holds true within the area in which pure market conditions prevail. ‘Property’ and ‘Tack of property’ are, therefore, the basic cate- gories of all class situations. Ie does not matter whether these two categories become effective in price wars or in competitive struggles. Within these categories, however, class situ- ations are further differentiated: on the one hand, according to the kind of property that is usable for returns; and, on the other hand, ac- cording to the kind of services that can be of. fered in the market. Ownership of dom: buildings; productive establishments; ware- houses; stores; agriculturally usable land, large and small holdings—quantitative differences with possibly qualitative consequences; own- ership of mines; cattle; men (slaves); disposi- tion over mobile instruments of production, or capital goods of all sorts, especially money or objects that can be exchanged for money easily and at any time; disposition over prod- ucts of one’s own labor or of others’ labor dif- fering according to their various distances from consumabilitys disp able monopolies of any kind—all these dis- tinctions differentiate the class situations of ion over transfer- the propertied just as does the ‘meaning’ which they can and do give to the utilization of property, especially to property which has money equivalence. Accordingly, the proper- tied, for instance, may belong to the class of rentiers or to the class of entrepreneurs. Those who have no property but who offer services are differentiated just as much accord- ing to their kinds of services as according to the way in which they make use of these ser vices, in a continuous or discontinuous rela- tion to a recipient. But always this is the generic connotation of the concept of class: that the kind of chance in the marker is the de- cisive moment which presents a common con- dition for the individual’ fate. ‘Class situation’ is, in this sense, ultimately ‘marker situation.” The effect of naked possession per se, which116 - Max Weber among cattle breeders gives the nonowning slave or serf into the power of the cattle owner, is only a forerunner of real ‘class’ formation. However, in the cattle loan and in the naked severity of the law of debts in such communi- ties, for the first time mere ‘possession’ as such emerges as decisive for the fate of the individ- ual. This is very much in contrast to the agri- cultural communities based on labor. The creditor-debtor relation becomes the basis of ‘class situations’ only in those cities where a ‘credit marker,” however primitive, with rates of interest increasing according to the extent of dearth and a factual monopolization of credits, is developed by a plutocracy. Therewith ‘class scruggles’ begin. Those men whose fate is not determined by the chance of using goods or services for themselves on the market, e.g. slaves, are not, however, a ‘class’ in the technical sense of the term. They are, rather, a ‘status group.” Communal Action Flowing from Class Interest According to our terminology, the factor that creates ‘class’ is unambiguously economic in- terest, and indeed, only those interests in- volved in the existence of the ‘market.’ Never- theless, the concept of ‘class-interest’ is an ambiguous one: even as an empirical concept ambiguous as soon as one understands by it something other than the factual direction of interests following with a certain probability from the class situation for a certain ‘average’ of. those people subjected to the class situation. The class situation and other circumstances re- maining the same, the direction in which the individual worker, for instance, is likely to pur- sue his interests may vary widely, according to whether he is constitutionally qualified for the task at hand to a high, to an average, or to a low degree. In the same way, the direction of interests may vary according to whether or not. a communal action of a larger or smaller por- tion of those commonly affected by the ‘class situation,’ or even an association among them, eg. a ‘trade union,’ has grown out of the class situation from which the individual may or ‘may not expect promising results. {Communal action refers to that action which is oriented to the feeling of the actors that they belong to- gether. Societal action, on the other hand, is oriented to a rationally motivated adjustment of interests.] The rise of societal or even of communal action from a common class situa- tion is by no means a universal phenomenon. The class situation may be restricted in its effects to the generation of essentially similar reactions, that is to say, within our terminol- ogy, of ‘mass actions.’ However, it may not have even this result, Furthermore, often merely an amorphous communal action emerges. For example, the ‘murmuring’ of the workers known in ancient oriental ethics: the moral disapproval of the work-master’s con- duct, which in its practical significance was probably equivalent to an increasingly typical phenomenon of precisely the latest industrial development, namely, the ‘slow down’ (the de- rate limiting of work effort) of laborers by vireue of tacit agreement. The degree in which ‘communal action’ and possibly ‘societal ac- tion,” emerges from the ‘mass actions’ of the members of a class is linked to general cultural conditions, especially to those of an intellectual sort. It is also linked to the extent of the con- trasts that have already evolved, and is espe- cially linked to the mmansparency of the connec- tions between the causes and the consequences of the ‘class situation.’ For however different life chances may be, this fact in itself, accord- ing to all experience, by no means gives birth to ‘class action’ (communal action by the members of a class). The fact of being condi- tioned and the results of the class situation must be distinctly recognizable. For only then the contrast of life chances can be fele not as an absolutely given fact to be accepted, but as a resultant from either (1) the given distribution of property, or (2) the structure of the concrete economic order. It is only then that people may react against the class structure not only through acts of an intermittent and irrationalprotest, but in the form of rational associa tion. There have been ‘class situations’ of the first category (I), of a specifically naked and transparent sort, in the urban centers of An- tiquity and during the Middle Ages; espe- cially then, when great forcunes were accu- mulated by factually monopolized trading in industrial products of these localities or in foodstuffs. Furthermore, under certain cir- cumstances, in the rural economy of the most diverse periods, when agriculture was increas- ingly exploited in a profit-making manner. The most important historical example of the second category (2) is the class situation of the modern ‘proletariat.” Types of ‘Class Struggle’ Thus every class may be the carrier of any one of the possibly innumerable forms of 1,’ but this is not necessarily so: In any case, a class does not in itself constitute a community. To treat ‘class’ conceptually as having the same value as ‘community’ leads to distortion. That men in the same class sit- uation regularly react in mass actions to such tangible situations as economic ones in the direction of those interests that are most ade- quate to their average number is an impor- tant and after all simple fact for the under- standing of historical events. Above all, this fact must not lead to that kind of pseudo-s entific operation with the concepts of ‘class and ‘class interests’ so frequently found these days, and which has found its most classic expression in the statement of a talented au- thor, that the individual may be in error con- cerning his interests but that the ‘class is “in- fallible’ about its interests. Yet, if classes as ‘lass a such are not communities, nevertheless class situations emerge only on the basis of com- munalization. The communal action that brings forth class situations, however, is not basically action between members of the identical class; it is an action between mem- bers of different classes. Communal actions that direcely determine the class situation of Class, Status, Party — 117 the worker and the entrepreneur are: the labor market, the commodities market, and the capitalistic enterprise. But, in its turn, the existence of a capitalistic enterprise pre~ supposes that a very specific communal ac- tion exists and that it is specifically struc tured to protect the possession of goods per se, and especially the power of individuals to dispose, in principle freely, over the means of production. The existence of a capitalistic enterprise is preconditioned by a specific kind of ‘legal order.’ Each kind of class situa tion, and above all when it rests upon the power of property per se, will become most clearly efficacious when all other determi- nants of reciprocal relations are, as far as pos- sible, eliminated in their significance. It is in this way that the utilization of the power of property in the market obtains its most sov- ereign importance. Now ‘status groups’ hinder the strict carry- ing through of the sheer market principle. In the present context they are of interest to us only from this one point of view. Before we briefly consider them, note that not much of a general nature can be said about the more specific kinds of antagoni (in our meaning of the term). The great shift, which has been going on continuously in the past, and up to our times, may be summa- rized, although at the cost of some precision: the struggle in which class situations are ef fective has progressively shifted from con- sumption credit toward, first, competitive struggles in the commodity market and, then, toward price wars on the labor market. The ‘class struggles’ of antiquity—to the ex- tent that they were genuine class struggles and not struggles between status groups— were initially carried on by indebted peas- ants, and pethaps also by artisans threatened by debt bondage and struggling against urban creditors. For debt bondage is the nor- mal result of the differentiation of wealth in commercial cities, especially in seaport cities. A similar situation has existed among cattle breeders. Debr relationships as such produced between ‘classes’118 — Max Weber class action up to the time of Cataline. Along with this, and with an increase in provision of grain for the city by transporting it from the outside, the struggle over the means of sustenance emerged. It centered in the first place around the provision of bread and the determination of the price of bread. It lasted throughout antiquity and the entire Middle Ages. The propertyless as such flocked to- gether against those who actually and sup- posedly were interested in the dearth of bread. This fight spread until it involved all those commodities essential to the way of life and to handicraft production. There were only incipient discussions of wage disputes in antiquity and in the Middle Ages. But they have been slowly increasing up into modern times. In the earlier periods they were com- pletely secondary to slave rebellions as well as to fights in the commodity market. The propertyless of antiquity and of the Middle Ages protested against monopolies, pre-emption, forestalling, and the withhold- ing of goods from the market in order to raise prices. Today the central issue is the de- termination of the price of labor. This transition is represented by the fight for access to the market and for the determi- nation of the price of products. Such fights went on between merchants and workers in the putting-out system of domestic handi- craft during the transition to modern times. Since it is quite a general phenomenon we must mention here that the class antago- nisms that are conditioned through the mar- ket situation are usually most bitter between those who actually and directly participate as opponents in price wars. It is not the rentier, the share-holder, and the banker who suffer the ill will of the worker, but almost exclu- sively the manufacturer and the business ex- ccutives who are the direct opponents of workers in price wars. This is so in spite of the fact that it is precisely the cash boxes of the rentier, the share-holder, and the banker into which the more or less ‘unearned’ gains flow, rather than into the pockets of the manufacturers or of the business executives. This simple state of affairs has very fre- quently been decisive for the role the class situation has played in the formation of po- litical parties. For example, it has made pos- sible the varieties of patriarchal socialism and the frequent attempts—formerly, at least— of threatened status groups to form alliances with the proletariat against the ‘bourgeoisic.” Status Honor In contrast to classes, status groups are nor- mally communities. They are, however, often of an amorphous kind. In contrast to the purely economically determined ‘class situa- tion’ we wish to designate as ‘status situation’ every typical component of the life fate of men that is determined by a specific, positive or negative, social estimation of honor. This honor may be connected with any quality shared by a plurality, and, of course, it can be knit to a class situation: class distinctions are linked in the most varied ways with status distinctions. Property as such is not always recognized as a status qualification, but in the long run itis, and with extraordinary reg- ulatity. In the subsistence economy of the or- ganized neighborhood, very often the richest man is simply the chieftain. However, this often means only an honorific preference. For example, in the so-called pure modern ‘democracy,’ that is, one devoid of any ex- prescly ordered status privileges for individu- als, it may be that only the families coming under approximately the same tax class dance with one another. This example is reported of certain smaller Swiss cities. But status honor need not necessarily be linked with a ‘class situation.’ On the contrary, it normally stands in sharp opposition to the pretensions of sheer property. Both propertied and propertyless people can belong to the same status group, and fre- quently they do with very tangible conse- quences. This ‘equality’ of social esteem may, however, in the long run become quite pre-carious. The ‘equality’ of status among the American ‘gentlemen,’ for instance, is ex- pressed by the fact that outside the subord nation determined by the different functions of ‘business,’ it would be considered strictly repugnant—wherever the old tradition still prevails—if even the richest ‘chief,’ while playing billiards or cards in his club in the evening, would not treat his ‘clerk’ as in every sense fully his equal in birthright. It would be repugnant if the American ‘chief? would bestow upon his ‘clerk’ the conde- scending ‘benevolence’ marking a distinc tion of ‘position,’ which the German chief can never dissever from his attitude. Th one of the most important reasons why in ‘America the German ‘clubby-ness’ has never been able to attain the attraction that the American clubs have. Guarantees of Status Stratification In content, status honor is normally ex- pressed by the fact that above all else a spe- cific style of life can be expected from all those who wish to belong to the circle. Linked with this expectation are restri on ‘social’ intercourse (that is, intercourse which is not subservient to economic or any other of business’ ‘functional’ purposes). ‘These restrictions may confine normal mar- riages to within the status circle and may lead to complete endogamous closure. As soon as ther socially irrelevant imitation of another style of life, but an agreed-upon communal ac- tion of this closing character, the ‘status’ de- velopment is under way. In its characteristic form, stratification by ‘status groups’ on the basis of conventional styles of life evolves at the present time in the United States out of the traditional democracy. For example, only the resident of a certain street (‘the street’) is considered as belonging to ‘society,’ is qualified for so- ed and invited. Above all, this differentiation evolves in such not a mere individual and cial intercourse, and is vi Class, Status, Party — 119 a way as to make for strict submission to the fashion that is dominant at a given time in society. This submission to fashion also ex- ists among men in America to a degree un- known in Germany. Such submission is con- sidered to be an indication of the fact that a given man pretends to qualify as a gentle- man. This submission decides, at least prima facie, that he will be treated as such. And this recognition becomes just as important for his employment chances in ‘swank’ es- tablishments, and above all, for social inter- course and marriage with ‘esteemed’ fami- lies, as the qualification for dueling among Germans in the Kaiser's day. As for the rest: certain families resident for a long time, and, of course, correspondingly wealthy, e.g. ‘EB V., ie. First Fami ies of Virginia,’ or the ac- tual of alleged descendants of the ‘Indian Princess’ Pocahontas, of the Pilgrim fathers, or of the Knickerbockers, the members of al- most inaccessible sects and all sorts of circles setting themselves apart by means of any other characteristics and badges ... all these elements usurp ‘status’ honor. The develop- ment of status is essentially a question of stratification resting upon usurpation. Such usurpation is the normal origin of almost all status honor. But the road from this purely Be, positive or negative, is easily traveled as soon as a certain stratification of the social order has in fact been ‘lived in’ and has achieved stability by virtue of a stable distribution of conventional situation to legal p: economic power. ‘Ethnic’ Segregation and ‘Caste’ Where the consequences have been realized to their full extent, the status group evolves into a closed ‘caste.’ Status distinctions are then guaranteed not merely by conventions and laws, but also by rituals. This occurs in such a way that every physical contact with a member of any caste that is considered to be ‘lower’ by the members of a ‘higher’ caste is considered as making for a ritualistic impurity120 - Max Weber and to be a stigma which must be expiated by a religious act. Individual castes develop quite distince cults and gods. In general, however, the status structure reaches such extreme consequences only where there are underlying differences which are held to be ‘ethnic. The ‘caste’ is, indeed, the normal form in which ethnic communi- ties usually live side by side in a ‘societalized” manner. These ethnic communities believe in blood relationship and exclude exogamous marriage and social intercourse. Such a caste situation is part of the phenomenon of ‘pariah’ peoples and is found all over the world. These people form communi quire specific occupational traditions of handicrafts or of other arts, and cultivate a belief in their ethnic community. They live in a ‘diaspora’ strictly segregated from all per- sonal intercourse, except that of an unavoid- able sort, and thei ious. Yet, by virtue of their economic indispensability, they are tolerated, indeed, frequently privileged, and they live spersed political communities. The Jews are the most impressive historical example. A ‘status’ segregation grown into a ‘caste’ differs in its structure from a mere ‘ethnic’ segregation: the caste structure transforms the horizontal and unconnected coexistences of ethnically segregated groups into a vertical social system of super- and subordination. Correctly formulated: a comprchensive soci- etalization integrates the ethnically divided communities into specific political and com- munal action. In their consequences they dif- fer precisely in this way: ethnic coexistences condition a mutual repulsion and disdain but allow each ethnic community to consider its own honor as the highest one; the caste structure brings about a social subordination and an acknowledgment of ‘more honor’ in favor of the privileged caste and status groups. This is due to the fact that in the caste structure ethnic distinctions as such have become ‘functional’ distinctions within the political societalization (warriors, priests, artisans that are politically important for war and for building, and so on). But even pariah people who are most despised are usually apt to continue cultivating in some manner that which is equally peculiar to ethnic and to sta- tus communities: che belief in their own spe- cific ‘honor’ This is the case with the Jews. Only with the negatively privileged status groups does the ‘sense of dignity’ take a spe- cific deviation. A sense of dignity is the pre- cipitation in individuals of social honor and of conventional demands which a positively privileged status group raises for the deport- ment of its members. The sense of dignity that characterizes positively privileged status groups is naturally related to their ‘being’ which does not transcend itself, that is, it is to their ‘beauty and excellence.’ Their king- dom is ‘of this world.’ They live for the pre- sent and by exploiting their great past. The sense of dignity of the negatively privileged strata naturally refers to a future lying be- yond the present, whether itis of this life or of another. In other words, it must be nur- tured by the belief in a providential ‘mission’ and by a belief in a specific honor before God. The ‘chosen people’? dignity is nur- tured by a belief either that in the beyond ‘the last will be the first’ or that in this life a Messiah will appear to bring forth into the light of the world which has cast them out the hidden honor of the pariah people. This simple state of affairs, and not the ‘resent- ment’ which is so strongly emphasized in Nietasche’s much admired construction in the Genealogy of Morals, is the source of the religiosity cultivated by pariah status groups. In passing, we may note that resentment may be accurately applied only to a limited extent; for one of Nietzsche's main examples, Bud- dhism, ic is not at all applicable. Incidentally, the development of status groups from ethnic segregations is by no means the normal phenomenon. On the contrary, since objective ‘racial differences’ are by no means basic to every subjective sen- timent of an ethnic community, the ulti-mately racial foundation of status structure is rightly and absolutely a question of the con- crete individual case. Very frequently a status group is instrumental in the production of a thoroughbred anthropological type. Cer- tainly a stacus group is to a high degree effec- tive in producing extreme types, for they se- lect personally qualified individuals (e.g. the Knighthood selects those who are fit for war- fare, physically and psychically). But selec- tion is far from being the only, or the pre- dominant, way in which status groups are formed: Political membership or class situa- tion has at all times been at least as fre- quently decisive. And today the class tion is by far the predominant factor, for of course the possibility of a style of life ex- pected for members of a status group is usu- ally conditioned economically. Status ges For all practical purposes, stratification by status goes hand in hand with a monopoliza- tion of ideal and material goods or opportu- nities, in a manner we have come to know as typical. Besides the specific status honor, which always rests upon distance and exclu- siveness, we find all sorts of material monop- olics. Such honorific preferences may consist of the privilege of wearing special costumes, of eating special dishes taboo to others, of carrying arms—which is most obvious in its consequences—the right to pursue certain non-professional dilettante artistic practices, eg. to play certain musical course, material monopolies provide the most effective motives for the exclusiveness of a sta- tus group; although, in themselves, they are rarely sufficient, almost always they come into play to some extent. Within a status cir- cle there is the question of intermarriage: the interest of the families in the monopolization of potential bridegrooms is at least of equal importance and is parallel to the interest in the monopolization of daughters. The daugh- ters of the circle must be provided for. Wich struments. Of Class, Status, Party — 121 an increased inclosure of the status group, the conventional preferential opportunities for special employment grow into a legal monop- oly of special offices for the members. Certain goods become objects for monopolization by status groups. In the typical fashion these in- clude ‘entailed estates’ and frequently also the possessions of serfs or bondsmen and, finally, special trades. This monopolization occurs positively when the status group is exclusively entitled to own and to manage them; and negatively when, in order to maintain its spe- cific way of life, the status group must nor own and manage them. The decisive role of a ‘style of life’ in status ‘honor’ means that status groups are the spe- cific bearers of all ‘conventions.’ In whatever way it may be manifest, al ‘seylization’ of life cither originates in status groups or is at least conserved by them. Even if the principles of status conventions differ greatly, they reveal certain typical traits, especially among those strata which are most privileged. Quite gen- rally, among privileged status groups there is a status disqualification that operates against the performance of common physical labor. This disqualification is now ‘setting in’ in ‘America against the old tradition of esteem for labor. Very frequently every rational eco- nomic pursuit, and especially ‘entrepreneur- ial activity,’ is looked upon as a disqualifica- tion of status. Artistic and literary activity is also considered as degrading work as soon as it is exploited for income, or at least when it is connected with hard physical exertion. An example is the sculptor working like a mason in his dusty smock as over against the painter in his salon-like ‘studio’ and those forms of musical practice that are acceptable to the status group. Economic Conditions and Effects of Status Stratification The frequent disqualification of the gainfully employed as such is a direct result of the principle of status stratification peculiar to the122 - Max Weber social order, and of course, of this principle’s opposition to a distribution of power which is regulated exclusively through the market. ‘These two factors operate along with vari- ous individual ones, which will be touched upon below. ‘We have seen above that the market and its processes ‘knows no personal distine- tions’: ‘functional’ interests dominate it. It knows nothing of ‘honor.’ The status order means precisely the reverse, viz.: stratifica- tion in terms of ‘honor’ and of styles of life peculiar to status groups as such. If mere economic acquisition and naked economic power still bearing the stigma of its extra- status origin could bestow upon anyone who has won it the same honor as those who are interested in status by virtue of style of life claim for themselves, the status order would be threatened at its very root. ‘This is the more so as, given equality of sta- tus honor, property per se represents an ad- dition even if it is not overtly acknowledged to be such. Yet if such economic acquisition and power gave the agent any honor at all, his wealth would result in his attaining more honor than those who successfully claim honor by virtue of style of life. There- fore all groups having interests in the status order react with special sharpness precisely against the pretensions of purely economic acquisition. In most cases they react the more vigorously the more they feel them- selves threatened. Calderon’s respectful treatment of the peasant, for instance, as opposed to Shakespeare's simultancous and ostensible disdain of the canaille illustrates the different way in which a firmly struc- tured status order reacts as compared with a status order that has become economically precarious. This is an example of a state of affairs that recurs everywhere. Precisely be- cause of the rigorous reactions against the claims of property per se, the ‘parvenu’ is never accepted, personally and without reservation, by the privileged status groups, no matter how completely his style of life has been adjusted to theirs. They will only accept his descendants who have been edu- cated in the conventions of their status group and who have never besmirched its honor by their own economic labor. As to the general effect of the status order, only one consequence can be stated, but it is a very important one: the hindrance of the free development of the market occurs first for those goods which status groups directly withheld from free exchange by monopoliza- tion, This monopolization may be effected ther legally or conventionally. For example, in many Hellenic cities during the epoch of sta- tus groups, and also originally in Rome, the inherited estate (as is shown by the old for- mula for indication against spendthrifis) was monopolized just as were the estates of knights, peasants, priests, and especially the clientele of the craft and merchant guilds. ‘The market is restricted, and the power of naked property per se, which gives its stamp to ‘class formation,’ is pushed into the back- ground. The results of this process can be most varied. OF course, they do not necessar- ily weaken the contrasts in the economic situ- ation. Frequently they strengthen these con- trasts, and in any case, where stratification by status permeates a community as strongly as was the case in all political communities of antiquity and of the Middle Ages, one can never speak of a genuinely free market com- petition as we understand it today. There are wider effects than this direct exclusion of spe- cial goods from the market. From the contra riety between the status order and the purely economic order mentioned above, it follows that in most instances the notion of honor peculiar to status absolutely abhors that which is essential to the market: higgling. Honor abhors higgling among peers and oc- casionally it taboos higgling for the members of a status group in general. Therefore, every- where some status groups, and usually the most influential, consider almost any kind of overt participation in economic acquisition as absolutely stigmatizing.With some over-simplification, one might thus say that ‘classes’ are stratified according to their relations to the production and ac- quisition of goods; whereas ‘status groups’ are stratified according to the principles of their consumption of goods as represented by special ‘styles of life.” An ‘occupational group’ is also a status group. For normally, it successfully claims so- cial honor only by virtue of the special style of life which may be determined by it. The differences between classes and status groups frequently overlap. It is precisely those status communities most strictly segregated in terms of honor (viz. the Indian castes) who today show, although within very rigid lim- its, a relatively high degree of indifference to pecuniary income. However, the Brahmins seek such income in many different ways. As to the general economic conditions making for the predominance of stratification by ‘status,’ only very little can be said. When the bases of the acquisition and distribution of goods are relatively stable, stratification by status is favored. Every technological reper- cussion and economic transformation threat- ens stratification by status and pushes the class situation into the foreground. Epochs and countries in which the naked class situa- tion is of predominant significance are regu- larly the periods of technical and economic transformations. And every slowing down of the shifting of economic stratifications leads, in due course, to the growth of status struc- tures and makes for a resuscitation of the im- portant role of social honor. Parties ‘Whereas the genuine place of ‘classes’ is within the economic order, the place of ‘status groups’ is within the social order, that is, within the sphere of the distribution of ‘honor.’ From within these spheres, classes and status groups influence one another and they influence the legal order and are in turn influenced by it. But ‘parties live in a house of ‘power’ Class, Status, Party — 123 Their action is oriented toward the acqui- sition of social ‘power, that is to say, toward influencing a communal action no matter what its content may be. In principle, parties may exist in a social ‘club’ as well as in a ‘state.’ As over against the actions of classes and status groups, for which this is not nec- essarily the case, the communal actions of ‘parties’ always mean a societalization. For party actions are always directed toward a goal which is striven for in planned manner. This goal may be a ‘cause’ (the party may aim at realizing a program for ideal or material purposes), or the goal may be ‘personal’ (sinecures, power, and from these, honor for the leader and the followers of the party). Usually the party action aims at all these si- multancously. Parties are, therefore, only possible within communities that are soci- etalized, that is, which have some rational order and a staff of persons a ready to enforce it. For parties aim precisely at influencing this staff, and if possible, to re- cruict it from party followers. In any individual case, parties may repre- sent interests determined through ‘class situ- ation’ or ‘status situation,” and they may re- cruit their following respectively from one or the other. Bur they need be neither purely ‘class’ nor purely ‘status’ parties. In most cases they are partly class parties and partly status parties, but sometimes they are nei- ther. They may represent ephemeral or en- during structures. Their means of attaining power may be quite varied, ranging from naked violence of any sort to canvassing for votes with coarse or subtle means: money, so- cial influence, the force of speech, sugges- tion, clumsy hoax, and so on to the rougher or more artful tactics of obstruction in par- liamentary bodies. The sociological structure of parties differs in a basic way according to the kind of com- munal action which they struggle to influ- ence. Parties also differ according to whether or not the community is stratified by status or by classes, Above al else, they vary according ible who are126 - Max Weber to the structure of domination within the community. For their leaders normally deal with the conquest of a community. They are, in the general concept which is maintained here, not only products of specially modern forms of domination. We shall also designate as parties the ancient and medieval ‘parties,’ despite the fact that their structure differs ba- sically from the structure of modern parties. By virtue of these structural differences of domination it is impossible to say anything about the structure of parties without dis- cussing the structural forms of social domi- nation per se. Parties, which are always struc- tures struggling for domination, are very frequently organized in a very strict ‘authori- tarian’ fashion. .. Concerning ‘classes,’ ‘status groups,’ and ‘parties,’ it must be said in general that they necessarily presuppose a comprehensive soci- etalization, and especially a political frame- work of communal action, within which they operate. This does not mean that parties would be confined by the frontiers of any in- dividual political community. On the con- trary, at all times it has been the order of the day that the societalization (even when it aims at the use of military force in common) = Max Weber reaches beyond the frontiers of politics. This has been the case in the solidarity of interests among the Oligarchs and among the democ- rats in Hellas, among the Guelfs and among Ghibellines in the Middle Ages, and within the Calvinist party during the period of reli- gious struggles. It has been the case up to the solidarity of the landlords (international con- gress of agrarian landlords), and has contin- ued among princes (holy alliance, Karlsbad decrees), socialist workers, conservatives (the longing of Prussian conservatives for Russian intervention in 1850). Bur their aim is not necessarily the establishment of new interna- tional political, ic. territorial, dominion. In the main they aim to influence the existing dominion? Notes 1. Wirschaf und Gesellichaft, part Il, chap. 4, pp. 631-40. The firs sentence in paragraph one and the several definitions in this chapter which are in brack- ets do not appear in the original text. They have been taken from other contexts of Wirtschaft und Gesellhafi. 2. The posthumously published text breaks off here. We omit an incomplete sketch of types of ‘war Status Groups and Classes The Concepts of Class and Class Situation The term ‘class situation’! will be applied to the typical probability thar a given state of (2) provision with goods, (b) external condi- tions of life, and (c) subjective satisfaction or frustration will be possessed by an individual or a group. These probabilities define class situation in so far as they are dependent on the kind and extent of control or lack of it Max Weber. “Status Groups and Classes,” in The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, eansated by A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons, pp. 424-429. Copyright © 1947 by Talcott Parsons; copyright renewed in 1975 by ‘Taleote Parsons. Reprinted with the permission of the Fre Press, a Division of Simon and Schuster, Inc.which the individual has over goods or ser- vices and existing possibilities of their ex- ploication for the attainment of income or receipts within a given economic order. A ‘class’ is any group of persons occupying the same class situation. The following types of classes may be distinguished: (a) A class is a ‘property class’ when class situation for its members is primarily determined by the dif- ferentiation of property holdings; (b) a clas is an ‘acquisition class’ when the class situation of its members is primarily determined by their opportunity for the exploitation of ser- vices on the market; (c) the ‘social class’ struc- ture is composed of the plurality of class situ- ations between which an interchange of individuals on a personal basis or in the course of generations is readily possible and typically observable. On the basis of any of the three types of class situation, associative relation- ships between those sharing the same clas terests, namely, corporate class organizations may develop. This need not, however, neces- sarily happen. The concepts of class and class situation as such designate only the fact of identity or similarity in the typical situation in which a given individual and many others find their interests defined. In principle con- ol over different combinations of consumer goods, means of production, investments, capital funds or marketable abilities constitute class situations which are different with each variation and combination. Only persons who are completely unskilled, without property and dependent on employment without regu- lar occupation, are in a strictly identical class situation. Transitions from one class situation to another vary greatly in Auidity and in the ease with which an individual can enter the class. Hence the unity of ‘social’ classes is highly relative and variable. The Sig ‘The primary significance of a positively privi- leged property class lies in the following facts: i Its members may be able to monopolize icance of Property Classes Status Groups and Classes - 125 the purchase of high-priced consumer goods. (ii) They may control the opportunities of pursuing a systematic monopoly policy in the sale of economic goods. (iii) They may mo- nopolize opportuniti of property through unconsumed surpluses. (iv) They may monopolize opportunities to accumulate capital by saving, hence, the possi- bility of investing property in loans and the re- lated possibility of control over executive posi- tions in business. (v) They may monopolize the privileges of socially advantageous kinds of education so far as these involve expenditures. Positively privileged property classes typi- cally live from property income. This may be derived from property rights in human be- ings, as with slaveowners, in land, in mining property, in fixed equipment such as plant and apparatus, in ships, and as creditors in loan relationships. Loans may consist of do- mestic animals, grain, or money. Finally they may live on income from securities. Class interests which are negatively privi- leged with respect to property belong typi- ally to one of the following types: (a) They are themselves objects of ownership, that is they are unfree. (b) They are ‘outcasts, that is ‘proletarians’ in the sense meant in Antiquity. (0) They are debtor classes and, (4) the ‘poor: In between stand the ‘middle’ classes. This for the accumulation erm includes groups who have all sorts of property, or of marketable abilities through training, who are in a position to draw their support from these sources. Some of them may be ‘acquisition’ classes. Entrepreneurs are in this category by virtue of essentially positive privileges; proletarians, by virtue of negative privileges. But many types such as peasants, craftsmen, and officials do not fall in this category. The differentiation of classes on the basis of property alone is not ‘dynamic,’ that is, it does not necessarily result in class struggles or class revolutions. It is not uncommon for very strongly privileged property classes, such as slaveowners, to exist side by side with such far less privileged groups as peasants or even128 - Max Weber outcasts without any class struggle. There may even be ties of solidarity between privi- leged property classes and unfree elements. However, such conflicts as that between land owners and outcast elements or between creditors and debtors, the latter often being a question of urban patricians as opposed to cither rural peasants or urban craftsmen, may lead to revolutionary conflict. Even this, however, need not necessarily aim at radical changes in economic organization. It may, on the contrary, be concerned in the first in- stance only with a redistribution of wealth. These may be called ‘property revolutions’ A classic example of the lack of class antago- nism has been the relation of the ‘poor white trash,’ originally those not owning slaves, to the planters in the Southern States of the United States. The ‘poor whites’ have often been much more hostile to the Negro than the planters who have frequently had a large ele- ment of patriarchal sentiment. The conflict of outcast against the property classes, of creditors and debtors, and of landowners and outcasts are best illustrated in the history of Antiquity. The Significance of Acq and Social Classes jon ‘The primary significance of a positively priv- ileged acquisition class is to be found in two directions. On the one hand it is generally possible to go far toward attaining a monop- oly of the management of productive enter- prises in favour of the members of the class and their business interests. On the other hand, such a class tends to insure the security of its economic position by exercising influ- ence on the economic policy of political bod- ies and other groups. The members of positively privileged ac- quisition classes are typically entrepreneurs. The following are the most important types: merchants, shipowners, industrial and agri cultural entrepreneurs, bankers and fi nanciers. Under certain circumstances two other types are also members of such classes, namely, members of the ‘liberal’ professions with a privileged position by virtue of their abilities or training, and workers with special skills commanding a monopolistic position, regardless of how far they are hereditary or the result of training. Acquisition classes in a negatively privi- leged situation are workers of the various principal types. They may be roughly clas fied as skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled. In this connexion as well as the above, in- dependent peasants and craftsmen are to be treated as belonging to the ‘middle classes.” This category often includes in addition offi- cials, whether they are in public or private employment, the liberal professions, and workers with exceptional monopolistic assets or positions. Examples of ‘social classes’ are: (a) The ‘working’ class as a whole. Ie approaches this type the more completely mechanized the productive process becomes. (b) The petty bourgeoisie.? (c) The ‘intelligentsia’ without independent property and the persons whose social position is primarily dependent on tech- nical training such as engineers, commercial and other officials, and civil servants. These groups may differ greatly among themselves, in particular according to costs of training. (4) The classes occupying a privileged position through property and education. The unfinished concluding section of Karl Marx’s Kapital was evidently intended to deal with the problem of the class unity of the proletariat, which he held existed in spite of the high degree of qualitative differentiation. ‘A decisive factor is the increase in the impor- tance of semi-skilled workers who have been trained in a relatively short time directly on the machines themselves, at the expense of the older type of ‘skilled’ labour and also of unskilled. However, even this type of skill may often have a monopolistic aspect. ‘Weavers are said to attain the highest level of productivity only after five years’ experience. ‘At an earlier period every worker could be said to have been primarily interested in be-coming an independent small bourgeois, but the possibility of realizing this goal is becom- ing progressively smaller. From one generation to another the most readily available path to advancement both for skilled and semi-skilled workers is into the class of technically trained individuals. In the most highly privileged classes, at least over the period of more than one generation, it is coming more and more to be true that money is overwhelmingly deci- sive. Through the banks and corporate enter- prises members of the lower middle class and the salaried groups have certain opportunities to rise into the privileged class. Organized activity of class groups is favoured by the following circumstances: (a) The possibility of concentrating on oppo- nents where the immediate conflict of inter- ests is vital. Thus workers organize against management and not against security holders who are the ones who really draw income without working, Similarly peasants are not apt to organize against landlords. (b) The ex- istence of a class situation which is typically similar for large masses of people. (c) The technical possibility of being easily brought together. This is particularly true where large numbers work together in a small area, as in the modern factory. (d) Leadership directed to readily understandable goals. Such goals are very generally imposed or at least are in- terpreted by persons, such as intelligentsia, who do not belong to the class in question. Status and Status Group ‘The term of ‘status? will be applied to a typ- ically effective claim to positive or negative privilege with respect to social prestige so far as it rests on one or more of the following bases: (a) mode of living, (b) a formal process of education which may consist in empirical or rational training and the acquisition of the corresponding modes of life, or (c) on the prestige of birth, or of an occupation. The primary practical manifestations of status with respect to social stratification are Status Groups and Classes - 127 conubium, commensality, and often monop- olistic appropriation of privileged economic opportunities and also prohibition of certain modes of acquisition. Finally, there are con- ventions or traditions of other types attached ro a status. Status may be based on class situation di- rectly or related to it in complex ways. It is not, however, determined by this alone. Prop- erty and managerial positions are not as such sufficient to lend their holder a certain status, though they may well lead to its acquisition. Similarly, poverty is not as such a disqualifica- tion for high status though again it may in- fluence it. Conversely, status may partly or even wholly determine class situation, without, however, being identical with it. The class situation of an officer, a civil servant, and a student as determined by their income may be widely different while their status remains the same, because they adhere to the same mode of life in all relevant respects as a result of their common education. ‘A ‘seatus group’ is a plurality of individuals who, within a larger group, enjoy a particular kind and level of prestige by position and possibly also claim certain spe- cial monopolies. ‘The following are the most important sources of the development of distinct status groups: (a) The most important is by the de- velopment of a peculiar style of life includ- ing, particularly, the type of occupation pur- sued. (b) The second basis is hereditary charisma arising from the successful claim ro a position of prestige by virtue of birth. (©) The third is the appropriation of political or hierocratic authority as a monopoly by socially distinct groups. The development of hereditary status groups is usually a form of the hereditary ap- propriation of privileges by an organized group or by individual qualified persons. Every well- established case of appropriation of opportuni ties and abilities, especially of exercising imper- ative powers, has a tendency to lead to the tue of their128 - Max We development of distinct status groups. Con- versely, the development of status groups has a tendency in turn to lead to the monopolistic appropriation of governing powers and of the corresponding economic advantages. Acquisition classes are favoured by an eco- nomic system oriented to market situations, whereas status groups develop and subsist most readily where economic organization is of a monopolistic and liturgical character and where the economic needs of corporate groups are met on a feudal or patrimonial basis. The type of class which is most closely related to a status group is the ‘social’ class, while the ‘acquisition’ class is the farthest re- moved. Property classes often constitute the nucleus of a status group. Every society where status groups play a prominent partis controlled to a large extent by conventional rules of conduct. Ie thus cre- ates economically irrational conditions of consumption and hinders the development = Max Weber of free markets by monopolistic appropria~ tion and by restricting free disposal of the in- dividual’s own economic ability. This will have to be discussed further elsewhere. Notes 1. Although Parsons chooses to translate Kise as ‘class status’ in this context, to do so is potentially confusing because Weber so carefully distinguishes between the concepts of class and status. I have therefore followed the lead of Roth and Wittich (Economy and Society 1968) and opted for the term. ‘class situation’ throughout this essay —ED. 2. [have again followed Roth and Wittich (Eeon- ‘omy and Society, 1968) in translating the German term Kleinbiigertum as ‘petty bourgeoisie,” whereas Parsons opted for the more ambiguous term ‘lower middle’ class —Eo. 3. For the purposes of consistency with the other selections, I have translated the term stindische Lage as ‘status’ (see Roth and Wittich, Economy and Soci- 2%, 1968), whereas Parsons opted for the terms ‘so- cial status, ‘stratifactory status,” and the like Eo. Open and Closed Relationships Social Relationships A social relationship, regardless of whether it is communal or associative in character, will be spoken of as “open” to outsiders if and in- sofar as its system of order does not deny participation to anyone who wishes to join and is actually in a position to do so. A rela- tionship will, on the other hand, be called “closed” against outsiders so far as, accord- ing to its subjective meaning and its binding rules, participation of certain persons is ex- cluded, limited, or subjected to conditions. Whether a relationship is open or closed may be determined traditionally, affectually, or rationally in terms of values or of expedi- ency. It is especially likely to be closed, for rational reasons, in the following type of uation: a social relationship may provide the parties to it with opportunities for the s faction of spiritual or material interests, whether absolutely or instrumentally, or whether it is achieved through co-operative action or by a compromise of interests. If the participants expect that the admission of Max Weber. “Open and Closed Relationships,” in Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, eds., Economy and Society, Vol. 1, pp. 43-46, 341-342, 344. Copyright © 1968 by Taylor & Francis Books, Ltd. Used by permission of Routledge, Led.others will lead to an improvement of their situation, an improvement in degree, in kind, in the security or the value of the sat- isfaction, their interest will be in keeping the relationship open. If, on the other hand, their expectations are of improving their po- sition by monopolistic tactics, their interest is in a closed relationship. ‘There are various ways in which it is possible for a closed social relationship to guarantee its monopolized advantages to the parties. (a) Such advantages may be left free to competi- tive struggle within the group; (b) they may be regulated or rationed in amount and kind, or (© they may be appropriated by individuals or sub-groups on a permanent basis and become more or less inalienable. The last is a case of closure within, as well as against outsiders. Ap- propriated advantages will be called “tights.” ‘As determined by the relevant order, appropri- ation may be (1) for the benefit of the mem- bers of particular communal or associative groups (For instance, household groups), or (2) for the benefit of individuals. In the latter case, the individual may enjoy his rights on a purely. personal basis or in such a way that in case of his death one or more other persons related to the holder of the right by birth (kinship), or by some other social relationship, may inherit the rights in question. Or the rights may pass to one or more individuals specifically designated by the holder. These are cases of hereditary ap- propriation, Finally, (3) it may be that the holder is more or less fully empowered to alienate his rights by voluntary agreement, ei- ther to other specific persons or to anyone he chooses. This is alienable appropriation. A party to a closed social relationship will be called a “member”; in case his participation is regulated in such a way as to guarantee him appropriated advantages, a privileged member (Rechtsgenosse). Appropriated rights which are enjoyed by individuals through inheritance or by hereditary groups, whether communal or associative, will be called the “property” of the individual or of groups in question; and, inso- far as they are alienable, “free” property. Open and Closed Relationships — 129 The apparently gratuitous tediousness in- volved in the elaborate definition of the above concepts is an example of the fact that we often neglect to think out clearly what seems t0 be obvious, because it is intuitively familiar. 1. a. Examples of communal relationships, which tend to be closed on a traditional basis, are those in which membership is de- termined by family relationship. b. Personal emotional relationships are usually affectually closed. Examples are erotic relationships and, very commonly, relations of personal loyalty. ¢. Closure on the basis of value-rational commitment to values is usual in groups sharing a common system of explicit reli- gious belief. d. Typical cases of rational closure on grounds of expediency are economic associ- ations of a monopolistic or a plutocratic character. ‘A few examples may be taken at random. Whether a group of people engaged in con- versation is open or closed depends on its content. General conversation is apt to be open, as contrasted with intimate conversa tion or the imparting of official information. Market relationships are in most, or at least in many, cases essentially open. In the case of many relationships, both communal and as- sociative, there is a tendency to shift from a phase of expansion to one of exclusiveness. Examples are the guilds and the democratic city-states of Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Ac times these groups sought to increase their membership in the interest of improving the security of their position of power by ade- quate numbers. At other times they restricted their membership to protect the value of their monopolistic position. The same phenome- non is not uncommon in monastic orders and religious sects which have passed from a stage of religious proselytizing to one of re- striction in the interest of the maintenance of | standard or for the protection of an ethi130 — Max Weber material interests. There is a similar close rela- tionship between the extension of market re- lationships in the interest of increased turnover on the one hand, their monopolistic 2 on the other. The promotion of linguistic uniformity is today a nacural result of the interests of publishers and writers, as opposed to the earlier, not uncommon, ten- dency for status groups to maintain linguis- tic peculiarities or even for secret languages to emerge. 2. Both the extent and the methods of regu- lation and exclusion in relation co outsiders may vary widely, so that the transition from a state of openness to one of regulation and clo- sure is gradual. Various conditions of participa- tion may be laid down; qualifying tests, a pe- riod of probation, requirement of possession of a share which can be purchased under certain conditions, clection of new members by ballot, membership or eligibility by birth or by virtue of achievements open to anyone. Finally, in case of closure and the appropriation of rights within the group, participation may be depen- dent on the acquisition of an appropriated right. There is a wide variety of different de- grees of closure and of conditions of partic tion. Thus regulation and closure are relative concepts. There are all manner of gradual shadings as between an exclusive club, a the- atrical audience the members of which have purchased tickets, and a party rally to which the largest possible number has been urged to come; similarly, from a church service open to the general public through the rituals ofa lim- ited sect to the mysteries of a secret cult. 3. Similarly, closure within the group may also assume the most varied forms. Thus a caste, a guild, or a group of stock exchange brokers, which is closed to outsiders, may allow to its members a perfectly free competi- tion for all the advantages which the group as a whole monopolizes for itself. Or it may as- sign every member strictly to the enjoyment of certain advantages, such as claims over cus- tomers or particular business opportunities, for life or even on a hereditary basis. This is particularly characteristic of India. Similarly, a closed group of settlers (Markgenossenschaft) may allow its members free use of the re- sources of its area or may restrict them rigidly to a plot assigned to each individual house- hold. A closed group of colonists may allow free use of the land or sanction and guarantee permanent appropriation of separate hold- ings. In such cases all conceivable transitional and intermediate forms can be found. Histor- ically, the closure of eligibility to fiefs, benefices, and offices within the group, and the appropriation on the part of those enjoy- ing them, have occurred in the most varied forms. Similarly, the establishment of rights to and possession of particular jobs on the part of workers may develop all the way from the “closed shop” to aright to a particular job. ‘The first step in this development may be to prohibit the dismissal of a worker without the consent of the workers’ representatives. The development of the “works councils” (in Ger many after 1918] might be a first step in this direction, though it need not be... 4. The principal motives for closure of a re- lationship are: (a) The maintenance of quality, which is often combined with the interest in prestige and the consequent opportunities to enjoy honor, and even profit; examples are communities of ascetics, monastic orders, es- pecially, for instance, the Indian mendicant orders, religious sects like the Puritans, orga- nized groups of warriors, of ministeriales and other functionaries, organized citizen bodies as in the Greek states, craft guilds; (b) the con- traction of advantages in relation to consump- tion needs (Nahrungupielraum); examples are monopolies of consumption, the most devel- oped form of which is a self-subsistent village community; (c) the growing scarcity of oppor- tunities for acquisition (Erwerbsspielraum).. This is found in trade monopolies such as guilds, the ancient monopolies of fishing rights, and so on. Usually motive (a) is com- bined with (b) or (6)...Economic Relationships One frequent economic determinant [of clo- sure] is the competition for a livelihood — offices, clients and other remunerative oppor- tunities. When the number of competitors increases in relation to the profit span, the participants become interested in curbing competition. Usually one group of competi- tors takes some externally identifiable charac- teristic of another group of (actual or poten- tial) competitors—race, language, religion, local or social origin, descent, residence, etc—as a pretext for attempting their exclu- sion. It does not matter which characteristic chosen in the individual case: whatever sug- gests itself most easily is seized upon. Such group action may provoke a corresponding reaction on the part of those against whom it is directed. In spite of their continued competition against one another, the jointly acting com- peticors now form an “interest group” toward outsiders; there is a growing tendency to set up some kind of association with rational regulations; if the monopolistic interests per- sist, the time comes when the competitors, or another group whom they can influence (for example, a political community), estab- lish a legal order that limits competition through formal monopolies: from then on, certain persons are available as “organs” to protect the monopolistic practices, if need be, with force. In such a case, the group has developed into a “legally privileged group” (Rechtsgemeinschaft) and the par pants have become ‘privileged members” (Rechtigenossen). Such closure, as we want to call it, is an ever-recurting process; it is the source of property in land as well as of all guild and other group monopolies. The tendency toward the monopolization of specific, usually economic opportunities is always the driving force in such cases as: “co- operative organization,” which always means closed monopolistic groups, for example, of rerest Open and Closed Relationships — 131 fishermen taking their name from a certain fishing area; the establishment of an associa- tion of engineering graduates, which seeks to secure a legal, or at least factual, monopoly over certain positions; the exclusion of out- siders from sharing in the fields and com- mons of a village; “patriotic” associations of shop clerks; the ministeriales, knights, univer- sity graduates and craftsmen of a given re- gion or locality; ex-soldiers entitled to civil service positions—all these groups first en- gage in some joint action (Gemeinschafis- handeln) and later perhaps an explicit asso- ciation. This monopolization is directed against competitors who share some posi- tive or negative characteristics; its purpose is always the closure of social and economic opportunities to outsiders. Its extent may vary widely, especially so far as the group member shares in the apportionment of monopolistic advantages. .. This monopolistic tendency takes on spe- cific forms when groups are formed by per- sons with shared qualities acquired through upbringing, apprenticeship and training. These characteristics may be economic qual- ifications of some kind, the holding of the same or of similar offices, a knightly or as- cetic way of life, etc. If in such a case an as- sociation results from social action, it tends roward the guild, Full members make a voca- tion out of monopolizing the disposition of spiritual, intellectual, social and economic goods, duties and positions. Only those are admitted to the unrestricted practice of the vocation who (1) have completed a novitiate in order to acquire the proper training, (2) have proven their qualification, and (3) sometimes have passed through further wait- ing periods and met additional requirements. This development follows a typical pattern in groups ranging from the juvenile student fraternities, through knightly associations and craft-guilds, to the qualifications re- quired of the modern officials and employ- ces. It is true that the interest in guaranteeing132 - Anthony Gidd an efficient performance may everywhere have some importance; the participants may desire it for idealistic or materialistic reasons in spite of their possibly continuing competi- tion with one another: local craftsmen may desire it for the sake of their business reputa~ tion, ministeriales and knights of a given as- sociation for the sake of their professional reputation and also their own military secu- rity, and ascetic groups for fear that the gods and demons may turn their wrath against all members because of faulty manipulations. 14 Il Anthony Giddens (For example, in almost all primitive tribes, persons who sang falsely during a ritual dance were originally slain in expiation of such an offense.) But normally this concern for efficient performance recedes behind the interest in limiting the supply of candidates for the benefices and honors of a given occu- pation. The novitiates, waiting periods, mas- terpieces and other demands, particularly the expensive entertainment of group members, are more often economic than professional tests of qualification. The Class Structure of the Advanced Societies The Weberian Critique For the most significant developments in the theory of classes since Marx, we have to look to those forms of social thought whose au- thors, while being directly influenced by Marx's ideas, have attempted at the same time to criticise or to reformulate them. This tendency has been strongest, for a com tion of historical and intellectual reasons, in German sociology, where a series of attempts have been made to provide a fruitful critique of Marx—beginning with Max Weber, and continuing through such authors as Geiger, Renner and Dahrendorf.' Weber’ critique of Marx here has been of particular importance. But, especially in the English-speaking world, the real import of Weber’s analysis has frequently been misrepresented. The custom- ary procedure has been to contrast Weber's discussion of ‘Class, status and party’, a frag- ment of Economy and Society, with the con- ception of class supposedly taken by Marx, to the detriment of the latter. Marx, so it is ar- gued, treated ‘class’ as a purely economic phenomenon and, moreover, regarded class conflicts as in some way the ‘inevitable’ out- come of clashes of material interest. He failed to realise, according to this argument, that the divisions of economic interest which cre- ate classes do not necessarily correspond to sentiments of communal identity which con- stitute differential ‘status’. Thus, status, which depends upon subjective evaluation, is a separate ‘dimension of stratification’ from class, and the two may vary independently. ‘There is yet a third dimension, so the argu- ment continues, which Weber recognised as an independently variable factor in ‘straifica- tion’, but which Marx treated as directly con- tingent upon class interests. This is the factor of ‘power’ Evaluation of the validity of this interpre- tation is difficult because there is no doubt that Weber himself accepted it—or certain Anthony Giddens. The Class Sructure ofthe Advanced Societies, pp. 41-44, 47-49, 102-112. Copyright © 1973 by Anthony Giddens. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Ine.