Are Social Classes Really Dead at the Beginning of the 21st Century? Class versus Anti-class Theory and Analysis

From the beginning of social thinking, social class has been used as an explanatory factor for social phenomena in both the Marxist and Weberian traditions. However, many sociologists have pointed out that during the second half of the 20th century and especially at the beginning of the 1990s the usefulness of social classes in explaining social phenomena is declining. This article presents three recent debates on class analysis. The debates outline two opposing arguments. The first position accepts the ‘death of class’ argument and conceptualizes contemporary socio-economic inequalities in terms of a status-based society. The second position rejects the ‘death of class’ argument and conceptualizes contemporary socio-economic inequalities in terms of a new language of class. The question remains as to which of these arguments will be more persuasive for sociology in the next decade.