The British Journal of Sociology 2013 Volume 64 Issue 2

Putting Bourdieu to work for class analysis: reections on some recent contributions1
Magne Flemmen

Abstract Recent developments in class analysis, particularly associated with so-called cultural class analysis; have seen the works of Pierre Bourdieu take centre stage. Apart from the general inuence of habitus and cultural capital, some scholars have tried to reconstruct class analysis with concepts drawn from Bourdieu. This involves a theoretical reorientation, away from the conventional concerns of class analysis with property and market relations, towards an emphasis on the multiple forms of capital. Despite the signicant potential of these developments, such a reorientation dismisses or neglects the relations of power and domination founded in the economic institutions of capitalism as a crucial element of what class is. Through a critique of some recent attempts by British authors to develop a Bourdieusian class theory, the paper reasserts the centrality of the relations of power and domination that used to be the domain of class analysis. The paper suggests some elements central to a reworked class analysis that benets from the power of Bourdieus ideas while retaining a perspective on the fundamentals of class relations in capitalism. Keywords: Bourdieu; class analysis; domination; eld; forms of capital; power; social class; social space; status; stratication

The work of Pierre Bourdieu (19302002) has proved immensely inuential, not only in social theory and the sociology of education and culture, but also in class and stratication research. The concept of cultural capital now enjoys fairly widespread currency. In recent developments in class analysis there has also been considerable interest in Bourdieus concept of habitus, particularly in accounting for classed identities (Devine et al. 2005). In connection with the recent selection of Key Articles in British Sociology, Diane Reay (2011) remarks that the cultural turn in class analysis has also been a Bourdieusian turn.
Flemmen (Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo) (Corresponding author email: magne.emmen@ sosgeo.uio.no) London School of Economics and Political Science 2013 ISSN 0007-1315 print/1468-4446 online. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA on behalf of the LSE. DOI: 10.1111/1468-4446.12020

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This latter development has been spawned, in part, by the problems facing class theory and class analysis, both externally and internally. The last decades have witnessed a wave of assaults on class analysis by authors hailing the coming of a new phase of modernity which supposedly renders class an obsolete concept. Simultaneously, broader developments in social and cultural theory the cultural turn, postmodernism seemed to render the conventional concerns with social structure and inequality outdated and misguided. Internally, the sociology of class has faced at least two serious challenges. The rst concerns the seemingly insurmountable problems of the Marxist theory of class, particularly connected to the foundational labour theory of value (cf. Savage 2000). The second is related to what was perceived as a narrowing of class analysis, associated with the work of both Wright and Goldthorpe (although, perhaps, particularly the latter). This minimalism seemed to restrict class analysis to quantitative, empirical analysis, economism, reliance on rational choice/action theory and a related marginalization of issues of culture, history and identity (cf. Atkinson 2011: 34). The concurrence of these developments had the effect of reducing the centrality of class and stratication to sociology as a whole (Devine and Savage 2005: 2). In this context, many authors turned to the work of Bourdieu, which offered a powerful alternative to the marginalization of culture in class analysis. Bourdieus approach, with its emphasis on multidimensionality and multiple forms of capital, provided the means to unite culture and economy in the study of class. For the most part, however, the inuence of Bourdieu on class and stratication, despite being widespread, seems to be substantively limited. Firstly, notwithstanding frequent accusations of structuralism or determinism, there is limited interest in his more structural concepts, like social space and eld. Secondly, and related to this, there have been relatively few attempts to closely scrutinize how the work of Bourdieu can provide a more foundational rethinking of class and stratication. There are, however, exceptions in recent developments in culturalist class analysis. Some writers associated with it have effected a comprehensive restructuring of the theoretical foundations of class analysis by relying on some key concepts from Bourdieu (Skeggs 1997; Savage 2000; Savage, Warde and Devine 2005; Sayer 2005; Savage 2008; Atkinson 2009; 2011). This development is both promising and problematic. It is promising because it has indeed allowed the researchers to adopt a mode of analysis which opens for a subtle appreciation of the connections between social class, lived experience and identity. It is problematic because there is a real danger of going too far in this restructuring, i.e. the familiar problem of throwing the baby out with the bath water. The turn to Bourdieu is connected to a move from the categorical approach to class towards a view of stratication as a continuous hierarchy. In reviewing these developments, Bottero (2004) welcomes the turn to stratication, but
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laments the persisting remnants of a pass language, if not theory, of class. The writers mentioned above self-consciously employ the concept of class, but subscribe to a version of it which radically departs from what class is often taken to mean. Based on what aspects of the work of Bourdieu they emphasize, I divide these forms of Bourdieusian class analysis into a social space approach and a eld analytic approach. Notwithstanding the very real insights and improvements they offer, I argue that these approaches are insufcient and unsatisfactory as class theory. This is so, I argue, primarily because they neglect or dismiss what I take to be the crucial, valid insight of European class theory,2 namely that capitalist societies are organized around class divisions that are generated through the elementary workings of capitalist economies. In this paper, I argue that class analysis will need to integrate the perspectives drawn from Bourdieu with a more conventional understanding of class. However, this necessitates a conscious effort to steer clear of the spectre of reductionism or class primacy, which seems to have haunted sociological class analysis ever since its inception in the hands of Karl Marx. The writers discussed below exorcised this ghost by emphasizing the multiple forms of capital and the multidimensional nature of class. In this respect their work seems closer to Weberian approaches to stratication than to Marx and his followers. According to Chan and Goldthorpe (2004), however, Bourdieu reduces status to a mere reection of class, effectively promoting a sort of class reductionism. In the light of this confusion around the multidimensionality in Bourdieus approach, or those inspired by him at any rate, as compared to the neo-Weberian approach, it seems necessary to develop the relationship between the two. In the concluding section, I seek to outline a conceptual take on how the Weberian class-status distinction can be connected to an understanding of stratication as multidimensional in terms of multiple forms of capital. I start by outlining the elements of Bourdieus thought that are most frequently drawn upon by the authors seeking to recast class analysis. Secondly, I turn to presentation of what I call two different, but closely related, Bourdieusian approaches to class, the social space approach and the eld analytical approach. I then address what I see as their central limitations. In the last section, I outline a synthetic position which encompasses both core elements of these Bourdieusian approaches to class, as well as some central points from European class theory. It seems necessary to underline that the paper does not offer a critique of Bourdieus position as such, but is concerned with the application of some of his ideas to problems in class analysis, as exemplied in the two approaches. It does not critically examine the notions of social space, eld and capital, but address specic applications of these concepts in reshaping class theory.
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Bourdieu on class The central point of attention in most discussions of Bourdieus writings on class is his book Distinction (Bourdieu 1984), as well as a number of papers from the 1980s (Bourdieu 1985; 1986; 1987; 1989).3 A set of interrelated concerns are addressed in these publications, which may be summarized as follows: A societys class structure is to be seen as a multidimensional space, which objecties the system of relationships between different positions. The basic structure of this space is shaped by the distributions of diverse forms of capital economic, cultural and social and the relations of strength that prevail between them.The structure of this space is homologous with a related, but distinct, space of life-styles, to the effect that positions in social space roughly correspond to distinct cultural tastes, preferences and outlooks. The structure of social space is continuous; it has no pre-dened sharp breaks or clear internal boundaries. For Bourdieu, this space of social differences and inequalities, the objectively given distributions of capitals, form the possible basis for the formation of classes as social collectives but these do not emerge automatically from this space. One can theoretically identify objective classes within this space categories of actors with similar capital proles but these should only be considered classes-on-paper, i.e. theoretical,objective, possible social classes. As a space of objective differences, it can be conceived of in different terms by its occupants. The existence of classes as real groups and effective symbolic constructions depends on political labour: For classes-on-paper to become social classes they have to be made, they have to be constructed as social groups, particularly through mobilization, representation and articulation by relevant agencies (unions, parties). For Bourdieu, a social class proper exists, then, in so far as it is represented and spoken-on-behalf-of (Bourdieu 1987).This amounts to imposing a particular vision of the divisions class competes with different visions, such as gender, ethnicity, elite vs. mass and merit, as a way of grasping inequalities (see the account in Swartz 1997: 14350). The notion of social space plays a key part in this, as a model of class or social stratication. Bourdieu conceives of social space as a social topology, [. . .] an analysis of relative positions and of the objective relations between these positions (Bourdieu 1989: 16). It reects main lines of division or differentiation in terms of agents capital proles. According to Bourdieu, the social space of France of the 1960s has three main dimensions: the overall volume of capital in all its forms; the composition of capital (the relative weight of economic and cultural capital); and trajectory (changes in the volume and composition of capitals for different agents or groups) (Bourdieu 1984: 114130). The forms of capital are well-known by now, but recent years have seen such a proliferation of capitals that it is necessary to review certain key features of
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it, as it is used by Bourdieu. Capitals denote (forms of) resources that possess certain convertibility, often to other resources in that they may be used to gain some signicant advantages in social life. They gain this property through being constituted, distributed and fought over within distinct elds. For instance, for a scientic competence to function as a capital requires a eld where it is valued, and where this capital is dened, where it may be fought over and where it constitutes a weapon in the on-going struggles (Bourdieu 1986). The conception of social space offers several key advantages over most pre-existing concepts of class or stratication structures. First of all, it recognizes multidimensionality in terms of the many sources and forms of social power which are integrated in its conceptualization. Secondly, it sidesteps debates about classication into class categories, since the social space is constructed as a continuous space of differences, without the a priori dened hard and fast boundaries of class schemes. Thirdly, it can be empirically constructed in fairly strict accordance with its theoretical denition, through the application of Multiple Correspondence Analysis. This technique, favoured by Bourdieu, allows the researcher to construct the social space based on indicators of capital, and thus to proceed bottom-up, from the observed distributions to the empirical dimensionality of the social space. A forceful demonstration is provided by Rosenlund (2009), who exploits the organic link between theory and methods in Bourdieus work in providing a lucid illustration of how [Bourdieus core concepts] can be operationalized for empirical research outside of their native setting, something Wacquant praised it for (foreword in Rosenlund 2009: iiiiv). Field is a concept of central importance to Bourdieu. It is clearly related to that of social space, and employs the same spatial analogy, but also involves a certain (limited) analogy with magnetic or force elds, in that the force(s) of the eld affects any element (agents or institutions) that operate within it. Sometimes Bourdieu speaks of the broader eld of classes as equivalent to social space (Bourdieu 1984: 345) but his most distinctive application is related to a recognition of the central importance of social differentiation. Thus, eld is used to denote more or less autonomous microcosms of social practice, like the eld of literary production or the scientic eld. Within these elds, particular forms of capital are established (for example, a set of competences and resources may come to count as literary capital), and there are also established (tacit) rules on how these capitals are to be accumulated and invested. The eld is thus a eld of forces you can only partake in the practice going on within the eld if you abide by these rules, accumulate these resources and invest them in accepted ways. It is also is a eld of struggle for positions within the internal hierarchy of the eld, but also a struggle over these rules and resources. A central implication is that the eld is governed by rules and forms of capital that are to some extent restricted to it, that are not (as) valid
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outside of it (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992: 94115). In what follows, I treat social space as referring to the more global space of stratication and class, whereas elds refer to the more restricted microcosms of particular social practices.

Towards a Bourdieusian class analysis A group of writers associated with what has been called culturalist class analysis have developed novel forms of class analysis by adopting some core concepts from Bourdieu. It is worth emphasizing the independent contributions of these authors: Their application of concepts from Bourdieu to develop class theory produces both new insights and specic problems. In these endeavours, their emphases differ. Most focus on social space as a re-conceptualization of class structure, and thus base class analysis on this model, whereas others have placed central emphasis on the concept of eld. I refer to this as the social space approach (SSA) and the eld-analytical approach (FAA), respectively. Social space and eld may of course be applied in tandem, as did Bourdieu himself, but the works I will discuss clearly emphasize one over the other. This gives rise to some distinct problems for each. I should make it clear that these approaches have not been launched in the form of extensive, exhaustively formulated theoretical positions, but advanced either as part of an empirical research undertaking or as part of a critique of existing approaches. Social space was used as a model of a class or stratication structure by Bourdieu, and this usage has inspired several authors, notably Skeggs (1997), Sayer (2005) and Atkinson (2011). All three adopt a concept of class couched in terms of position in social space. That is, classes are seen as characterized, and also operationalized, by their volume and composition of capital. The chronological order of their publication can incidentally also be thought of as a ranking of their commitment to this conceptualization: Skeggs (1997: 810) seem to adopt it more as a convenient metaphor for understanding agents resources and strategies. Sayer (2005) is more enthusiastic in his adoption of Bourdieu, but stops short of being an all-out follower. Atkinson, however, displays the highest level of commitment, arguing for the superiority of this social space approach over its rivals, and thus labels his own approach Bourdieusian. Skeggs applies social space and capitals as metaphors to grasp how class is a major feature of subjectivity [. . .] and part of a struggle over access to resources and ways of being (Skeggs 1997: 7).This framework is favoured over its alternatives because of its explanatory power. Skeggs underlines her metaphorical use of capitals and space (they are not descriptors of empirical positions) while at the same time underlining that capital can only exist in
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the interrelationships of social position (Skeggs 1997: 89). She holds class to be primarily about inequality and exploitation (1997: 75), the latter of which would indicate an understanding of class that stretches beyond the pure social space model, but this is not elaborated upon. Sayer offers a more elaborate account of Bourdieus views, as well as some substantive arguments in favour of it (2005: 7681). He prefers Bourdieus take on class because of its concreteness, or rather its closeness to lay concepts of class, and because of its multidimensionality. He makes use of it while holding the door open for other, more abstract class theories, but he does not elaborate on how these different theories are compatible. Atkinson commits to a very thoroughgoing application of the Bourdieusian framework, and appears to have no time for any aspect of other approaches to class. All three writers opt for a concept of class which could be dened as referring to positions, or sets of positions, within a social space that represents the distribution of, and relationships between, various forms of capital. It is worth noting that this involves no reference to relations of production or processes of market exchange, which is what is commonly associated with class in the European tradition. This subtle shift from production or markets to forms of capital (Atkinson 2009: 903) puts the SAA authors at some considerable distance from this tradition. What I call the eld-analytical approach has a different emphasis. It is characterized by its focus on the processes of accumulation, reproduction and conversion of various forms of capital (Savage, Warde and Devine 2005). Through this centring on the forms of capital, the concept of eld also takes centre stage. Indeed, the authors seek a radical reformulation of class. Whereas it has usually been understood as some form of explanatory principle, as when consciousness and collective action is seen to ow from class positions, Savage, Warde and Devine cast class as an outcome of a plurality of processes. They endorse what they present as Bourdieus view: class is an effect not a set of relationships or a structure. It is manifest through the operation of many elds; it is an emergent effect of the structuring of many specic elds. Capitals are the underpinnings not of class structure per se, but of elds where volume and trajectory of agents holdings of particular capitals is central to the dynamics of elds. There is no primary generative mechanism behind class [. . .]. The emergent effect, class division, arises for Bourdieu across many relatively autonomous elds. (Savage, Warde and Devine 2005: 42) It is, perhaps, worth dwelling on what is suggested here. I wrote of the SSA that they removed their denition of class from the traditional focus on the economic sphere. Savage, Warde and Devine go further, in explicitly rejecting that class could refer to a specic set of generative processes or causal powers at work in the structures of the capitalist economy. In their view, class is a
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descriptive concept, since it is held to be merely an effect of the structuring of elds, and not an explanatory concept that tie particular social phenomena to property and market relations. Class appears to be a short-hand term for the shape of whatever inequalities emerge from the intersections of diverse elds. In a later text Savage (2008) develops this argument further and argues for the rejection of what he calls depth models of class. His issue lies with how such depth models envisage the connection between structurally dened class positions (deep down) and cultural forms (surface phenomenon). The clearest example of such an account is, of course, the base-superstructure model associated with Marxism, but Savage identies a similar line of thought in Weberian class analysis (Savage 2008: 474). However, culture and politics cannot be read off as some kind of effect of deep class relations, as the infamous Structure-Consciousness-Action gure of thought suggests, he argues. Thus, Savage rejects the ambition just alluded to, of connecting various phenomena to the basic structure of capitalist economies. Two strengths of Bourdieus approach are identied as the focus on how cultural processes rather than being the epiphenomena of the class structure, themselves constitute processes of exclusion and marginalization, and the use of a eld model of social analysis, rather than a depth model of social analysis, but Savage emphasizes that there is too much left of a depth model in Bourdieus thinking (Savage 2008: 476). Savage proposes that class should be understood strictly in terms of the intersections of different elds, and not by reference to relations of production or anything of that nature. The gist of these arguments can then be summed up as follows: the notion of eld is used to recognize a differentiated society, which consists of several relatively autonomous microcosms with distinct forms of capital and internal power struggles. It is worth noting that the authors emphasize this differentiation-aspect of the concept of eld, so that it refers to a limited social universe that is, it is not eld as in the broader social eld, the eld of class struggles or some other inclusive notion. Rather than positing class as some force which affects life-chances, political action and cultural orientation, social class is recast as the structured end result of overlapping and intersecting elds. This can be thought of as a de-centred concept of class: Class has no core in the economic sphere, but is the cross product of the interplay of diverse power struggles and structures. Undoubtedly, this is also far removed from the European tradition of class theory.

Limitations of the two approaches In what follows, I discuss what I think are some core weaknesses in how the two approaches redene class. Through different routes, both arrive at a position too far removed from European class theory. I am not pointing to inherent
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problems in the concepts of space, capital or eld and, thus, not in Bourdieus own position but to problems arising from the attempts to apply these concepts as the sole building blocks for a new theory of class. Both the social space approach and the eld analytical approach distance themselves from conceptualizations of class that tie it to the economic sphere. For the social space approach, this is effected through their centring on the multidimensional nature of the social space. The approach recognizes the plurality of resources or capitals that play a part in the stratication of contemporary modernity, hence the strength of a multidimensional concept of a stratication structure. Class is in other words used as a shorthand term for roughly similar positions within a distribution of capitals, as opposed to referring to a set of causal or generative processes or relations, as has been a key feature of European class theory.Through this, the SSA authors are able to get a better hold on the actual patterns of social stratication and inequality. But this seems to be gained at the cost of maintaining any real grasp on the forms of power and domination founded in the economic sphere, and how these relate to the dynamic of capitalism. The subtle shift from production or markets to forms of capital (Atkinson 2009: 903) implies a rather limited understanding of power. The strict social space denition of class invites (but does not logically entail) an overly individualist concept of power. If the social space replaces the concept of class structure, and the social space is shaped by the distribution of capital among individuals, this hinges upon the notion that an individuals power is reasonably well grasped through studying her/his portfolio of capitals. This, however, is only a partial view of power, since it ignores a point that is crucial to most established theories of class, namely that the organization of the capitalist economy endows some people with considerable power, by virtue of their position, not only within property and market relations, but also within the institutional or organizational structures that make up the capitalist corporation. This means that in contemporary capitalist societies, there are individuals in positions in which they exercise a power which is founded in the institutions and corporations. Managers, and CEOs exercise a power that isnt theirs, so to speak. If we follow the social space denition of class, and temporarily bracket the question of the composition of capital, a reasonable conception of the upper and lower classes would be that they have, respectively, much or little capital. This, I think, offers a very narrow conception of the forms and bases of power and privilege. The power of the executive and manager is not satisfactorily seen as a result of their capital stocks, but of their position within the corporation and in the relations of property and of market exchange. Rather, they may be endowed with superior volumes of capital because of this position. The contemporary CEO exercises a form of power which is in principle
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independent of her/his person, because s/he works for the corporation and exercises authority on behalf of its owners. These people do make up highearning groups in most contemporary societies, because they usually have large salaries. Thus, they receive ample quantities of economic capital because of the position they hold because of the power they exercise and not the other way around. Conversely, the potential powerlessness of the workers as such is not understandable as a product of lack of capital, but is more rightly understood as a consequence of their positions within property relations, markets and the division of labour. This is not to neglect that individual capital stocks are important for a individuals power, but this is by no means a sufcient account of power. Fully replacing the notion of class structure with that of social space would seem to entail a signicant risk of losing these rather crucial points of view. An example of this is seen in Atkinsons work, where he classies respondents as dominant or dominated only by virtue of their stocks of capital (Atkinson 2011: 2009). Even though one would be right to say that large stocks of capital may be an important source of a dominant position, this is neither in itself a satisfactory concept of domination, nor automatically the case. Capital, in Bourdieus sense, is power, but power is more than capital. These problems seem associated with an underlying notion of how the Bourdieusian understanding of class differ from its predecessors. Sayer, for instance, notes that Bourdieus approach is able to recognize class differences in more than one dimension (2005: 77), seemingly implying that traditional class theory conceive of inequalities one-dimensionally, i.e. as a simple hierarchy of economic capital. This, however, misrepresents the view of both Weberian and Marxist class theory. In neither tradition of thought does class refer to simply ones amount of economic resources. In Marxism it refers to a position within relations of production; in Weberian theory it refers to market relations part in shaping life-chances. In both cases, class is tied to particular causal relationships affecting life-chances, not to a representation or quantication of these life-chances as such. Accordingly, in these traditions, class is not and cannot be represented as a simple hierarchy, as Goldthorpe makes clear (Goldthorpe, Llewellyn and Payne 1987: 43). Dening class as position in social space is not simply an extension of the concept of class into more than one dimension. Marxian and Weberian theorists consider class a form of social relationship that in part shapes the distribution of income (see Wright 1979; Edgell 1993: 10310), a position quite different from equating class with distributions of forms of capital, hereunder income. The social space concept of class is qualitatively, rather than simply quantitatively, different from those derived more directly from Marx and Weber. None of these points are damaging if the social space is simply applied as a model of stratication, as it was for Bourdieu, as a balance sheet that expresses the state of the power relations between the classes (Bourdieu 1984: 245). The
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problem arises when this model stands in for the entire conceptualization of class, as it does for the SSA writers. I propose to stick with Bourdieus original usage of the social space as a model, and not as a theory of class. It is then necessary to move on to build on this by integrating the social space with certain important insights from other strands of class analysis. I will turn to this in my conclusion. The FAA opts for a rather different conceptualization. It argues for theorizing class divisions as occurring through various elds, and that social class is the emergent effect of all this accumulation and reproduction in various elds. An important virtue of this is that it recognizes the importance of differentiation, in that it stresses how different elds operate through different congurations of rules and resources. The central implication is that class or stratication is not shaped by any sort of master mechanism. Through this rejection of the depth model, and the denition of class as an effect of different elds, the FAA is more denitively removed from class theory as we know it. The FAA leaves no conceptual space for relations of domination that arise in production, market exchange and the occupational division of labour. Despite the multidimensionality implied by considering class to emerge across multiple elds, it provides a reductive understanding of class and power. In strict eld-analytical terms, the dependency relations of domination that play out in these economic and occupational relationships simply falls or rather, is expelled from view.4 In more general terms, the FAA seems to overemphasize social differentiation at the expense of system-wide structures. The prevalence of markets in capitalism means that economic capital enjoys a widespread value which is not limited to any economic eld. Even though there is no doubt that money is not the best means to powerful positions within particular autonomous elds and the eld of cultural production can indeed be seen as the economic world reversed, as Bourdieu put it (1993: 2973) it can readily be seen that being wealthy in economic capital constitutes a very general advantage in capitalist societies more or less across the board. This is one reason why labour and product markets are of such crucial importance for class analysis and the determination of life-chances. By this token, class relations do have an economic core, even though class relations cannot be reduced to this core. It is of some importance to preserve conceptual space for these relations within a renewed class analysis. The FAA decentres class, in denying that it has a primary generative mechanism and by seeing it as an effect of many elds.This is a deliberate move away from the premises of European class analysis, which place economic relations at the heart of class. I raise two points in defence of the more traditional notion that economic relations are still central to class. Firstly, I emphasize the sustained relevance of relations of domination that originate in the capitalist relations of production and market exchange, with its implication for the
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mediation of control within the corporation and mediation of power in the larger social context (Giddens 1981: 15676). Secondly, I point to the persisting importance of economic resources for life-chances in capitalist societies, coupled with the fact that markets arguably remain the most important mechanism for allocating these resources. This means that class must still be linked to the differentials of power and life-chances that are generated in the basic institutions of capitalism. This is not, however, an argument for reverting to a pre-Bourdieusian version of class analysis, but for retaining some of its crucial insights. The cultural turn in class analysis was propelled by the need to avoid the marginalization of issues of culture and identity. By adopting conceptions from Bourdieu, culture is recognized as constitutive of class relations and not as a mere epiphenomenon. But in this powerful reorientation, the culturalization of class is achieved at the expense of a proper grasp of the relations of power and domination that lie at the heart of the class structure in capitalist societies. These Bourdieusians might seem to come close to bending the stick so far in the other direction that it snaps.

Towards a synthetic position The prime problem of both the SSA and FAA is their neglect, or dismissal, of a concept of class tied to production and markets. This is not to suggest that these approaches downplay the signicance of the economic as such, but more specically that they neglect the relations of power and domination that are constituted through the basic structures of capitalist society. Through the system of private ownership of the means of production as well as the formally free labour markets, fundamental relations of power and domination are established within the corporation and in and through markets more generally. I have argued that this form of power cannot be properly conceptualized as based on an individuals portfolio of capitals. Class analysis still needs a concept of structural and institutional power, and a theory of class society as an institutional form (see Giddens 1979: 10910). The proponents of the SSA are right to argue that it represents a powerful conceptualization and model of the stratication structure. They are wrong, however, in wholly redening class so as to refer to positions in social space. Class cannot be treated as only a question of distributions of capital in however many dimensions. In Marxian and Weberian theory alike, class refers to fundamental social relationships of exploitation, domination and/ or closure. These cannot be represented gradationally in terms of volume or composition of capital. While retaining social space as a model of the class or stratication structure, one also needs to conceptualize class relationships in the conventional sense and link this to the particular structure of social space.
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A more conventional concept of class is important for at least two reasons. Firstly, it directs attention towards the social divisions and differentials of power that are generic to capitalism. Secondly, class plays a crucial part in shaping the distribution of economic capital. Considerable differentials of income exist between owners of property and unpropertied employees (see Edgell 1993: 106110). Further differentials of income pertain to the market capacities (all forms of relevant attributes which individuals may bring to the bargaining encounter, Giddens 1981: 103) of different classes, as evidenced in the widespread association between education and income. The structure of the social space is then to some extent shaped by the institutional class divisions. Emphasis on these economic relations of power has frequently been associated with a tendency to reduce social phenomenon to economic ones, particularly within Marxism. Bourdieu argued that it is crucial to break with this economism (Bourdieu 1985: 723). In emphasizing the centrality of cultural and symbolic capital, Bourdieu was closer to Weberian than Marxist perspectives. Reinstating a conventional concept of class, and conceptualizing its relationship to the forms of capital and the model of social space, must also avoid the all-too-familiar assertions of class primacy, and maintain a multidimensional concept of stratication. I will point to four things necessary for a reworked class analysis that integrates important elements from the Bourdieusian approaches with the emphasis on capitalist economic relations. Firstly, it needs to recognize that property relations and the workings of capitalist markets generate signicant differentials of power. These power relations are embedded in institutional frameworks of control through the organization of the corporations and also through the occupational division of labour as well as the domination that takes place within the nominally open relationships of the market. Secondly, class analysis needs to address how these property and market relations are shaping the distribution of income and wealth, the relevance of which is testied to by the importance of returns to capital in income inequality (Hansen 2001). It is not satisfactory for class analysis to simply start with a given distribution of capitals. In other words, this distribution the structure of social space needs to be accounted for.Thirdly, class analysis needs to connect these conceptions of class with the notions of eld, forms of capital and with social space as a stratication structure. Finally, this connection needs to respect the necessity of a non-reductionist, multidimensional approach to stratication. I will offer some fairly tentative comments on these points. In doing so, it will be necessary to apply class in three distinct meanings. As is well known, class is a highly polysemic term, meaning different things within the context of different theoretical perspectives (e.g. Wright 2005), to the effect that conceptual dizziness is an occupational hazard in the study of class (Sayer 2005: 72). In Bourdieus usage, as well as that of the SSA and FAA, class is a rather broad concept encompassing a number of stratifying factors (see for example
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Bourdieu 1984: 106) a usage paralleled in Neo-Weberian closure theory (Murphy 1988: 11314). This contrasts with authors like Goldthorpe and Wright, who want to restrict class to refer to specic relationships either in the productive sphere or the labour markets (Wright 1997: 30; Chan and Goldthorpe 2004). In what follows, I will refer to the broad concept of class as class-as-strata (an admittedly unlovely term, but used to avoid confusion with the more specic meaning of social class). I will use economic class situation to refer to specic positions in labour and product markets, as conceptualized in Weberian theory. A third meaning of class is important: Capitalist societies are class societies in the fundamental sense that their very organization involves class divisions, which I referred to above, following Giddens, as class society as an institutional form. The system of the private ownership of means of production and the system of formally free labour, coordinated through markets, necessarily involves class divisions. These institutional class divisions are the foundation for the crystallization of multiple economic class situations, differentiated, on the supply side, by factors like types of property, skills and expertise, and on the demand side by specialization, bureaucratization and other aspects of the division of labour. This is in line with two basic aspects of Webers approach. Firstly, the assertion that property and lack of property are the basic categories of all class situations (Weber 1946:182). Secondly, it is in line with the implication of Weberian theory that the number of economic class situations determined by the market value of the property, skills or labour power might almost equal the number of individuals. This is, however, not a problem of Weberian theory, as it is sometimes made out to be (e.g. Giddens 1981:789), but reects contemporary class relations.5 Bourdieu is rightfully famous for, amongst other things, introducing the multiple forms of capital and a suggestive account of how different capitals are constituted through more or less autonomous elds of social practice. The notion of eld is doubly useful in terms of theory of stratication: It recognizes that stratication goes on in diverse microcosms of society, in a way that is not reducible to a global class structure i.e., it enjoys some autonomy and it also recognizes that this helps shape the overall structure of stratication. Through this, in Bourdieus usage, classes are shaped not only by differing relations to the means of production, or by different situations in labour and product markets, but also by the stratifying processes in multiple elds (and more). Under certain conditions, the capitals constituted and distributed within these elds may gain such a general currency that they play a part in the overall determination of agents social position in the global social space. This, in turn, accounts for a further diversication of possible positions within stratication structures, i.e. social space. The institutional order of class society thus lays the foundation for the constitution of a plurality of economic class situations. These intersect with the
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stratications from diverse elds to create a multidimensional social space of classes-as-strata, which itself reects the distributions of diverse forms of capital at work. This is not to suggest a wholly asymmetrical causal model on the level of individuals. Capitals at work in specic elds may come to constitute advantages in the labour and product markets themselves to an extent where they work as market capacities and thus directly affect an individuals economic class situation, which I will elaborate on below. Furthermore, the capitals and resources acquired may of course be applied so as to change an individuals position within the institutional order of class society, as when people start their own business. What is sketched above is primarily a conceptual map tying together these different meanings of class to indicate how they point to distinct aspects of contemporary class relations. With respect to the issue of multidimensionality it is useful to connect to the textbook example of a multidimensional approach to stratication: the Weberian distinction between class, status and party (Weber 1946). The multidimensionality of Bourdieus approach is frequently underlined by commentators and adherents. It is less clear how it relates to the more familiar distinction between class and status recently mustered against Bourdieu from a neoWeberian position (Chan and Goldthorpe 2004). On the face of it, economic capital might seem to corresponds to what Weber called class, and that cultural and symbolic capital corresponds to status. But this fails to appreciate that class for Weber refers to a specic causal component of life-chances rooted in market situation (Weber 1946: 181). The forms of capital refer to scarce resources that may be accumulated and invested in diverse elds. In what follows, I develop a conceptual approach to how the different capitals may be connected to these distinct causal components or processes. Just as class refers to market-based causal components of life-chances, status points to position in the societal distribution of honour as a causal component of life-chances (see the account in Scott 1996). Thus, class and status can be identied not only with particular types of group, but with reference to the type of relationship that is causally effective. In what follows, I refer to class in the restrictive, Weberian sense, i.e. what I have called economic class situation. Class and status can thus be thought of as sets of processes. Class processes refer to the workings of labour, product and nancial markets in producing and reproducing inequality. Status processes refer to how differential evaluations of social honour and prestige produce and reproduce inequality. Developing a concept devised by Hansen (1995) one can speak of class and status effects when referring to particular outcomes as effected through these processes. Forms of capital may operate through class and/or status processes, and have class and/or status effects, in addition to their efcacy in different elds. In this conceptualization, we can see how the different capitals might work through different processes. Economic capital may obviously work through class processes, but may also be subject of negative or positive evaluations of
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honour. If and when appearing as symbolic capital capital not recognized to be arbitrary privilege (cf. Bourdieu 1989: 21) economic capital works through status processes, through boosting the esteem of its holder. To the extent that economic capital is able to produce status effects through this, this would play a part in the legitimation of economic power. Cultural capital was shown to operate through what I call status processes in Bourdieu and his colleagues work on stratication in education (Bourdieu and Passeron 1990). Children of the higher classes were more positively seen by their teachers than children of lower classes, owing to their inherited stock of cultural capital. Within the limits of the school system, this is an example of a status effect of cultural capital, facilitating the accumulation of educational capital. Further evidence of such processes recently turned up in a study showing class differentials by volume as well as composition of capital in school grades were larger in oral than in written exams (Andersen and Hansen 2011).Thus, when capitals have status effects, they function as symbolic capital. Conversely, cultural capital may also have class effects. This can be thought of as the commodication of certain cultural competences, to the effect that they may come to be constituted as market capacities, exploitable in the bargaining encounters of the (labour) market. In capitalist societies, there seems to be a near universal tendency for some degree of this when it comes to educational credentials. To the extent that the competences supposedly guaranteed by the credentials are directly marketable, they may be thought of as commodied, and serve as a market capacity, thus having class effects. However, theories of credentialism draw our attention to the fact that in many cases, education gives access to good jobs, but not always specically through the competences that the diploma is supposed to guarantee. In such cases, the educational credentials might function as a signal of status-group membership (see the account in Bills 2004: 4759). In these cases, it might be reasonable to treat the effects of educational credentials on job attainment and corresponding rewards as a status effect. But at the same time, it still involves class processes if it operates through markets. The precise processes whereby cultural competences are commodied must be empirically unpacked. An illuminating example in this regard is the account given by Goldthorpe (1982) of the service class. He rejects explaining the rise of this group on the basis of their stocks of cultural capital, since this only focuses on the supply side. On the demand side, Goldthorpe demonstrates that the growth of corporate bureaucracies and increasing demands for expertise forms the basis for the rise of new service class positions, where the expertise and leadership functions held by its members facilitate their relative independence and autonomy in the work place. Although by no means intended as such, this account illustrates the commodication of certain forms of cultural capital, in that it shows how historical developments have created increased demands, and opened up space for the investment of this type of capital.
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The conceptual apparatus of Bourdieu offers valuable tools for unpacking the role of both economic and symbolic factors in the constitution of stratication. The formulations of certain of Bourdieus followers tend, however, to minimize or even dismiss the centrality of the relations of power and domination associated with class society as an institutional form. I have argued both that a traditional concept of class remains vital to class analysis, and that this must be integrated with perspectives drawn from Bourdieu. I have tried to indicate that the multidimensionality of Weber and Bourdieu is, while not identical, by no means as incompatible as it is sometimes made out to be (e.g. Chan and Goldthorpe 2004). I have also offered a tentative sketch of how some of the Bourdieusian key concepts can be connected to more conventional notions of class. This is not to belittle the originality of Bourdieus work and the insights gained by applying it, but to point towards how it may contribute to the further development of class and stratication theory. Three elements seem important in this respect. Firstly, one must retain the notion that the power and domination that inhere in property and market relations are core issues for class analysis. Secondly, economic class divisions are important in accounting for the distribution of rewards, i.e. economic capital. Thirdly, connecting the forms of capital to the class-status distinction is a way to develop a more comprehensive multidimensional approach to class and stratication. (Date accepted: February 2013)

Notes
1. I would like to thank Vegard Jarness and Marianne Nordli Hansen for having read several drafts of this paper and shared their insightful reections and reactions with me; John Scott for numerous detailed and useful comments on an earlier version; and the Journals four anonymous referees for helpful reviews. Thanks also to the participants of the Workshop on studies of elites and elite legitimacy in York October 2011 as well as the participants and lecturers John Scott and Fiona Devine on the PhD course on Social stratication, class analysis and class mobility in Oslo September 2011. I am very grateful to Juliet Munden for generously proof-reading the manuscript.
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2. I use European class theory to refer to the types of class theory devised in the tradition of Marx and Weber, and primarily developed by European authors like Lockwood, Goldthorpe, Poulantzas, Aron, Dahrendorf, Giddens etc. and also Olin Wright. 3. This is not to suggest that this is an exhaustive selection of Bourdieus work on class. I focus on the work most frequently drawn upon by the authors discussed later. 4. I should emphasize that this applies only to the eld analytical approach as a theory of class. 5. It is, of course, a practical problem in so far as it would produce a complicated scheme, but not a weakness of the theory as such.
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