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Sukanya Das, Lovely Professional University Unit 14: Emergence of Middle Class System

Unit 14: Emergence of Middle Class System Notes

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
14.1 Concept of the Middle Class
14.2 Emergence of Middle Class System
14.3 Summary
14.4 Key–Words
14.5 Review Questions
14.6 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit students will be able to:
• Understand the Concept of Middle Class.
• Explain the Emergence of Middle Class System.

Introduction

Group of people within a society who possess the same socio-economic status. The term was first
widely used in the early 19th century, following the industrial and political revolutions of the late
18th century. The most influential early theory of class was that of Karl Marx, who focused on
how one class controls and directs the process of production while other classes are the direct
producers and the providers of services to the dominant class. The relations between the classes

were thus seen as antagonistic. Max Weber emphasized the importance of political power and
social status or prestige in maintaining class distinctions. Despite controversies over the theory of
class, there is general agreement on the characteristics of the classes in modern capitalist societies.
In many cases the upper class has been distinguished by the possession of largely inherited
wealth, while the working class has consisted mostly of manual labourers and semi-skilled or
unskilled workers, often in service industries, who earn moderate or low wages and have little
access to inherited wealth. The middle class includes the middle and upper levels of clerical
workers, those engaged in technical and professional occupations, supervisors and managers, and
such self-employed workers as small-scale shopkeepers, business people, and farmers.
Social classes are the hierarchical arrangements of people in society as economic or cultural groups.
Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, anthropologists, political economists, and
social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of ‘social stratification’.
In sociology and political philosophy, the most basic class distinction is between the powerful and
the powerless. In Marxist theory and historical materialism, social class is caused by the fundamental
economic structure of work and property. Various social and political theories propose that social
classes with greater power attempt to cement their own ranking above the lower social classes in
the social hierarchy to the detriment of the society overall. By contrast, conservatives and structural
functionalists have presented class difference as intrinsic to the structure of any society and to that
extent ineradicable. Social classes with a great deal of power are usually viewed as “the elites”
within their own societies.

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