Class Situations of Firm Owners

This theory project aims to develop a social differentiation of capitalist class situations based on “ownership work”. The starting point are neo-Weberian class schemata, which differentiate different class situations on the basis of employment relations. While this differentiation works very well for employees, it falls short for employers and firm owners. Instead, this projects pursuits the idea to differentiation class positions by ownership relations. It proposes to distinguish between four class situations of firm owners using “ownership work” as central criteria: the contextualization of ownership in employment (e.g. hybrid self-employed), the personification of ownership (e.g. partnerships), the capitalization of ownership (e.g. in the corporation), and finally the codification of ownership (e.g. in complex corporate structures). The proposed differentiation contributes significantly to the theoretical discourse on social inequality.