Class Analysis and the Heavy Weight of Convention

The roles of critic, defender, and observer take on quite stylized forms when an especially entrenched research agenda is questioned and debated. The following positions characteristically emerge in such debates: (a) the defenders of the status quo tend to argue that the critics have failed to appreciate the subtlety, flexibility, or key objectives of the reigning approach (i.e. the 'misunderstood paradigm' stance); (b) the critics themselves counter that this aggressive repositioning and defense of the conventional approach only signals that real analytic problems have emerged and that entrenched academic interests and identities are being defended (i.e. the 'vested interests' stance); and (c) the residual class of disinterested observers and bystanders often argue that minor and easily reconciled differences of opinion have become exaggerated or magnified because the discipline is debate-hungry, because of pre-existing acrimony among the principals, or because the substantive topic at hand is so fashionable that even trivial matters have been elevated to debate status (i.e. the 'flogging a dead horse' lament). In the present case, the defenders of conventional class analysis have advanced position (a) broadly and ably, and our role now is to defend against that interpretation while simultaneously hinting at position (b) and dissuading from any serious consideration of (c). Although it is poor form to argue (b) directly (especially in ad hominem form), we can at least make (b) more plausible by showing that traditional class analytic approaches are beset with difficulties and that scholars who embrace the convention do so at potential analytic and explanatory cost. We shall proceed, then, by concentrating on the strongest critiques that cut to the heart of the debate, despite the obvious temptations of 'cherry-picking' more easily refuted critiques. In this regard, we are grateful that our critics have taken on many of our most basic claims, as this allows us to stay focused on core topics and thereby defend more readily against position (c). We will thus address such fundamental topics as the forms of social organization that emerge and become institutionalized at the site of production, the case for carrying out class analysis with realist (i.e. 'institutionalized') categories rather than nominal ones, the statistical and intellectual argument for tolerating the losses in parsimony that our approach implies, and the rationale for applying the language of class analysis to the realist categories that emerge at the micro-level. These topics are addressed in turn below.