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Comparative reference groups are not chosen in accordance with the facts of inequality.

They confirms the finding that self-reported middle-class identity (self-rating) is tied with the support for the Conservative party.

Runciman warns that social attitudes to inequality cannot be claimed to be caused by the choice of a normative reference group.

The survey relies on asking consumers to suggest what they would mean by people like themselves.

Runciman considers the manual/non-manual distinction relevant in the context of England.

One cannot after all ask the consumer what her comparative, normative and membership reference groups are.

Runciman argues that the role of subjective evaluation of one's prospects may be disregarded in the way assignment to a class is recorded in the surveys.

Weber/Marx consider class-identity as the reference group - not pertaining to the social identity - but in a means-of-production sense.

The choice of ‘conditions of deprivation’ can not be independent of ‘feelings of deprivation' - A Sen, Poverty and Famines.

Srinivasan always works with philosophical micro-definitions and her conclusions seem hard to refute.

Srinivasan goes into colonial history to describe how racial injustices are intertwined with gender - a path that modern feminists avoid.

There are some pithy one-liners to remember. Sex is gender in disguise. Feminism cannot indulge the fantasy that interests always converge.

Sex is gender in disguise.

Sex is gender in disguise.

The idea of reference point is brought early on - as he talks about the eccentric paying more.

Indeed - race was a matter of pride and selection in those days too. Armenians, Eurasians and Persians - in Mary's words - were to fill the civil service (they're closer to being white than native dark-skinned people).

Given such disparities it even a slight condescension could be refreshing - for example - by Mary saying that Hindoo women - once "developed" by the West - might not be very different from Western women. This speaks more of the innocence of Western women in those days than the social attitudes overall.