Toward a sounder basis for class analysis

Satisfactory class concepts need to identify the mechanisms that produce the consequences of class membership, be they class conflicts or differences in lifestyles. Using a broad conception of property rights, the article proposes to base class concepts on personal wealth, that is, the assets a person controls. Two main class concepts are proposed: class as life conditions, based on a person's total wealth, and class as exploitation, based on a person's control over assets that produce economic rents. The former concept corresponds to empirical and Weberian class concepts, the latter to Marxist and neo-Marxist class concepts. The article shows that the class concept based on rent-producing assets accounts for recent developments in capitalism.