Class Counts: Comparative Studies in Class Analysis

by Erik Olin Wright

Class Counts constitutes one of the few attempts to use systematically the concept of class from the Marxist tradition of social theory in quantitative research. The research in the book covers a wide range of topics, including the class character of friendship patterns, class mobility, the sexual division of labor in housework, gender differences in managerial authority, and class consciousness. What unites the topics is not a preoccupation with a common object of explanation, but rather a common explanatory factor: class.

Genres: Sociology, Nonfiction, Class, Politics, Economics

616 pages, Paperback

First published November 28, 1996

About the author

Erik Olin Wright was an American analytical Marxist sociologist, specializing in social stratification, and in egalitarian alternative futures to capitalism. He was the (2012) President of the American Sociological Association.
Erik Olin Wright received two BAs (from Harvard College in 1968, and from Balliol College in 1970), and the PhD from University of California, Berkeley, in 1976. Since that time, he has been a professor of sociology at University of Wisconsin - Madison.
Wright has been described as an "influential new left theorist." His work is concerned mainly with the study of social classes, and in particular with the task of providing an update to and elaboration of the Marxist concept of class, in order to enable Marxist and non-Marxist researchers alike to use 'class' to explain and predict people's material interests, lived experiences, living conditions, incomes, organizational capacities and willingness to engage in collective action, political leanings, etc. In addition, he has attempted to develop class categories that would allow researchers to compare and contrast the class structures and dynamics of different advanced capitalist and 'post-capitalist' societies.

Reviews

[Bookshark]

This book presents an incredibly sophisticated, complex, and nuanced account of class within a comparative framework. At both a theoretical level and a methodological level, his analysis is sound and often convincing. I'm very surprised that this book is not more widely read these days.

[Jess]

Interesting, but more focused on methodology and data analysis than I tend to care for in (for me) casual reading. Will try something shorter by the author though.

[Patrick Sauriol]

Idk, class analysis across English speaking states, Japan and the Nordic countries. A Marxist analysis that devotes a lot of time to gendered analysis, which is new to see in Marxism.

[Álvaro Cabrera]

the best one from Wright so far

[Meaghan]

3.5

read the first two sections