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The purpose of this article is to draw a theoretical distinction between the notions of 'social classes' and 'subaltern groups' as defined in The Prison Notebooks by Antonio Gramsci. This distinction will involve a brief discussion about the notions of 'social classes' evolved by other key authors in the area, apart from Gramsci himself, such as Marx, D. Bensaïd, E. P. Thompson and N. Poulantzas, who, on this question, have close affinities with the ideas of Gramsci. Finally, I seek to make suggestions about how this distinction can be applied, together with some critical observations on 'Subaltern Studies' and some final considerations with regard to this article as a whole.

Societies are often compared in terms of the relative shares of the domestic product controlled by government but we don't have much by way of analytical tools to allow us to think about the ways in which changes in these shares affect the characteristics of production and distribution. This paper treats production and distribution as a cooperative game with a continuum of players. Outcomes depend on politics and economics. It has a number of unexpected results. Among these are that relative shares do not depend on the majority rule the production function and that the characteristics of inegalitarian and egalitarian systems may converge.