Traditionally class has been the key concept for understanding society, enabling analysts to interpret social conflict and predict the course of social development. Critics argue that it is too crude and incapable of handling the nuances of the new identity politics. Jan Pakulski and Malcolm Waters take the radical position within the current debates that class is a purely historical phenomenon.

This stimulating book argues that concentration on class actually diverts attention from other more central and more morally problematic inequalities. The class perspective has become a political straitjacket which obstructs an accurate understanding of contemporary social, cultural and political processes.