A Brief History of Social Class and Economic Theory in the U.S.

 

Brief Timeline of Social Class in Sociology

As we begin studying social class, it might be helpful to review the growth of economic theory alongside sociology.  As the U.S. and the Western world entered the industrial age, the economic theory of capitalism grew too.  Sociology's understanding of social class grew out of the results of the growth of both capitalism and industrialism.  Although inequality based on social class was written into the U.S. Constitution which only allowed landowners to vote (until 1856 in North Carolina!)  But the Industrial Revolution and pure capitalism magnified the existing classism in the U.S.

This chart compares socialism to capitalism and the results of both throughout U.S. history:

Capitalism is most closely associated with the 1776 publication of The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith.  The Adam Smith Institute explains that capitalism is rooted in free-market (no government control) and the accumulation of wealth.   The United States has NEVER been a purely capitalist nation.  Government policy, priorities, and budgets shape both national and local economies.  The federal government is the largest employer in the U.S., it shapes the markets and it awards some of the largest contracts to private corporations.       

From the OED, Socialism entered English vernacular around 1830 as a response to the philosophy of capitalism (also detailed at History.com).  In the 1800s, a small group of industrialists was amassing extreme fortunes while the average citizen and worker was working longer and longer hours for less money and in dangerous working conditions often in sweatshop factories and including children as young as 5 years old!  This inequality of labor/economy spilled over into private life as workers increasingly lived in unregulated conditions at home that resulted in diseases like smallpox, typhus, yellow fever and cholera, spread through overcrowded tenements that lacked running water, plumbing, waste removal.  Jacob Riis detailed living conditions around 1900. 

The meaning of 'Socialism'

The problem of socialism is that many Americans conflate it with communism.  Marx wrote philosophically about capitalism becoming socialism which then becomes communism.  Americans do not agree on what countries represent socialism today - this article from Forbes explains,

Among Republicans, the three most socialist countries are Venezuela (60%), China (57%) and Russia (57%) while among Democrats, Sweden (43%), Denmark (43%) and Norway (42%) come first.

Yougov explains the partisan gap in meaning more in this 2020 article.  Generally, I think that democrats and republicans both use the term socialism but when democrats use it, they really mean social democracies like Sweden, Canada and Denmark, and when republicans use "socialism" they really mean communist government like that of China, North Korea, or Cuba.

However, 2019 research from the PEW reveals that many Americans,

"viewed socialism and capitalism in zero-sum terms. A large majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (68%) had both a positive impression of capitalism and a negative view of socialism."

This zero-sum definition fails to take into account the reality that in the US and most western countries there is a mix of socialism and capitalism.  Stark partisan divisions in Americans’ views of ‘socialism,’ ‘capitalism’

Power - Karl Marx and the Inequalities of Capitalism

Marx studied these disparities and wrote about them.  For example, Marx points out that middle-class persons lived an average of 38 years, but laborers only made it 17 years.  Marx also wrote about earlier class systems such as feudalism and slavery.  His paradigm was focused on who owned the industries of the 1800s and who were the workers in those industries.   This was the beginning of examining power in capitalist society and how that power shaped individuals.

Wealth and Prestige - Max Weber and Three-Component Social Class

Following Marx, Weber wrote about social class just before WWI.  Weber argued that social class was composed of multiple components, namely wealth, prestige and power.  This was an early example of sociology attempting to understand social class as a set of components that all work together.

Culture - Pierre Bourdieu and the Cultural and Social Reproduction of Class

Later still, in 1977 Pierre Bourdieu wrote "Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction" which was a study of French educational system.  Bourdieu made the claim that social class involves hidden assets that sustain one's class such as education, style of speech, how to dress, as well as how to conduct oneself to fit into a class system.   This was a way of using symbolic interaction to understand social class from a micro-sociological level. Think about last chapter about culture and how much it shapes people.  Bourdieau helped apply that influence to social class.

Family - Annette Lareau and Social Class, Race and Education 

In 1989, Annette Lareau published a seminal study that examined American education and social class and race. Here is an explanation from Lareau's publisher,

Class does make a difference in the lives and futures of American children. Drawing on in-depth observations of black and white middle-class, working-class, and poor families, Unequal Childhoods explores this fact, offering a picture of childhood today. Here are the frenetic families managing their children's hectic schedules of "leisure" activities; and here are families with plenty of time but little economic security. Lareau shows how middle-class parents, whether black or white, engage in a process of "concerted cultivation" designed to draw out children's talents and skills, while working-class and poor families rely on "the accomplishment of natural growth," in which a child's development unfolds spontaneously―as long as basic comfort, food, and shelter are provided. Each of these approaches to childrearing brings its own benefits and its own drawbacks. In identifying and analyzing differences between the two, Lareau demonstrates the power, and limits, of social class in shaping the lives of America's children.

Lareau provides a recent example of how social class becomes a part of a person's identity.  She shows that people experience the world through the lens of their social class.  It starts with families who shape individuals before they are even conscious of themselves and it continues through school.
For more on Lareau, here she is explaining her research from the Stanford Center for Inequality:

And here is an Atlantic article (2012) explaining Lareau's research.

Moving forward
This is the background with which sociologists approach social class.  Social class is complex and made up of various components that interconnect with each other.  These various components create opportunities and obstacles for the members of a society.  Not only does social class affect people's life chances, but it also affects how people experience the world; it constructs their reality.