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CHAPTER 3
IDENTITY, INEQUALITY AND SOCIAL CLASS
An important focus point in this chapter is to understand how identities are constructed
through economic structures at work. A person’s occupation plays an important role in
one’s identity formation and it occupation here in this context refers to paid work.
Paid work has the following dimensions in shaping our identities:
 Paid work is a source of individual identity
 Paid work is also a source of collective identity (identity with colleagues).
 Patterns of employment and distribution of income shape our identities
Economic structures and Income is mediated by representation as to how we feel about
our jobs and incomes depend on what others have and how others see us. These
representations classify people as:
 Poor
 Working Class
 Middle Class
Poor and Identity
 Being poor generally refers to the difficulty of being able to make ‘both ends
meet’ on low incomes. It means ones experience of the daily struggle to feed and
clothe a family on very little income, to keep them warm dry, clean and safe.
 Joseph Rowentree Foundation (Kempson, 1996) conducted 31 studies and
interviewed people in terms of age, ethnicity, geographical location etc to find
out how much money is enough to make both ends meet. The study showed that
by the early 1990 those people were defined as poor whose benefit payments had
fallen below a social consensus on the level that was necessary. One of the
findings of this study was that, in a particular time and place, there tends to be a
shared view about goods and services as necessities and that as luxury.
 Adam Smith, an economist explains necessities as “commodities (things) that are
indispensably necessary for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the
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country renders it indecent for creditable people, even the lowest orders, to be
without.”
 Claims about who is poor are rooted in shared and contested ideas about the basic
necessities of life.
 The experience of poverty is both relative and relational. It is defined by what
people have, what they can do, relative to the opportunities of others.
 Poverty carries a stigma (label) and derogatory meaning, so it does not easily
provide basis for collective identity.
 Identities of the poor are greatly constrained by income.
Describing Inequality
 Our identities are influenced by the shape of income distribution, which means
that it matters to ourselves whether we imagine that most people’s incomes are
‘in the middle’ or we see incomes as polarized between rich and poor.
 Dutch Economist Jan Pen defined inequality of income distribution through
‘Income Parade’. He used household incomes in constructing the parade. (please
refer to text book for detailed information)
 Income parade showed that in UK 62% of the population lives on less than
average income.
 There are many more poor people than are the rich, but the top incomes, though
very few, are very large.
 The numbers in poverty rose sharply in the 1980s and early 1990s
Wealth and Class Identity
 Income is very unequal in UK but wealth holding is even more unequal.
 Wealth brings some security and control but among the wealthy, financial wealth
and power is associated with power over the lives of others.
 Wealthy business people invest their own capital and predominantly the capital
of others in producing goods and services and respond to market opportunities in
ways that shape our working lives.
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 The perceived division capitalism has generated between those who own and
manage and those who are employed in an element of our notion of social class.
 Both wealth and power as an employed are source of class distinction.
Social Class
Social class can provide us with a sense of belonging; it can tell us who we are and who
‘they’ are and, hence how to relate to the world around us. How strongly one identifies
as a member of social class depends on one’s personal history, including family
background, occupation, personal experiences of struggle and conflict.
Some sociologists argue that class has lost its significance (importance) due to the
changing social and economic structures and the rise of other sources of identity and
belonging. It is believed that work based structures and identification with the same have
let to this decline in class consciousness. Social class is both an important and highly
disputed (unclear) concept. However, as a field of social scientific inquiry, social class is
dominated by two distinctive traditions of thought – Marxism and Weberianism.
Marxism
Marx’s ideas were a product of nineteenth century European and British society.
 Marx put forward a strong notion of collective class identity which was rooted in
economic structures and saw this as inherently (inbuilt) in conflict.
 Marx saw the key defining feature of a society as being the way in which wealth and
goods are produced.
 Marx identified the owners of capital, that is of financial wealth as the new ruling
class (bourgeoisie)
 He identified the property less class as the working class (proletariat).
 Marxism emphasizes on a link between individual economic positions within systems
of production the purchasing power of a person and the class category therefore) and
ownership of capital (wealth owned) and class positions.
 Marx believed that class is a structure rooted in the economic organizations of
production.
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 Marx believed that as capitalism (wealth in hands of a few) increased there would be
a growing divide between the capitalist and working class thus leading to social
polarization.
 Marx believed and stressed that for the working class to exist in this class conscious
society it was essential to have the objective and the subjective factors. Objective
factors can be explained by the shared collective identity and relationships to the
means of production and the subjective factors as and feeling of a shared class
position and the awareness of being in a position where there exists and opposing
class interest.
 Marxism cites that class consciousness only emerges through experience of solidarity
and collective action.
Max Weber
 Like Marx, Webber recognizes the existence of economically defined classes, but
focuses more on individuals.
 According to Weber class refers to identifiable groups of individuals who have
certain interests in common and brought together as a ‘party’ which refers to any
organization or voluntary associations that brings together people with common
backgrounds, aims or interests in pursuit of particular policies or control of a
particular organization. These common interests are seen in market positions that
individuals occupy by virtue of having similar opportunities for earning incomes.
This division of status that exists as a result of the above is referred to as
‘stratification’.
 Webernism sees class as rooted in market positions.
 Weber like Marx identifies a division between propertied and property less
classes, but he also cites that within these classes also exists class difference
based on the market positions they occupy. For example professional employees
tend to find themselves in a privileged position in the market relative to semiskilled workers.
 Weber explains that the fragmentation of classes is highlighted by difference in
status ( the prestige , honor or social standing attached to a group). This further
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depends on people’s subjective (individual opinion) evaluation of social
difference.
 Classes are stratified (layered) as per individuals’ relations to production and
acquisition of goods, whereas class groups are stratified according to their
relation to the lifestyles that they lead.
 Different groups may find themselves occupying similar economic class
positions while being distinguished by differences in status, and the status may be
more significant than class as a source of identity.
 Weber sees class, status and party as cross-cutting, with class more concerned
with the production of goods and status with their consumption.
Note to students:
Please do not consider this handout as a substitute for text book.
Information has been bulleted for easy reading but you need to write and build on the
same as paragraphs while writing the essays for your exam.
Tutor: Jyoti Nair, DD 121
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