and Class Conflict in Industrial Society Ralf Dahrendorf ^One of the most important efforts to reorient the approach of modern sociology . A major contribution to social theory." — Seymour Martin Lipset mI Stanford University Press Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society PROF. iMni DEPA Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society RALF DAHRENDORF STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS STANFORD, CALIFORNIA This work originally appeared in Ger- many in 1957 under the title Soziale Klassen und Klassenkonfltkt in der in- dustriellen Gesellschaft and has been translated, revised, and expanded by the author Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 1959 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University Printed in the United States of America Cloth SBN 8047-0560-7 Paper SBN 8047-0561-5 First published 1959 Last figure below indicates year of this printing: 78 77 76 75 74 73 72 Hr (top". Y" to DAVID LOCKWOOD and our common friends of the "Thursday Evening Seminar** at the London School of Economics (igß2—ig^/f) and to my fellow fellows at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences ( I9S7~^95^) Preface to the First (German) Edition In the middle of the twentieth century, the sociologist finds him- self in an awkward position. While he is just beginning to lay and secure the foundations of his discipline, an impatient public demands with increasing urgency both immediately applicable and comprehen- sive solutions from him. Following almost every sociological confer- ence, confident journalists charge sociologists with being either igno- rant of practical problems or incapable of solving them. Like an angry creditor, the public pursues the sociologist's every move in order to lay its hands on every penny he may produce. Is it surprising that under these conditions many a sociologist has begun to forge currency.? The public deserves no better j but unfortunately the false currency, the overly rapid as well as the all-embracing solutions harm the prog- ress of sociology as well. They remove sociological discussion from the sphere of scholarly criticism which inspires ever new efforts to that of a sterile quarrel of opinions. It is therefore necessary to make a decision. The sociologist certainly is a debtor of the society in which he lives in a way unparalleled in most other disciplines of scholarship. But this debt merely forces him to choose the subjects of his research in such a way that its results—if any—might contribute to informing society about itself. This is all. In developing his theories, methods, and techniques, the sociologist is bound exclusively by the rules of all scholarship, which demand from him accuracy and adherence to that pedestrian path of science which nobody else can take for him and which no magic force can abridge. Inevitably, this path involves byways and detours j it is a long way, and its destination may disap- point his and others' expectations j perhaps somebody else soon shows that the path chosen was altogether wrong. But if an ill-advised public does not understand the process of scientific inquiry and de- mands more, the sociologist may and must be sufficiently proud and confident to defend his scholarly responsibility in face of a miscon- ceived obligation to society which is all too often informed by little more than a desire to please. Htc RhoduSy hie salta! viii Preface to the First (German) Edition These remarks are in place at the beginning of a study, the sub- ject of which is as extensive as its results are tentative, modest, and in need of supplementation. The attempt is made here to tackle a problem, which has for a long time been strangely neglected, with partly new and partly more refined means. To many it may sound surprising if I call a problem neglected about which the present study lists more than two hundred bibliographical references which could easily be doubled and trebled. Probably the word "class" belongs to the most frequently used words of sociology. But I am not concerned here with the word. I should not hesitate to replace it by a better one if I could find such} moreover, it will appear less fre- quently in the present investigation than might be expected. I am concerned with a problem, namely, with the puzzling fact that social structures as distinct from most other structures are capable of pro- ducing within themselves the elements of their supersession and change. Social structures not only are subject to change but create permanently and systematically some of the determinant forces of their change within themselves. Among these forces certain groups are paramount, the conflict of which may lead to modifications of existing values and institutions. I shall attempt to show in the present study how these groups and the processes to which they contribute can be identified theoretically and analyzed empirically. Perhaps a word of explanation is necessary as to why I have given a study of this problem the title Class and Class Conflict. At least one great sociologist, Karl Marx, has used the concept of class in the context intimated by the foregoing remarks. It is undeniable that not very many have followed Marx in this. Little more than a dozen (if important) sociologists who understand Marx's and our problem as one of class will be mentioned in the course of this study. Moreover, we shall have to subject the approaches of Marx and most later sociologists to severe criticism which often leads to the conclusion that they are vague, imprecise, incomplete, or even unten- able and erroneous. The overwhelming majority of sociologists since Sombart and Max Weber have associated the concept of class with other types of problems, especially with those of social stratification. A regrettable chain of circumstances seems to have committed both the original meaning of the concept of class and the problem of its first use to oblivion. All these factors can hardly serve to justify the attempts to revive both the problem and the concept of class in their original definition. However, so far as the problem is concerned, no justification is necessary, and with respect to the concept I shall try Preface to the First (German) Edition ix to point out that the situation is not quite as hopeless as it may seem at first sight. To anticipate but one argument here: There is, in soci- ological terminology, a useful alternative for the misunderstood concept of class, i.e., the term "stratum," whereas for the well- understood concept of class a substitute has not yet been found. For two reasons one can predict with some confidence that the present study will be misunderstood. One of these rests with the strict distinction of "class" and "stratum" and their respective heu- ristic purposes. By stratum I shall understand a category of persons who occupy a similar position on a hierarchical scale of certain situa- tional characteristics such as income, prestige, style of life. "Stratum" is a descriptive category. By contrast, the concept of class is an ana- lytical category which has meaning only in the context of a theory of class. "Classes" are interest groupings emerging from certain structural conditions which operate as such and effect structure changes. The confusion of these two concepts and spheres of analy- sis is so complete that I cannot hope to eliminate it entirely by this first attempt at clarification, even if I should have succeeded in sepa- rating class and stratum convincingly and consistently. I must accept the misunderstanding which is possible, even probable here, just like another one which goes even deeper and touches upon the patheti- cally preliminary discussion of the possibility of a sociological science. I ask the reader's indulgence if I refrain here from a general con- sideration of this subject and instead refer to the present study itself as a testimony to my conception of sociology. There is but one aspect of the problem which I should like to mention in advance, even as it is going to increase rather than mitigate misunderstand- ings: If in this study I speak of "theory," "hypothesis," "empirical test," "refutation," and "science," I use these terms in the strict sense of the methodological characteristics of an empirical discipline. At least logically, physics, physiology, and sociology are subject to the same laws—whatever may render one or the other of these dis- ciplines empirically preferable in terms of exactness. I cannot see why it should not be at least desirable to try to free sociology of the double fetters of an idiographic historical and a meta-empirical philosophical orientation and weld it into an exact social science with precisely—ideally, of course, mathematically—formulated postu- lates, theoretical models, and testable laws. The attempt must be made; and although the present study remains far removed from its satisfactory completion, I want it to be understood in terms of such an attempt. — X Preface to the First (German) Edition Generalizing theoretical formulation and its empirical test are balanced in the present investigation. With R. K. Merton I regard "theories of the middle range" as the immediate task of sociological research: generalizations that are inspired by or oriented towards concrete observations. However, the exposition of the theory of social classes and class conflict stands in the center of this investiga- tion. The resume of Marx's theory of class, the largely descriptive account of some historical changes of the past century, and the criti- cal examination of some earlier theories of class, including that of Marx, lead up to the central theoretical chapters j with the analysis of post-capitalist society in terms of class theory a first empirical test of my theoretical position is intended.