Social Class Structures: Goldthorpe’s Scheme vs. Marx’s Theory
John Goldthorpe’s Class Scheme: A Modern Perspective
John Goldthorpe sought to explain the workings of social classes in the late twentieth century. Through observation and empirical studies, he detected that Karl Marx’s scheme was too rigid. Consequently, Goldthorpe developed an explanatory model that could better explain contemporary society, specifically incorporating the concept of ‘social mobility,’ which Marx’s theory did not consider.
Factors Determining Social Class
Goldthorpe identifies two main factors that determine an individual’s social class:
- Market Situation: This factor affects a person’s salary level, job security, and prospects for personal progress. It emphasizes material rewards and general life chances.
- Employment Situation: By contrast, this factor focuses on issues of control, power, and authority within employment.
Goldthorpe’s Three Broad Social Classes
Based on these factors, Goldthorpe identifies three broad social groups or classes:
- Service Class: Formed by professionals, managers, and senior civil servants.
- Intermediate Class: This group is arguably the most difficult to refine and define, being the largest and most prevalent in developed countries.
- Working Class (Obrera): This group consists of skilled, semi-skilled, or unskilled manual workers. In all cases, the employment relationship is based on a contract.
Critique of Goldthorpe’s Scheme
According to Goldthorpe, it was almost impossible for a proletarian to become an owner or entrepreneur. His scheme remains an heir to models that are too strict and place economic work at the center of analysis. Goldthorpe’s scheme, however, overlooks groups such as the unemployed, retired individuals, students, or millionaires. While none of these groups may be actively employed, they are undeniably part of society.
Karl Marx’s Theory of Social Class: Historical Foundations
For Karl Marx, a ‘class’ is defined as a group of people who share the same relationship to the means of production – the resources by which a group earns its living.
The Two Major Classes: Capitalists and Proletariat
According to Marx, the two major classes are the owners of these means of production, whom he called capitalists, and those who earn their living by selling their labor, efforts, and time to them. The latter Marx called the proletariat or working class.
Exploitation and Surplus Value
The relationship between these two classes is fundamentally based on exploitation. For example, workers produce more value than the capitalist needs to recover the salary paid. This extra money is called surplus value – the portion of value generated by the worker’s effort that the employer does not pay as wages, and which generates profit for the capitalist.
Disparities and the Nature of Work
For Marx, this system creates significant disparities. With the development of industry in the late nineteenth century, immense wealth was generated, yet the vast majority of workers could not access it. Despite their labor, they remained poor, while the wealth accruing to factory owners grew exponentially.
Marx also highlighted how the development of modern factories and the mechanization of production, particularly on assembly lines, led to work where each worker performs only a small part of the overall process or chain. This type of work is stressful from a physical point of view (a novelty until the 19th century) and mentally, due to its routine and boring nature (something entirely new from the 19th century). In the 21st century, this translates to hours and hours at a computer performing routine tasks.