Abstract

Almost without exception, defenders and critics of the (Weberian) project of class analysis have denied the validity and utility of what they take to be Marxist conceptions of class. It is argued here that: first, the aims and structure of Marxist class analysis are quite different from those of Weberian class analysis; second, sociological contributions to the current debate have failed to address the most significant insights of Marxist class analysis, namely the labour theory of value; and third, Wright's supposedly exemplary Marxist research programme, being also deficient in this respect, shares common ground with its Weberian critics. Thus the case for Marxist class analysis has gone by default, a situation which this paper attempts to redress.