Class Politics and Cultural Politics (original) (raw)
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Class and Social Order: Political Consequences of the Move from Class to Culture
The paper makes three claims: that it is through "classness" that capitalism leads to a democratic order; that today class is increasingly expressed as culture; that this reconceptualization of class as culture makes it difficult to defend democratic order. Capitalism initially broke up inegalitarian communitarianism and formed social classes fighting for their own interests. These classes became the basis for a new order through the help of two phenomena that arose around the same time: nations and democracy. "Nations" offered capitalism's victims a new sense of inclusion, and this new sense of inclusion promoted democratization. Today, globalization challenges democracy by disembedding class politics from national politics. And so we have the escape to culture: with "class" no longer paying high dividends, non-elites seek to advance their interests through culture. Claims of being the sole bearers of national culture, however, compromise a democratic order, and begin to create a new disorder.
Politics and class in the United States: The assault on the middle class and the poor
2017
It has been said that the liberal values of Western democracies are associated with individual conscience, truth based on knowledge, the order of law, and with an appeal to universality and equality, that is, to legal and moral principles applied consistently to all. Yet, it has also been claimed that these values are often not practiced as they are preached by Western societies. In fact, these societies often display a dramatic gap between theory and practice, for their appeal to law frequently justifies exploitation and suppression by force both at home and abroad.
Class in the Crisis of Capitalism: Inequality, Class and Left wing politics in the US and UK
2019
In the wake of US debt crisis a wave of protest swept through the advanced Capitalist countries and around the world bringing down governments in Tunisia, Egypt and challenging neoliberal centrist parties throughout the developed world. This ‘newest’ wave of social protests is distinct in its predominantly young social base, its leaderless organization structure and its media savvy tactics. Guided by the highly anti-capitalistic narrative these protests have developed, leading scholars in the field of social movements have begun to re-analyse the impact of economic and cultural structures and the role of class on the development of this newest wave of social movements. The present analysis builds on this research trend first theoretically by adding the insights of Marxist scholars on the nature of capitalism and the specifics of both normative, cultural and structural sources of grief and frames of action within neoliberal labour relations to an analysis of relationally based class location. The analysis focuses on the changing base for social movements within the west. Identifying a particular ‘latent’ class of young educated precariat the analysis uses models developed within the social movement literature to conduct an historical analysis to reveal the transformational process of class formation within these movements as they react to changing political and cultural events. This study then traces the development of this class consciousness through to the later more active forms of class consciousness seen in the Sanders and Corbyn campaigns. Rather than fading from view, this class-in-the-making is seen to evolve a more focused political consciousness during this period. Finally, a comparative analysis in done looking at the movement and party-politics of this precariat class in the wake of the crises brought on by the election of Donald Trump and the EU referendum.
Classificatory Struggles: Class, Culture & Inequality in Neoliberal Times prepublication draft
The problem that the concept of ‘class’ describes is inequality. The transition from industrial to financial capitalism (neoliberalism) in Europe has effected ‘deepening inequalities of income, health and life chances within and between countries, on a scale not seen since before the second world War’ (Hall et al., 2014: 9). In this context, class is an essential point of orientation for sociology if it is to grasp the problem of inequality today. Tracing a route through Pierre Bourdieu’s relational understanding of class, Beverley Skeggs’ understanding of class as struggles (over value), and Wendy Brown’s argument that neoliberalism is characterized by the culturalization of political struggles, this article animates forms of class-analysis, with whichwe might better apprehend the forms of class exploitation that distinguish postindustrial societies. Taking a cue from Jacques Ranciere, the central argument is that the sociology of class should be grounded not in the assumption and valorization of class identities but in an understanding of class as struggles against classification. In this way, sociology can contribute to the development of alternative social and political imaginaries to the biopolitics of disposability symptomatic of neoliberal governmentality.
Class Politics, American-Style
Perspectives on Politics, 2011
Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson's Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class is both a work of political science and a contribution to broad public discussion of distributive politics. Its topic could not be more relevant to a US polity wracked by bitter partisan disagreements about taxes, social spending, financial regulation, social insecurity, and inequality. The political power of “the rich” is a theme of widespread public attention. The headline on the cover of the January–February 2011 issue of The American Interest—“Inequality and Democracy: Are Plutocrats Drowning Our Republic?”—is indicative. Francis Fukuyama's lead essay, entitled “Left Out,” clarifies that by “plutocracy,” the journal means “not just rule by the rich, but rule by and for the rich. We mean, in other words, a state of affairs in which the rich influence government in such a way as to protect and expand their own wealth and influence, often ...
Dialectical Anthropology, 2018
Corporations and the dominant political parties in the USA have produced ideologies that foster the belief that class is not significant. Nationalist rhetoric heralds “America” as a middle-class nation that provides opportunities that transcend the class politics of “old” Europe. Anthropologists, in recent years, have contributed to these mythologies by developing an idealized view of the New Deal in ways that further mystify class relations and conflict. By criticizing the contemporary rise in economic disparities as “neoliberal,” they glorify the structures that underwrote the Cold War and US imperial might. An analytical approach to class in the USA must take a more critical view of capitalism rather than wish for the good old days of the welfare state. Moreover, a conceptual understanding of class politics in the USA must take into account the role of settler colonialism—genocide and plantation agriculture—in class formation. After slavery, racism continued to play a prominent role in shaping the labor movement and organized labor. Racism and nativism interacted with anti-communism and the rise of the domestic security state following the Bolshevik Revolution. The New Deal and Keynesianism systematized repression of racism and anticommunism with reforms and economic policies that focused on effective demand and full employment.
The Breakdown of Class Politics
The American Sociologist, 2003
This paper reviews debate over whether, why, and how much class is declining in its impact on politics. One position is the "null hypothesis" of many at Berkeley and Oxford: the impact of class has not changed. The other position is that "post-industrial society" is transform ing politics and redefining class. To focus, the paper does not seek to inventory themes in ab stract, but stresses core points made by actual proponents in the exchange. Over the decade many issues were resolved; others were not. Social inequality persists, and inequality of income has risen; but the motor of politics is less clearly jobs. Consumption and other post-industrial con cerns have entered and transformed politics in many countries worldwide. How political parties have changed their appeals away from "class" is a key issue, as is the drop by about half in the size of the traditional working class in most Western countries since 1945. From this exchange les sons emerge for conceptualizing and measuring these dynamics in the future. More detail is in the book, Clark and Lipset, The Breakdown of Class Politics, Johns Hopkins UP.