Chapter 18 Class, Status, Party

Weber starts this chapter on class, status and party out by saying that people want power, not just so they can make a ton of money but also for the honor that it brings with it, namely social honor. He goes on to say that power may not bring social honor but that it might be the other way around, being honored in society makes it more likely that you will be economically powerful. Because of the distribution of power in communities, classes, status groups, and parties are formed.

Weber defines “classes” in three ways. 1) people that have things in common that are 2) the things they have in common are the goods that they have and how much money they make and 3) are “represented under that conditions of the commodity or labor markets. I am not really sure what exactly he means with the 3rd part.
He says that the mode of distribution pretty much creates a monopoly for the rich and that the poor can’t even compete for the highly valued goods, only the rich can. Property and lack of property are the two categories that all classes fall into. I think that what he is saying is that the kind of property you can have differs; it depends on how much money you can make with it or off it.
People will pursue what they are interested in depending on how qualified they are for that position. I’m not quite sure if this is right but I think Weber is saying that people will also pursue what they want depending on how much of an issue it is for other people in similar situations. They will only do this as a result of a distribution of property or as a result of the structure of concrete economic order.
Weber says that classes are not groups. Social action isn’t necessarily accomplished by people of the same class but from different classes that have come together. He says that “class situations of the worker and the entrepreneur are: the labor market, the commodities market, and the capitalistic enterprise.”
Class situations are strictly economic but status situations include everything in normal everyday life that determine honor (or lack of honor). It can also be linked to class because class can bring honor, but it doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t matter if you have property or not to belong to the same status group. People within the status group usually live the same type of life style and normally you have to be in the same status group to marry (at this time). Weber is basically saying too I believe that in order to be a part of the status group you pretty much have to look the part to be accepted, meaning you have to dress like them, ect.
Toward the end of the article he talks about the caste system a little bit. He says that individual castes develop their own gods and cults because they are in no way supposed to mix with castes above them. Weber says that people of different ethnicities are told not to mix at all and have to stay in their certain designated areas and not interact with anyone else.
Weber says that some statuses are privileged and are allowed to do things that other statues are not. The high status people normally like to keep the wealth and status to themselves and they tend to monopolize goods. Everything that is in style has come from some status group who has monopolized that item.
Parties fit in to classes and status groups but are in the “sphere or power.” Parties always strive for a goal or cause. They do not have to be strictly class or strictly status parties; most times they are mixed.
I tried as best I could to get as much meaning from this article as possible. It was kind of hard to understand for me. It basically just outlines the definitions of classes, status groups, and parties and how each one comes to be and how it functions. I hope this is helpful but please elaborate on thing that I might have missed or misinterpreted