As an explanation tool, the concept of class serves, first and foremost, to clarify who gains and who losses from specific economic processes and policies and with what consequences.

Class analysis can thus function not simply as part of scientific theory of interests and conflicts, but of an emancipatory theory of alternatives and social justice as well. Even if socialism is off the historical agenda, the idea of countering the exploitative logic of capitalism is not.

The conventional way of understanding taste, according to Distinction, is to view it as a capacity for aesthetic judgments in areas such as music, art, and literature. Though rarely made explicit, it is well understood that taste can be found only among the elite, and that the lower classes lack it. Bourdieu argues that it is imperative to break with this concept of taste and replace it with one that is sociological in nature. In order to do so, Bourdieu expands the concept of taste from including only "aesthetic consumption" to including "ordinary consumption," that is, the consumption of clothing, furniture, and food ([1979] 1986:100). He also extends the concept of taste to all social classes, and shows that what constitutes "good taste" is very much part of the struggle for domination in society.

We basically have a situation with two classes here: a sort of political and economic class, intermingling with each other at their megabucks-level inaugural galas, and the average citizens, who at best get to watch the inaugural from hundreds of yards away.

If he was less motivated by compassion than anger at what he saw as the arrogance of capital,he chafed,nonetheless,to regulate it.

Poor people do not go on holiday; they go home.