Class

Etymology: Latin classis → French classe → English class

The Latin word classis first described a group summoned together, then a fleet of ships.¹ Roman authorities used it to divide citizens into tax and military categories based on wealth. The transition from naval formation to social ranking happened inside the Roman census system.

English borrowed class from French in the late sixteenth century, initially to describe groups of students. The social meaning, a division of society based on economic position, emerged in the late eighteenth century as industrialization created visible distinctions between those who owned property and those who sold labor.²

Before class entered common usage, English had estate and rank and order, all of which implied a divinely sanctioned hierarchy. Class was different. It described groupings defined by economic position, not by birth or title.³ The word arrived alongside the idea that social position could change.

Karl Marx made class the central category of his social theory. In The Communist Manifesto (1848), he described all history as the history of class struggles. The vocabulary of class consciousness, class conflict, and class warfare followed.⁴

Max Weber expanded the concept beyond economics, arguing that social stratification included status (prestige) and party (political power) alongside class (economic position). The three dimensions did not always align.⁵

Timeline

• 6th century BCE, Roman census used classis to divide citizens into groups by wealth for tax and military purposes.
• Late 1700s, Class acquired its modern social meaning as industrialization created visible economic divisions.
• 1848, Marx declared all history the history of class struggles in The Communist Manifesto.
• 1922, Weber published Economy and Society, expanding class to include status and political power.

Endnotes

1. Harper, Douglas, "Etymology of class," Online Etymology Dictionary.
2. Harper, "Etymology of class."
3. Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (London: Fontana, 1976), s.v. "class."
4. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848).
5. Max Weber, Economy and Society (1922), trans. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978).