Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-wtssw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-14T09:49:16.804Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Class formation and capitalism. A second look at a classic*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2009

Margaret R. Somers
Margaret R. Somers
Affiliation:
European University Institute (Firenze).
Get access

Abstract

Studies of class-formation have long been dominated by an espitemology of absensethe study of the absence of Marx's predicted revolutionary class consciousness among the Western working class. Katznelson's and Zolberg's pathbreaking Working-Class Formation: Ninetenth-century Patterns in Western Europe and the United States (1986) posed a major challenge to this tradition. Instead of being seen as deviant or exceptional, moreover, the individual cases of class formation are analysed as variations that can only be explained by each nation's pattern of historicalprimarily politicalformation. An instant classic, Working-Class Formation has not to date been surpassed by subsequent studies. This essay reviews the strenghts and the weaknesses of this classic volume, suggesting in the final analysis that it does not quite realize the full extent of its radical implications.

Les travaux sur la formation des classes sociales ont t longtemps domins par une pistmologie de l'absence de conscience rvolutionnaire de la classe ouvrire europenne annonce par Marx. L'ouvrage pionnier de Katznelson et Zolberg, Working-Class Formation: Nineteenth-century Patterns in Western Europe and the United States (1986) a rompu avec cette tradition en prsentant un volume comparatiste rigoureux. L'introduction de Katznelson, en particulier, dfinit les conclusions conceptuelles possibles mises en jeu dans les trajectoires de la formation de classe. Au lieu d'tre perus comme dviants ou exeeptionnels , les cas nationaux sont analyss comme des variations ne pouvant tre expliques que par le modle de formation historique principalement politique de chaque nation. Devenu immdiatement classique, Workingclass Formation n'a pas, ce jour, t dpass. Cet essai passe en revue les forces et les faiblesses de l'uvre, pour condure qu'il n'a pas couvert l'entire tendue de ses implications fondamentales.

Lange Zeit wurden Untersuchungen ber die Klassenbildung vom Ausbleiben des von Marx vorhergesagten Klassenbewutseins der westlichen Arbeiterklasse geprgt. Das bahnbrechende Buch Working-Class Formation: Nineteenth-century Patterns in Western Europe and the United States (1986) der Autoren Katznelson und Zolberg hat sich von diesem Interpretationsstandpunkt gelst und eine vergleichende Studie erstellt. Besonders die Einfhrung Katznelsons definiert die konzeptuellen Schlufolgerungen neu, die die Ausrichtungen der Klassenbildung beinhalten. Anstatt sie als abweichend oder auergewhnlich zu betrachten, werden die nationalen Formen der Klassenbildung vielmehr als Varianten interpretiert, die allein durch die historische besonders politische Entstehungsgeschichte jedes einzelnen Staates erklrt werden knnen. Working-class Formation , schnell zum Klassiker geworden, ist bis heute nicht bertroffen worden. Dieser Aufsatz veranschaulicht seine Strken und Schwchen und verweist in der Schlufolgerung darauf, da er jedoch nicht alien Interpretationsanstzen gerecht wird.

Type
Notes Critiques
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , May 1996 , pp. 180 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alexander, Sally, 1983, Women, Class and Sexual Differences in the 1830s and 1840s: Some Reflections on the Writing of a Feminist History, History Workshop Journal 17: 125–49.Google Scholar
Aminzade, Ron, 1993, Ballots and Barricades: Class Formation and Republic Politics in France 1830–1871 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Ashton, T. H. and Philpin, C. H. E., 1985, The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Preindustrial Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baron, Ava (ed.), 1991, Work Engendered. Toward a New History of American Labor (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bearman, Peter, 1993, Relations into Rhetorics (New York: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Blackbourn, David and Eley, Geoff, 1984, The Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth Century Germany (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Block, Fred, 1987, Revising State Theory: Essays in Politics and Postindustrialism (Philadelphia: Temple University Press).Google Scholar
Block, Fred and Somers, Margaret R., 1984, Beyond the Economistic Fallacy: The Holistic Social Science of Karl Polanyi, in Vision and Method in Historical Sociology, edited by Skocpol, Theda (New York: Cambridge University Press), 47–84.Google Scholar
Braun, Rudolf, 1990, Industrialisation and Everyday Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calhoun, Craig, 1992, The Question of Class Struggle (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Canning, Kathleen, 1992, Gender and the Politics of Class Formation: Rethinking German Labor History, The American Historical Review 97 (June): 736–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Canning, Kathleen, 1994, Feminist History After the Linguistic Turn: Historicizing Discourse and Experience, Signs 19: 368–404.Google Scholar
Cohen, G.A., 1978, Karl Marx's Theory of History; A Defence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Davidoff, Leonore and Hall, Catherine, 1987, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780–1850 (London: Huchinson).Google Scholar
Durkheim, Émile, 1984, Division of Labor in Society (New York: Free Press).Google Scholar
Eley, Goeff and Nield, Keith, 1980, Why Does Social History Ignore Politics?, Social History 5: 249–271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Peter, Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, and Skocpol, Theda (eds), 1985, Bringing the State Back In (New York: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geertz, Clifford, 1983, Local Knowledge (New York: Basic Books).Google Scholar
Granovetter, Mark, 1985, Economic Action and Social Structure: the Problem of Embeddedness, American Journal of Sociology 91: 481–510.Google Scholar
Hattam, Victoria, 1992, Labor Visions and State Power: the Origins of Business Unionism in the U.S. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Hirschman, Albert, 1984, Against Parsimony, American Economic Papers and Proceedings, 89–96.Google Scholar
Hudson, Pat, 1989, Regions and Industries: A Perspective On the Industrial Revolution in Britain (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Jessop, Bob, 1990, State Theory: Putting the Capitalist State in its Place (Cambridge: Polity).Google Scholar
Joyce, Patrick (ed.), 1987, The Historical Meanings of Work (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Joyce, Patrick (ed.), 1991. Visions of the People. Industrial England and the Question of Class 1848–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Katznelson, Ira, 1981, City Trenches: Urban Politics and the Patterning of Class in the United States (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Katznelson, Ira, 1985, Working Class Formation and the State: Nineteenth Century England in American Perspective, Bringing the State Back, edited by Evans, Peter, Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, and Skocpol, Theda (New York: Cambridge University Press), 257–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katznelson, Ira and Zolberg, Aristide R. (eds), 1986, Working-Class Formation: Nineteenth Century Patterns in Western Europe and the United States (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Kimeldorf, Howard, 1988, Reds or Rackets? The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront (Berkeley: University of California Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kimeldorf, Howard, 1990, Bringing Unions Back In, or Why We Need a New Old Labor History, Labor History.Google Scholar
Lazonick, William, 1979, Industrial Relations and Technical Change: The Case of the Self-Acting Mule, Cambridge Journal of Economics III.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour Martin, 1983, Radicalism or Reformism: The Sources of Working-Class Politics, American Political Science Review 77: 1–18.Google Scholar
McNall, Scott, Levine, Ronda, and Fantasia, Rick (eds), 1991, Bringing Class Back In: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives (Boulder: Westview Press).Google Scholar
O'Brien, Patrick and Keyder, Cagar, 1978, Economic Growth in Britain and France 1780–1914: Two Paths to the Twentieth Century (London: Allen & Unwin).Google Scholar
Polanyi, Karl, 1944, 1977, The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Press).Google Scholar
Pollard, Sidney, 1980, Region und Industrialisierung: Studien zur Rolle der Region in der Wirtschaftsgeschichte der letzten zwei Jahrhunderts. Region and Industrialisation: Studies in the Role of the Region in the Economic History of the Last Two Centuries (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht).Google Scholar
Pollard, Sidney, 1981, Peaceful Conquest. The Industrialization of Europe 1760–1970 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Reddy, William M., 1987, Money and Liberty in Modern Europe: A Critique of Historical Understanding (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Roberts, Bryan, Finnecan, Ruth, and Gallie, Duncan, 1985, New Approaches to Economic Life: Economic Restructuring; Unemployment and the Social Division of Labour (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press).Google Scholar
Rose, Sonya, 1991, Limited Livelihoods (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press).Google Scholar
Sabel, Charles F., 1988, Protoindustry and the Problem of Capitalism as a Concept: Response to Jean H. Quataert, International Labor and Working-Class History 33: 30–37.Google Scholar
Sabel, Charles and Zeitlin, Jonathan, 1985, Historical Alternatives to Mass Production: Politics, Markets and Technology in Nineteenth Century Industrialization, Past & Present 108 (August): 133–176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall, 1976, Culture and Practical Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Samuel, Raphael, 1979, Workshop of the World: Steam Power and Hand Technology in Mid-Victorian Britain, History Workshop Journal 3: 6–72.Google Scholar
Scott, Joan, 1988, Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press).Google Scholar
Sewell, William H. Jr., 1980, Work and Revolution in France (New York: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sewell, William H. Jr., 1988, Uneven Development, the Autonomy of Politics, and the Dockworkers of Nineteenth-Century Marseille, American Historical Review 93: 604–637.Google Scholar
Sewell, William H. Jr., 1990, How Classes are Made: Critical Reflections on E. P. Thompson's Theory of Working-Class Formation, in E. P. Thompson: Critical Perspectives, edited by Kaye, Harvey J. and McClelland, Keith (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press), 50–77.Google Scholar
Sewell, William H. Jr., 1993, Toward a Post-Materialist Rhetoric for Labor History, in Rethinking Labor History. Essays on Discourse and Class Analysis, edited by Berlanstein, Leonard R. (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press), 15–38.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda and Somers, Margaret R., 1980, The Uses of Comparative History in Macrosocial Inquiry, Comparative Studies in Society and History 22: 174–97.Google Scholar
Sombart, Werner, 1976, Why is There No Socialism in the United States? (White Plains: M.E. Sharpe).Google Scholar
Somers, Margaret R., 1989, Workers of the World, Comparel, Contemporary Sociology 18: 325–30.Google Scholar
Somers, Margaret R., 1992, Narrativity, Narrative Identity, and Social Action: Rethinking English Working-Class Formation, Social Science History 16: 591–630.Google Scholar
Somers, Margaret R., 1993, Citizenship and the Place of the Public Sphere: Law, Community, and Political Culture in the Transition to Democracy, American Sociological Review 58 (5): 587–620.Google Scholar
Somers, Margaret R., 1995, The ‘Misteries’ of Property, in Early Modern Conceptions of Property, edited by Brewer, John (London, England: Routledge).Google Scholar
Somers, Margaret R. and Gibson, Gloria D., 1994, Reclaiming the Epistemological Other: Narrative and the Social Constitution of Identity, in Social Theory and the Politics of Identity (Oxford, England: Blackwell), 37–99.Google Scholar
Stedman, Jones, Gareth, , 1983, Language of Class: Studies in English Working-Class History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Steinmetz, George, 1992, Reflections on the Role of Social Narratives in Working-Class Formation, Social Science History 16: 489–516.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinmo, Sven, Thelen, Kathleen, and Longstreth, Frank (eds), 1992, Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Swedberg, Richard, 1987, Economic Sociology: Past and Present, Current Sociology 35: 1–221.Google Scholar
Thompson, E.P., 1963, The Making of the English Working Class (London: Gollancz).Google Scholar
Thompson, E.P., 1965, The Peculiarities of the English, in The Socialist Register, edited by Miliband, Ralph and Saville, John (London: Merlin Press), 311–62.Google Scholar
Tomlins, Christopher, 1993, Law, Labor, and Ideology in the Early American Republic (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Vernon, James, 1993, Politics and the People: A Study in English Political Culture, c. 1815–1867 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Wright, Erik Olin, 1989, The Debate on Classes (London, New York: Verso, 1989).Google Scholar
Zeitlin, Jonathon (ed.), 1985, Shop Floor Bargaining and the State: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar