Either class or race are in our final analysis. And in terms of class, C. Wright Mills wrote: “The ‘bourgeoisie’ and the ‘proletariat’ are social categories corresponding with the economic categories of ‘entrepreneur’ and ‘wage worker.’ Hence, when we speak of class and when we consider class as the final analysis, we are considering economics and the role of individuals and groups in an economy. And as Mills noted, about four-fifths of Americans are in the service economy. Very few Americans live off of property. To borrow from Mills: “The possibilities of selling their services in various labor markets, rather than of profitably buying and selling their property and its yields, now determine the life-chances of over four-fifths of the American people.”
In other words, four-fifths of Americans work off of someone else’s property. As Mills noted: “If the old middle class of free enterprisers once fought big properties in the name of small properties, the new middle class of white-collar employees, like the wage workers in latter-day capitalism, has been, from the beginning, dependent upon large properties for job security.” Both white-collar workers and wage workers are in the same lower class, whereas property owners are in the highest class. Distributions of property and income are what “underpin” the class structure, as Mills argued. Even the direction which one’s life takes is dependent upon one’s position in the class structure.
It follows that “class consciousness” is an “objective fact” of American life. Whether “class consciousness” actually arises or not is a different case and a different issue. Class consciousness may or may not arise in certain situations. There may be grievances on the part of the middle and working classes which arise as a result of classism, or classism may in fact be something which all the various classes accept and to which everyone acquiesces. But of course, it is all about prestige, and in most cases, prestige is concentrated in the state. However, this does not mean that power is respected. The state can divert all the prestige towards itself yet is never respected by others. It follows that power is not an end in itself. It is about what power seeks to achieve which is the end to be pursued. The ends of power could be virtues or values or social objectives such as justice and freedom.
Biases also emerge from class. There are “aggressive tendencies” on the part of all classes which are then counterbalanced by each other, to borrow from Herbert Spencer. We are inclined to think that all social arrangements depend on their “bearings” on class interests, as Spencer argued. Class bias and class feelings “extinguish” all rational considerations and rational thinking. Classism even extinguishes constitutional principles of government, as Spencer noted. Tyranny is essentially tyranny of class. Each class is concerned solely about their own interests and each class is confounded by their own degree of acquisitiveness. But arguably, and whether this is correct or not is a matter of personal judgment, class bias and classism “is about as good as existing human nature allows.” Spencer added: “The evils there are in it are nothing but the evils brought round on men by their own imperfections.” In other words, it is what it is, and it is better to just go along with it.
Adam A. Azim 