Reconnecting class and production relations in an advanced capitalist ‘knowledge economy’: Changing class structure and class consciousness

Livingstone, D. W.; Scholtz, Antonie

doi:10.1177/0309816816653882

Cited by 14 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…This leads to a situation where research on class frequently ignores or downplays race as a salient social construct and, in so doing, fails to account for the historical and structural aspects of White privilege shaping the lived experiences of working men. In some cases, discussions of race are completely ignored while (presumptively) White narratives are foregrounded (Ashforth & Kreiner, 2014;Simpson, Hughes, Slutskaya, & Balta, 2014;Tracy & Scott, 2006), while in others they are limited to cursory mentions in lists of social identities to be considered (Slutskaya et al, 2016) or are noted as suggestions for future research (Gray & Kish-Gephart, 2013;Livingstone & Scholtz, 2016). Even in studies interrogating male privilege using intersectional frameworks, race seems conspicuously absent.…”

Section: Race and Gender In White Working-class Occupationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical race theory and working‐class White men: Exploring race privilege and lower‐class work‐life

Bohonos

2020

Gender Work & Organization

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Research portraying the lives of working‐class (White) men has generally paid much more attention to class and gender than to race. By failing to problematize Whiteness, this literature obscures the racial privileges that working‐class Whites can access even as they are marginalized along the lines of class. This study applies critical race theory to analyse the dynamic intersection between the racial and gender privilege available to working‐class White men from their position of social and economic marginality. It empirically builds on the ethnographic study of a small North American company in the construction industry. This study makes three main contributions. First, it argues that even as the position of working‐class White men in the current class order limits their life chances, they nevertheless access small but significant benefits based on race. Second, it contributes to current conversations on White privilege by showing how such privilege manifests itself differently depending on social class position. Third, it underscores the importance of intersectional analysis in understanding how different social identities interact to reproduce racism and capitalism.

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Section: Race and Gender In White Working-class Occupationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical race theory and working‐class White men: Exploring race privilege and lower‐class work‐life

Bohonos

2020

Gender Work & Organization

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“…Corresponding with capitalism's neoliberal-led globalisation, class theory and analysis need to be more clearly grounded in a global vantage point. Examining the class structures and formations of industrially advanced countries and particular class groupings in such countries are important (Livingstone & Scholtz 2016). However, such studies are misleading and limited if not contextualised within and complemented by global analysis of the empirical class effects of capitalism's uneven unfolding.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Under neoliberal-led global capitalism, a significant proportion of the world's labouring population are in precarious employment peripheral to core capitalist production relations and in work without occupation, or indeed are without paid work at all. However, there is reticence about bringing in the employment dimension (see Livingstone & Scholtz 2016; but in contrast see Neilson & Stubbs 2011;Standing 2012). 3.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

In-itself for-itself: Towards second-generation neo-Marxist class theory

Neilson

2017

Capital & Class

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First-generation neo-Marxist class theorists advanced some way beyond the orthodox Marxist account that is grounded in a particular reading of the Communist Manifesto. However, capitalism’s changing reality since then has revealed the limited extent of their break with orthodoxy. With the support of Bhaskar’s critical realism and Gramsci’s philosophy of praxis, this article addresses these limitations to facilitate movement towards second-generation neo-Marxist class theory. Rather than following first-generation neo-Marxist Poulantzas who dismissed the ‘class-in-itself’/‘class-for-itself’ distinction as a non-Marxist Hegelian residue, this article treats it as the central problematic of Marx’s class theory. Bourdieu’s subjectivist reformulations of the distinction that resonates with Marxist interpretations that run counter to the neo-Marxist social scientific aspiration are also critically engaged. The innovative conceptual framework arising from the article’s critical engagement with these diverging intellectual trajectories is applied to sketch ‘class effects’ in-themselves especially around the theme of the ‘relative surplus population’. Expected class effects implied by the core dynamic of the capitalist mode of production, and then contemporary empirical effects generated by neoliberal-led global capitalism, are outlined. This re-conceptualisation is then supplemented by critically examining Beck’s argument that individualisation leads to capitalism without classes-for-themselves. The article concludes by reconsidering class-for-itself in the light of the preceding discussion.

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“… Our focus of autonomous copings in the workplace stops short of a direct discussion of class consciousness on the part of workers. For research in this area, see Livingstone and Scholtz (), who explore class consciousness in different strata of the service/knowledge economy via labour process analysis based on different dimensions of production relations. …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“That type of thing does give you a boost”: Control, Self‐valorisation, and Autonomist Worker Copings in Call Centres

Hastings

Cumbers

2019

Antipode

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There are growing concerns over current and future incarnations of routine work, based on the rise of technology and its perceived impact on skill requirements in the labour market. Drawing on Autonomist Marxist (AM) literature, the following article demonstrates how and why workers are likely to play a role in maintaining meaningful forms of work. Complimenting labour process research, which focuses on the role of worker "resistance" in the workplace, we develop a more nuanced perspective on worker agency and the human potential to create meaning through self-governance in even the most unlikely service work encounters. Taking resilience and reworking agencies as subtle forms of "self-valorisation", we show how different spaces of routine work are mobilised for reproducing human connections and values in ways which act in opposition to management's control and the evolution of unpleasant work environments. Riassunto: La natura, presente e futura, del lavoro routinario costituisce una crescente preoccupazione, dato l'aumentato utilizzo della tecnologia e date le competenze specifiche ora richieste dal mercato del lavoro. Il presente articolo si basa sulla letteratura sull'autonomia operaia e dimostra come e perch e i lavoratori possano influenzare la continuata esistenza di forme di lavoro importanti. Contribuendo alla ricerca sul processo del lavoro, la quale si focalizza sulla "resistenza" del lavoratore nel contesto lavorativo, sviluppiamo una prospettiva pi u approfondita sul ruolo del lavoratore e del potenziale umano nella creazione di scelte importanti e autonome sulle attivit a lavorative da intraprendere. Considerando la resilienza e la rielaborazione dei lavoratori come forma di "auto-valorizzazione", mostriamo come in diversi ambienti di lavoro routinario vengano sviluppati nuovi valori e nuove relazioni umane che agiscono in opposizione al controllo manageriale e all'evoluzione di ambienti lavorativi sgradevoli.

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Reconnecting class and production relations in an advanced capitalist ‘knowledge economy’: Changing class structure and class consciousness

Cited by 14 publications

References 48 publications

Critical race theory and working‐class White men: Exploring race privilege and lower‐class work‐life

Critical race theory and working‐class White men: Exploring race privilege and lower‐class work‐life

In-itself for-itself: Towards second-generation neo-Marxist class theory

“That type of thing does give you a boost”: Control, Self‐valorisation, and Autonomist Worker Copings in Call Centres

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