Class, Property, and Authority: Dahrendorf's Critique of Marx's Theory of Class

The central concern of this paper is the conceptual interrelationship among "class," "property," and "authority"; the context is Dahrendorf's well-known critique of Marx's theory of class, wherein Dahrendorf contends that Marx erroneously specified the determinant of class, in part because of his alleged reliance on organismic analogies. After reviewing certain features of the structure of Marx's theory, the paper examines the foregoing and two related criticisms made by Dahrendorf, and concludes that the latter (1) overlooks crucial characteristics of Marx's theory, (2) engages in confused comparisons of "organism" and "society" in order to support part of his critique, (3) misrepresents Marx's usage of "property," (4) obfuscates the concept of authority by equating it with domination, and therefore (5) constructs an alleged supersedent to Marx's theory of class that is actually grounded not in class or any other material difference but in the fabric of justifications ("ideologies," "derivations," etc.) that are socially provided the material differences. In his study of Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society, Dahrendorf (1959) sets forth a number of criticisms of Marx's theory of class, in anticipation of his own intended supersedure of that theory. Three of these criticisms are the concern of this paper: first, and most important, Dahrendorf's critical remarks about Marx's conceptualization of class, in particular the relationship between property and authority vis-a-vis the structural conditions of class formation; second, his criticisms of Marx's analysis of structural change; third, his contention that Marx claimed for his theory an improperly broad scope. We shall examine each of these charges, especially the first-mentioned, in some detail and attempt to show that they are host to serious misapprehensions of Marx's theory and to obfuscations of the concepts of property and authority with respect to that theory.' In the section that follows, Dahrendorf's statements of criticism are presented briefly, and then in a subsequent section we address the particulars of each of his arguments. Inasmuch as his criticisms are faulted not only by the manner in which he employs the concept "authority" and interprets Marx's usage of "property" but also by certain failures in understanding the structure of Marx's theory of class, it will be necessary to interject some considerations of such matters as the logical characteristics of the Marxian theory. It should be stressed that our argument is not that all of Dahrendorf's points in critique are ill-founded-quite to the contrary in some instances, as for example, his (1959:145) recognition that Marx "deliberately avoided" in his structural analyses a corresponding concern with the "relation between social roles and their personnel." One of the most underdeveloped parts of Marx's theory is (still) that which pertains to class behavior at the interpersonal level, especially the part of it that rests upon considerations of class consciousness.2 Similarly, we must agree at the outset about another important matter. Marx was political activist and polemicist as well as sociological * Special acknowledgement is due to Joseph Lopreato and Barclay Johnson, who provided helpful comments on an earlier draft of the paper. The author of course retains sole responsibility for any errors that may have been committed. 1 For present purposes, Dahrendorf's publications subsequent to Class and Class Conflict (1959) will be ignored (e.g., 1967a; 1967b; 1968), although in fairness it should be noted that he himself has questioned the 1959 formulation (cf. e.g., 1967b) . 2 Perhaps the "deliberately avoided" is a bit stretched, although it is arguable that Marx wittingly chose as a tactical concession to his polemics against the idealists a deliberate avoidance of issues regarding the causal significance of actor conceptions and attitudes.