class struggle

Class criterion

Record whether an account locates class in production relations, ownership, market position or another specified relation, with attribution to its proponents.

1. How does this account define class, and which authors or participants explicitly use that definition? definition
2. How does its classification differ from one based only on income, occupation or social status? boundary

Qualification rule

Record competing thresholds for calling a relationship or episode class struggle, without silently selecting one as universal.

1. Does this definition require observable resistance, organised action or explicit class consciousness, or can structural antagonism alone qualify? definition
2. Which cases would this definition include that a competing account would exclude? boundary

Relational position map

Record ownership, employment, control and appropriation relationships, including mixed or disputed class positions.

1. Who owns productive assets, directs labour, depends on selling labour or receives the surplus in the relationship under examination? measurement
2. How are managers, small proprietors, contractors and other mixed positions classified, and where is that classification contested? boundary

Interest and mandate claims

Record who asserts a shared class interest, who disputes it and what authorises organisations to act for a constituency.

1. Which interests are stated by participants, which are inferred by analysts, and what supports each attribution? provenance
2. What membership, decision or mandate supports a union, party or association's claim to represent the class actors concerned? provenance

Mobilisation pathway

Record the proposed role of shared experiences, organising networks, class language and internal divisions in enabling or limiting collective action.

1. What evidence shows participants developing, rejecting or revising a shared class identification? provenance
2. Which organisational links and divisions explain participation or nonparticipation among people assigned similar class positions? measurement

Action and counteraction

Record strikes, lockouts, bargaining, everyday resistance, policy campaigns and other documented actions together with the class-related mechanism claimed for them.

1. Which actions and counteractions occurred, and how did they affect labour, ownership, appropriation or economic control? provenance
2. Under the chosen definition, when does an individual refusal, consumer campaign or electoral contest qualify as class struggle? boundary

Claim-to-indicator link

Connect claims about antagonism, mobilisation and power to distinct indicators, with denominators, periods and source limitations.

1. Which observations would support or weaken the specific claim being made about class struggle? measurement
2. How will participation, work stoppages, bargaining concessions or control over production be measured without treating them as interchangeable? measurement

Comparative explanatory account

Record how class interacts with status, race, gender, nationality and other relationships, and assess explanations that do not assign class a primary role.

1. What evidence distinguishes a class mechanism from explanations based on professional status, ethnic exclusion, national allegiance or personal rivalry? boundary
2. Where do other social relationships constitute or divide the class actors rather than merely accompany their conflict? definition

Outcome and durability

Record changes in compensation, working conditions, ownership, decision rights and organising capacity, including reversals and uneven effects.

1. What changed for each class actor relative to a stated baseline, and over what period did the change persist? measurement
2. Did the outcome alter class relations, redistribute benefits within them or produce mixed effects across different class fractions? boundary

Response assessment

Record proposed responses, the actors authorised to pursue them, their intended effects and uncertainties about escalation, settlement or renewed conflict.

1. Which proposed responses address the documented stakes, and whose expressed aims and mandates do they serve? action
2. What evidence would justify judging the conflict settled, displaced, suppressed or likely to recur? measurement

Check these first

Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.

• This describes the social-theoretical concept, not a particular conflict, organisation or work bearing the name.
• Marxist approaches differ over whether class struggle requires conscious collective action or also includes less explicit forms of resistance and domination; other traditions dispute its explanatory primacy.
• There is no single accepted quantitative measure; empirical research must specify its definition of class, observable conflict and unit of analysis.

1. Which of these check these first hold for the sense of class struggle this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Kinds and varieties

Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.

• Economic struggle over wages, working conditions and control of production
• Political struggle over state power, representation and public policy
• Ideological struggle over ideas that legitimate or challenge class relations

1. Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of class struggle this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Real-world use

Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.

• Interpreting labour organising, strikes and employer resistance in relation to class interests
• Explaining historical changes in property relations and systems of production
• Analysing political mobilisation and conflicts over taxation, redistribution and public services
• Examining how cultural institutions reproduce or challenge class domination

1. Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of class struggle this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Failure modes and hazards

Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.

• Treating every social conflict as class struggle without establishing class positions or opposed interests
• Inferring collective action or shared political beliefs directly from economic position
• Reducing conflicts involving race, gender, nationality or religion to class alone
• Treating income categories as equivalent to classes defined by ownership or relations of production
• Using strike counts or inequality measures as direct measures of class struggle without a stated operational definition

1. Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of class struggle this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Regional variation

Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.

• Historical research on agrarian societies often foregrounds landlord-peasant conflicts, while research on industrial capitalism often foregrounds employer-worker conflicts.
• Labour law, welfare institutions and bargaining arrangements affect whether class conflicts appear through collective bargaining, electoral politics, informal organising or confrontation.
• Colonial and postcolonial analyses examine how class relations intersect with imperial rule, land dispossession and national liberation.

1. Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of class struggle this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart

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• Social class - Social class identifies a position or grouping within social relations; class struggle concerns conflict between such classes.
• Class consciousness - Class consciousness concerns awareness and interpretation of shared class interests; class struggle concerns conflict and need not involve explicit class identification.
• Labour dispute - A labour dispute is a specific disagreement in employment relations; identifying it as class struggle requires connecting it to opposed class interests.
• Economic inequality - Economic inequality describes unequal resources or outcomes; class struggle describes conflict and cannot be inferred from inequality alone.
• Social movement - A social movement involves sustained collective mobilisation; its participants and objectives need not be organised around class interests.
• Revolution - Revolution involves fundamental transformation of political or social arrangements; class struggle can occur without revolution, and revolutions can involve other conflicts.

1. Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of class struggle this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance