classism

classism, a form of personal bias or prejudice or a pattern of institutional discrimination based on social class and typically directed against persons or groups of a lower socioeconomic status. In keeping with its different senses, the term can be used to characterize the attitudes and behavior of individuals toward others or the structure and systemic practices of institutions or whole societies.

As with other forms of discrimination or oppression, such as racism and sexism, classism can be viewed either as a social ill that can be reduced or even eliminated through effective civic activism and political leadership or as a constitutive feature of society that can be remedied only through fundamental structural changes. The concept of classism is often applied in ways that are consistent with the possibility of nonclassist individual relationships and social arrangements or that are at least suggestive of a moral imperative to strive toward such equality (as in denunciations of a person or an institution as “classist”). The social ideal invoked in such applications is based upon a liberal understanding of social and political rights as inherent in and equal between all individuals, regardless of any socioeconomic or other differences they may have.

In contrast, Marxism conceives of classism as not primarily a morally problematic disregard of individual rights but as a core feature of all precommunist societies. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels denounced the systemic oppression of the proletariat in works such as The Communist Manifesto (1848) but regarded the entire history of human society as largely a function of class struggles. For Marx, the only means of escaping classism is through the dialectical evolution of history and the eventual abolition of all classes through a proletarian revolution (see also dictatorship of the proletariat). Whereas the liberal-inspired concept of classism is used to call out and rectify a moral wrong, the Marxist understanding emphasizes the impossibility of escaping the relevant unequal dynamics without radical political change.

Nevertheless, some radically inclined activists and scholars have adopted a liberal-like concept of classism while still calling for the overthrow of capitalism. Their invocation of classism allows them to reject the traditional Marxist idea of an existing hierarchy of discriminatory or oppressive practices—which would entail that the fight against racism and sexism, for example, should be subordinated to the struggle against class-based society—and instead to address the ways in which such practices are effectively integrated or experienced simultaneously and cumulatively by their victims. Since the 1990s many social scientists have explored the overlapping impact of race, gender, and socioeconomic class on human experience. Their theoretical approach, which emphasizes interrelated systems of oppression and denies the primacy of any one of them, is known as intersectionality.

Like racism and sexism, classism is manifested and perpetuated in both patent and more subtle ways. According to the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, individuals experience their social class through what he called “habitus,” a set of internalized perceptions, ideas, or modes of action shared with other members of the same social group. As Bourdieu pointed out, social classes are maintained not merely through the intra-class transmission of economic capital or financial resources but also through the transmission of “social capital,” such as acquired social skills and shared cultural references. Accordingly, the negative human impact of classism can take the form of subtle acts of discrimination (what some social theorists have called “micro-oppressions”), such as using a condescending tone to address a person with a “lowly” appearance, in addition to more-dramatic encroachments on people’s rights or dignity, such as denying access to health care to lower-class citizens. It is important to note that, even under constitutional regimes that forbid sex-based or race-based discrimination, there is generally no legal protection against discrimination based on socioeconomic class.