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Unit 4: Theories of Social Stratification-II

Bourdieu on “Class” Notes
Pierre Bourdieu has published on peasants, art, unemployment, schooling, law, science, literature,
kinship, classes, religion, politics, sports, language, housing, intellectuals, etc., and used
ethnographic accounts, statistical models, abstract metatheoretical and philosophical arguments.
Here, we would limit our observation to Bourdieu’s concepts of “capital” and “class”. According
to Bourdieu, a given society can be seen by the distribution of different kinds of resource or
“capital”. Three different forms of capital are : (1) economic capital (material wealth - money,
stocks and shares, property, etc.); (2) cultural capital (knowledge, skills, cultural acquisitions); and
(3) symbolic capital (accumulated prestige and honour). Such a classification has resemblance
with Weber’s formulation of economic, social and legal/political orders or to his idea of “class,
status and party”. We also find that Bourdieu has modified and expanded the concept of capital
as proposed by Marx.
Bourdieu relates social space and the genesis of classes. He points out that in the Marxist theory
the “theoretical class” cannot be treated as a “real class”. A real class is an effectively mobilized
group. Bourdieu talks of the social field, he does not grant a multidimensional space to the
economic field alone, to the reductions of economic production. According to Bourdieu, symbolic
struggles and the very representation of the social world, and in particular hierarchy within each
of the fields and between different fields, cannot be overlooked. “Space of positions”, in a formal
sense, is described by Bourdieu as “class on paper”, having a theoretical existence. It is really not
a class, an actual class, in the sense of becoming a group, a group mobilized for struggle; at most
one could say that it is a probable class. It is a nominalist relativism. With this, one looks for
classes which can be carved out of the social space as real groups, practical groups, families, clubs,
associations, political outfits, etc. A space of relations in reality, an alliance of agents of distances
among these constitute really or nominally a class. About Marx’s distinction between “class in
itself” and “class for itself”, Bourdieu comments that nothing is said about a “group in struggle”,
as a personalized collective, a historical agent setting its own aims, arising from the objective
economic conditions.
Toeing Weber’s theory, in a broad sense, Bourdieu states that political phenomena are not just a
manifestation of socio-economic processes or of relations and oppositions between classes. The
world is not a one-dimensional space. In the multidimensional social field(s), individuals occupy
positions determined by the quantities of different types of capital they possess. Weber also
thought of it in this manner. There are “homologies”, but not necessarily always. But fields,
positions, agents based construction is essential. As such, according to Bourdieu, Marxist analysis
tends to confuse theoretical classes with real social groups. Bourdieu does not define classes in
terms of the ownership or non-ownership of means of production. For Bourdieu, classes are sets
of agents who occupy similar positions in the social space and hence possess similar kinds and
similar quantities of capital, similar life chances, similar dispositions, etc. These classes are
“theoretical constructs”, not identical with real social groups, but help in the observation of social
groups, sets of agents in reality.

Weber’s Impact on Indian Studies
Weber’s theory of social stratification has influenced several scholars, including Andre Beteille,
Anil Bhatt, P.C. Aggarwal, K.L. Sharma, etc. Caste was taken as a singular institution of social
ranking by M.N. Srinivas, Louis Dumont and several others in the fifties and sixties. Caste was
treated as coterminous with entire gamut of social relations, and thought it to be an all-inclusive
basis of social stratification. As a reaction to this approach, multidimensional character of social
stratification was emphasized. Class and power along with caste (status) were considered as
economic and political dimensions of social inequality and hierarchy. Some scholars looked at
caste from a class point of view.

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