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