Like Elsie wondering why a cow is a “cow”, I have spent an inordinate amount of time worrying about what makes a class a “class”. Here is the basic problem. The Marxist concept of class is rooted in a polarized notion of antagonistic class relations: slave masters exploit slaves, lords exploit serfs, capitalists exploit workers. In the analysis of developed capitalist societies, however, many people do not seem to neatly fit this polarized image. In everyday language, many people are “middle class”, and, even though Marxists generally do not like that term, nevertheless, most Marxist analysts are uncomfortable with calling managers, doctors and professors, “proletarians.” Thus, the problem is this: how can the social categories which are commonly called “middle” class be situated within a conceptual framework built around a polarized concept of class? What does it mean to be in the “middle” of a “relation”? The diverse strands of research brought together in this book are all, directly or indirectly, ramifications of struggling with this core conceptual problem.

My empirical research on these issues began with my dissertation on class and income, completed in 1976. In that project, I used data gathered by the Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Quality of Employment Survey and several other sources. None of these had been gathered with Marxist concepts in mind.