| Sumario: | There are few subjects of such paramount significance to the social scientist that have remained in so ill defined a condition as that of class. One cannot, for instance, comprehend clearly what is meant by concepts "social stratification," imperialism, ruling class, race conflict, fascism, communism and so on unless we know what classes are and how they function. At any rate, the literature on this subject is extremely confused. There seem to be two principal reasons for this confusion, a non realization that different writers may refer to quite distinct social phenomena under the same designation class and a tendency to disregard one of these phenomena altogether. This article hopes to distinguish between two primary meanings of the concept class and to characterize them briefly. To one of these meanings researchers shall apply the term social class and to the other political class. A brief reference to social estates is intended to clarify our discussion. It should be mentioned that the term middle class, applied to the business community in Europe since the later middle ages, designates a political class in an estate society. It does not have the same meaning as middle class in a bourgeois society, which represents the middle status group of the status continuum.
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