Why Is Class Dead

Introduction The question of the continuing relevance of class as a social category has recently become widely debated amongst sociologists. Some theorists have reached the conclusion that in contemporary Britain ‘class is dead’; they deem it archaic and useless when seeking to explain the inequalities present in British society. My argument seeks to dispute the reasons presented for seeing class as dead. It will also attempt to highlight how there should be a ‘class renaissance’, where class is reconceptualised as a category considering more than just economic standing. The disparity between the best-off and worst-off in British today is only getting wider thanks to neoliberal politics and global capitalism, so class analysis may be needed now more than ever.

Is class
These choices are possible due to the increased affluence people faced in the
1950s and 60s, which class theorists see as the embourgeoisement of society (Zweig 1961, cited in
Scott 2001). Economic differences between the rich and poor were reducing, which class deniers took to mean that class divisions were becoming less potent in society and so were becoming irrelevant.
Class was seen as ‘useful in historical sociology,… but … nearly valueless for the clarification of the data of wealth, power, and social status in … much of Western society’ (Nisbet 1959, cited in Scott
2001) Individualism was the new norm in a post-industrial society and seemed to operate exclusively from class. However, Savage claims that individualisation can itself be a ‘classed process’ because our class identity is so deeply embedded inside us that it dictates how we see ourselves and our position in society, our attitudes and our behaviours (2000, cited in Bottero 2014). The claims of