The book incorporates three alternative conceptions of class. Erik Olin Wright's structural Marxist account is set alongside John Goldthorpe's occupational class schema, and the Registrar-General's prestige and skill-related categories. The authors use their unique data on inequality and conflict in contemporary Britain to provide, for the first time, a rigourous comparison of Marxist, sociological and official class frameworks. The book ranges widely across such topics as sectionalism in the workforce; privatism of families and individuals; fatalism; gender and class processes; sectoral production and consumption cleavages. The authors conclude that class is still crucial in structuring economic, political and social life.
