The American Class Structure

This paper presents the first systematic investigation of the American class structure based on data gathered from an explicitly Marxian, relational perspective. Classes in this research are not defined in terms of categories of occupations, but in terms of social relations of control over investments, decision making, other people's work, and one's own work. Data on these dimensions of social relations of production were gathered in a national survey of the U.S. working population. Four general results from the study are particularly important: (1) The working class is by far the largest class in the American class structure. (2) Close to half of all locations within the class structure have a "contradictory character," that is, their class content is determined by more than one basic class. The American class structure cannot therefore be represented by any simple scheme of class polarization. (3) Lower status white-collar occupations are virtually as proletarianized as manual occupations. It therefore makes little sense to consider such occupations as part of the "middle class." (4) Women and blacks are considerably more proletarianized than white males. The result is that a sizable majority of the U.S. working class is composed of women and minorities.