The book incorporates three alternative conceptions of class. Erik Olin Wright's structural Marxist account is set alongside John Goldthorpe's occupational class schema, and the Registrar-General's prestige and skill-related categories. The authors use their unique data on inequality and conflict in contemporary Britain to provide, for the first time, a rigourous comparison of Marxist, sociological and official class frameworks. The book ranges widely across such topics as sectionalism in the workforce; privatism of families and individuals; fatalism; gender and class processes; sectoral production and consumption cleavages. The authors conclude that class is still crucial in structuring economic, political and social life.

Marshall, Gordon; Newby, Howard; Rose, David; Vogler, Carol

List of tables; Preface Social class and social inequality When is a social class? Constructing the Wright classes Class formation and social mobility The structure of class processes The moral order of a capitalist society Making and unmaking class consciousness Goodbye to social class? Class politics Conclusion Bibliography; Appendix - technical details of the British survey; Coda - constructing the Goldthorpe classes; Index