1st Edition

Social Class and Marxism Defences and Challenges

By Neville Kirk Copyright 1996

    In recent years historians and other social scientists have widely questioned the continued relevance of social class - as historical relationship, as sociological category, as philosophical concept, and in terms of its enduring political significance. The success of the British Conservative Party since 1979, combined with the weaknesses and failures of the Labour movement, have led historians and social scientists to reconsider the general nature of connections between the 'social' and the 'political' and the specific relations between the working class and socialist and Labour politics. This collection of essays is a multi-disciplinary critique of the new revisionism, which demonstrates the continued vitality and promise of non-reductionist and non-determinist modes of class analysis.

    Contents: List of Contributors; Editor's Introduction; PART ONE: Sociological Perspectives; The "New Structuralism": Class Politics and Class Analysis, Fiona Devine; Space, Networks and Class Formation, Michael Savage; Class and the 'Linguistic Turn' in Chartist and Post-Chartist Historiography, Neville Kirk; PART TWO: Marxism; The Logic of Social Democracy: Adam Przeworski'sm Historical Theses, Robert Looker; Class Struggle, Capitalist Democracy and Rational Choice: Przeworski's Analytical Theses, Robert Looker; Roger Scruton and the New Left, David Coates; Reading Alistair Reid: A Future for Labour History?, David Howell; Index.

    Biography

    Neville Kirk