Pakulski and Waters
What do Pakulski and Waters mean when they say class is dead?
In the chapter ‘The Shifting Sands of Structure’, Pakulski and Waters are talking about the declining relevance of Marxist class theory in the evaluation of modern capitalism. “Actual social developments have defined both predications of progressive polarisation and conflict and the emancipatory promise of social revolution” (Pakulski and Waters 1996:28). The perceived ‘death of class’ according to this chapter is due the economic reductionism of class theory in Political Economy, which was caused continual evolution of theories of class structure combined with by the capricious development of Liberal-Democratic societies. Together they have led to social theories, which present either a problem, provides an alternative explanation of Marxist class analysis. Pakulski and Waters present seven developments that pose a particular problem for class theory:
- The increasing importance of authority relations established in organisational contexts
- The increasing importance of the state and corporate elites
- The stratifying importance if the cultural dimension and consumer taste
- The stratifying capacity of educational qualifications, professional knowledge and skills
- The growing complexity of occupational divisions
- The continuing importance of race, ethnicity and nationality
- The historical and contemporary significance of patriarchal gender structures
The essence of what has been said reaches the conclusion that Western society has reached a point in its development where the one-dimensional categorisation of class has become highly irrelevant due to other social, political, and cultural discourses.
What evidence is being used to support this proclamation?
Pakulski and Waters have employed a positivist method by presenting seven key facets that constitute contemporary social structures. These facets and there relevance to class theory are extrapolated through
In the chapter ‘The Shifting Sands of Structure’, Pakulski and Waters are talking about the declining relevance of Marxist class theory in the evaluation of modern capitalism. “Actual social developments have defined both predications of progressive polarisation and conflict and the emancipatory promise of social revolution” (Pakulski and Waters 1996:28). The perceived ‘death of class’ according to this chapter is due the economic reductionism of class theory in Political Economy, which was caused continual evolution of theories of class structure combined with by the capricious development of Liberal-Democratic societies. Together they have led to social theories, which present either a problem, provides an alternative explanation of Marxist class analysis. Pakulski and Waters present seven developments that pose a particular problem for class theory:
- The increasing importance of authority relations established in organisational contexts
- The increasing importance of the state and corporate elites
- The stratifying importance if the cultural dimension and consumer taste
- The stratifying capacity of educational qualifications, professional knowledge and skills
- The growing complexity of occupational divisions
- The continuing importance of race, ethnicity and nationality
- The historical and contemporary significance of patriarchal gender structures
The essence of what has been said reaches the conclusion that Western society has reached a point in its development where the one-dimensional categorisation of class has become highly irrelevant due to other social, political, and cultural discourses.
What evidence is being used to support this proclamation?
Pakulski and Waters have employed a positivist method by presenting seven key facets that constitute contemporary social structures. These facets and there relevance to class theory are extrapolated through