Contested capital: Class and the sociology of work

Theories of class within sociology have, over several decades, increasingly marginalised work and employment as generators of social class. In place of this, there has been a growing emphasis on culture determining class, drawing especially on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and exemplified by the work of Mike Savage and his co-authors. Bourdieusian approaches extend a narrow economic conception of capital to the terrain of culture. This article suggests a richer conception of capital, drawing on Marx’s political economy. Such an approach reconceptualises class as a social relation, imbricated with the relations of production of capitalism, allowing an account that can explain and explore wider processes and inequalities, and relinking class, work and employment.