"Devine, James" wrote:
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> Stratification theory is empiricist, describing what is, while Marx's class analysis also is taking about what can be.
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I agree. Also, stratification theory always and class theory all too often is merely static, treating classes (or strata) as so many baskets into which one dumps individuals (like sorting peaches into 1.75, 2.0, 2.25&up inches -- I'm going back to my experiences around 63 years ago in the peach-packing shed). As Wood puts it, class is a process, not a static category: but that is hard to express in brief general statements.
What the various "categories" of the working class have always shared is the sharp division between purpose (what the wage will buy) and action on the job, which is also a separation of present and future (since the present [the job] is never its own motive) and act and meaning (since the meaning of the act can only be determined when the wage is "cashed in" for goods or services). I suppose all of these many 'divorces' are aspects of commodity fetishism, when that is seen as an objective fact of capitalism and not merely a psychological delusion.
Carrol