Fw: Neo-conservatism and workers

----- Original Message -----
From: Alan Webster <A.C.Webster@clear.net.nz>
To: g kohler <gkohler@accglobal.net>
Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 1:05 PM
Subject: Re: Neo-conservatism and workers


> Gert,
> Your question whether there is a petit bourgeois stratum of working class,
> and Alan Spector's insistence that such concepts run the risk of using
> attitude analysis as the basis of class analysis and losing the essentally
> structural-material basis of definition of capitalist workings (phew!),
> alerts me to a question for this first-world country of New Zealand. If,
as
> I assume, income is a structural factor in a capitalist economy, then in a
> class analysis, I assume one would expect a close relationship between
> income and class. I just checked the association of self-selected class
and
> self-nominated income in our New Zealand Values Study data (1998).
"Working
> Class" and "Lower Class" were 3.6% and 21% respectively more likely than
the
> sample to be on a very low (5,000 - 10,000) annual income. Lower Class
were
> 25% more likely to be in
> the next very low income range of 10,000 - 15,000, while working class did
> not differ from the sample. In the 'middle range' (15,000 - 30,000,
actually
> below the population income mean) neither of the working classes differed
> from the sample frequency. In the 10% increments above 40,000, Upper
Middle
> Class were two to three times more likely than the sample to figure. Isn't
> this more of a classical capitalist profile, with little evidence of your
> "upper layer" of working class? It's true that, as you argue for Canada,
> there is a pretty high apparent petit bourgeois lifestyle in New Zealand.
It
> doesn't penetrate far into the over 50% below the mean income level and
> certainly not into the 25% below-poverty line homes of children. So I'm
not
> sure that there is a petit-bougeois working class. We have seen a great
> widening of the gap in the past 15 years. Of course, if working class is
> defined as workers who sell their labour, then obviously that's nearly all
> of us. It looks more like a steady material improvement in the conditions
of
> a working class that still depends upon capitalist structures - and does
> not, by the way, want any change in the traditional owner/manager system
of
> production. Yes, there is a wide range of incomes amonf the workers in New
> Zealand. What does it require for a higher income range to become an
"upper
> stratum" involving change in the social composition of the working class?
Is
> it values, attitudes, self concepts, individuality, etc., as Alan Spector
> suspects
> I take Spector's point that even though there might be an attitudinal
> conservatism in the working class as I have empirically described it
above,
> the 'classical' class analysis is structural and material. That's just a
> matter of the history of an idea. I think the attitudinal and 'material'
are
> and must be integrally related conceptually as they are in life. This
would
> conform to the Marxian concept of minds being constructed by real
conditions
> of existence.
> My own approach to this, in analyzing our values data, is to check the
> association of, say, income and class, and to look for empirical
> associations of class with values and attitudes. The two categories are
> conceptually different, but in my view, values and attitudes complement
the
> class analyses and together with them, provide a more whole picture of the
> lived situation. Not only so, but if class as 'properly defined' in
> Spector's terms constructs minds, it needs to be seen in spiral terms that
> values and attitudes in turn maintain and re-create class structures. This
> says to me that class is not and never has been wholly material. The
causal
> thesis of Marxism is a theory, awaiting further refinement. There is a
> cultural dimension such that, for example, decision-making cannot any
longer
> be 'rational' in material-technical terms, but is influenced by and should
> increasingly take systematic account of the values dimension - not just in
> the moralistic individual terms which Spector sees as the only utility of
> values. I would like to see a more flexible definition of class, one which
> is not so insistent on ideological purity, and which recognizes that
values
> are class-cultural properties, with real effects on collective processes.
> It's hard to believe that worldviews of collectivities are not substantial
> contributors to real-world outcomes - and thus 'class-like' in their
> effects. The separation of individuals from social structures in the final
> analysis seems to deny the centrality of human thought.
> I guess this will look like incipient soft liberalism, but I will claim,
> after over 20 years of close association with strict critical sociology
> adherents, to have tried to think about the pace of more complete
> explanatory human processes than the material environment. I even get
> involved in biology, behavioral genetics and spirituality!!
>
> Alan Webster
> A.C.Webster@clear.net.nz
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: g kohler <gkohler@accglobal.net>
> To: George Pennefather <poseidon@eircom.net>
> Cc: <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2000 1:08 PM
> Subject: Re: Neo-conservatism and workers
>
>
> > George --
> >
> > your post raises an interesting question which I have been pondering for
> > some time.---
> >
> > You talk about some kind of subdivision in the working class -- "upper
> > layer" and the rest, and discuss differences between them, in terms of
> > ideology and political behaviour. For example, you write:
> >
> > "Objective developments in the character of capitalism have led
> > >to changes in the social composition of the working class which has
> > >essentially thrown up a new section within the upper stratum of the
> working
> > >class."
> > and
> > ." This layer is an upper layer within the working class. It
> > >is, in some degree, a transitional layer in the sense that some
elements
> > >within  it are in a fluid condition whereby there is a flux back and
> forth
> > >between the working and middle class. Consequently there obtains
> ambiguity
> > >within this layer as to its social identity --its definition in class
> > terms.
> > >This condition provides rich fertile ground for the blossoming of petty
> > >bourgeois ideas."
> >
> > If you place that in a world(-)system context, it looks as if the
> better-off
> > layer of workers/employees in the rich countries (core, first world)
could
> > be considered as the petit bourgeoisie of the world system -- many
workers
> > here in modern Canada or in Switzerland, etc. have a petit bourgois
> > lifestyle (house with mortgage, car or two, motorbike or sail boat,
> etc.) --
> > no comparison with the wretched working class conditions of 1848 Europe
> (ten
> > children, diseases, no food, 16 hour work days) or wretched working
class
> > conditions in other parts of the present world. This stratum of folks
has
> > been called "labour aristocracy", but you may as well call them "global
> > petit bourgeoisie". What do you think?
> >
> > Gert Kohler
> >
> >
>