Rhonda F. Levine

Recapturing Marxism : an appraisal of recent trends in sociological theory

Acknowledgments Preface Introduction: Marxism, Neo-Marxism, and American Sociology by Rhonda F. Levine and Jerry Lembcke Crisis and Vitalization: An Interpretive Essay on Marxist Theory by Albert Szymanski New Classes and Old Theories: The Impasse of Contemporary Class Analysis by Peter Meiksins Class and Class Capacities: A Problem of Organizational Efficacy by Jerry Lembcke Bringing Classes Back In: State Theory and Theories of the State by Rhonda F. Levine The Limits of the World-System Perspective by Alex Dupuy and Barry Truchil Race, Ethnicity and Class by James A. Geschwender Recent Ideological Tendencies in Urban and Regional Research: Neo-Liberalism and Social Democracy by Richard Peet Behind the Veil of Neutrality: Hegemony in the Academic Marketplace by Peter Seybold Feminism: A Marxist Critique by Albert Szymanski Thinking About Social Class: Structure, Organization, and Consciousness by Scott G. McNall List of Contributors

The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class.

This is the new, fully updated edition of this now-classic study of working-class racism. Combining classical Marxism, psychoanalysis and the new labor history pioneered by E. P. Thompson and Herbert Gutman, David Roedigers widely acclaimed book provides an original study of the formative years of working-class racism in the United States. This, he argues, cannot be explained simply with reference to economic advantage; rather, white working-class racism is underpinned by a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms that reinforce racial stereotypes, and thus help to forge the identities of white workers in opposition to blacks. In a lengthy new introduction, Roediger surveys recent scholarship on whiteness, and discusses the changing face of labor in the twenty-first century.

Farewell to the Leftist Working Class

Farewell to the Leftist Working Class is a quantitative study of primarily working class voting patterns based on survey data largely from Western Europe and some from the United States. Specifically, Dick Houtman, Peter Achterberg, and Anton Derks examine the class theory of politics and seek to determine whether the theory is still relevant when explaining working class politics in particular, and if not, to suggest an alternative explanation for working class voting patterns. The class theory of politics argues that class-based economic interest is the driving force behind voting patterns. If the theory is correct, then the working class should vote for parties that have a leftist agenda and show support for welfare state policies. However, since World War II, the authors assert, the working class in Western capitalist countries have increasingly voted for rightist parties and have not supported welfare state policies. This being the case, the authors seek to answer two basic questions in their book: how can this rightist voting by the working class be explained if the class theory of politics cannot explain it, and how can the lack of support for the welfare state be explained? In an effort to answer these basic questions the authors first make a distinction between class voting and cultural voting, where class voting is driven by class-based economic interests and cultural voting is driven by cultural capital and related authoritarianism or libertarianism. By making this distinction, the authors argue that it might indeed be the case that voting patterns of the working class since World War II do not necessarily show a decline of class-based voting but rather an increase in cultural voting. Hence, it is not that the working class does not vote its economic interest, it merely votes more aligned to its cultural capital. Based on survey data from the Netherlands, Belgium, U.S., and a compilation of survey data from fifteen Western countries, Farewell to the Leftist Working Class argues that rightist voting patterns and lack of support for the welfare state does not indicate a decline of class politics on the part of the working class but rather a dramatic increase in cultural politics. In the Netherlands, the absence of what appears to be class-based voting is the aggregated outcome of class voting for old-leftist and old-rightist parties, and cross-cutting cultural voting for newleftist and new-rightist parties, meaning that what might appear as an absent relationship between class and voting does not necessarily indicate an absence of class voting all together. In the United States, the authors found that although cultural voting was stronger if cultural issues are more salient, class issues have also retained their salience, meaning that class politics has not declined as much as has been suggested by previous research. Most Western countries followed the pattern of the United States in terms of an increase in the salience of cultural issues, which further indicated that the decline of an alignment of the working class with the left in the post-World War II period suggests an increase in cultural voting contrasted to a decline in class voting. This leads the authors to suggest further that working class support for the welfare state is undermined by its cultural voting, specifically its cultural-capital based authoritarianism which emphasizes obligations of work and notions of deservedness. Hence, the working class can be more economically egalitarian than other classes and at the same time not more strongly supportive of the welfare state. The authors conclude that the decline of leftist voting patterns and the rise of rightist voting on the part of the working classes of Western capitalist countries does not necessarily disprove a class theory of politics but rather confirms a cultural theory of politics. By analyzing large data sets, Houtman, Achterberg, and Derks give a sense of general trends about voting patterns. What the data cannot do is shed any light on the meaning of voting patterns and how that actually informs an understanding of working class politics. Large data sets also cannot reveal the range of left political agendas and how they

Using Computer Listserves To Achieve a More Diverse Classroom: the “Virtual Salon”

Two stratification courses, one at an elite private liberal arts college and another at a regional state university were joined through a listserve or computer mailing list . Students were required to participate in the “virtual salon.” The primary goal of the virtual salon was to increase the diversity of students discussing topics common in the courses. The virtual salon was successful in achieving this goal as well as making it a meaningful learning experience by creating passionate engagement in the material, the students shared knowledge, and a sense of community was created where students from diverse backgrounds felt comfortable expressing themselves.

Book Review: Cultures of Solidarity: Consciousness, Action, and Contemporary American Workers, by Rick Fantasia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988

welfare by facilitating private capital accumulation. so even if a viable labor party were to appear in the U.S., what kind would it be? Would it be dedicated to running capitalism more effectively and somewhat more humanely, as it perpetuates labor’s subordination to capital? Or would it be committed to gnawing away at capitalist prerogatives and power with the goal of instituting democratic planning and a democratized economy? As a staff writer for Labor Notes, Moody is well positioned to keep in touch with insurgent currents within the labor movement. He discusses

Book Review: Rebellion and Repression in Britain: Race and Class Special Double Issue, Britain 81: Rebellion and Repression. (Autumn 1981/ Winter 1982)

change which actually occurred. As it stands, his formulation is merely an assertation neither theoretically grounded nor empirically tested. A readi ng of these essays suggests that, despite his claims to the contrary, Foner has not rigorously and explicitly developed the kind of approach essential for historical synthesis. In fact Foner is at his best precisely when he works as a specialist. He is eminently lucid and convincing when discussing nineteenth century Republican and antislavery thought. In this area he has no peer. But his failure to work out his response to the hard questions of historical and Marxist methods leaves his effort at broader historical analysis much less satisfactory and convincing. Foner’s book then is testimony to how even a gifted historian can get into trouble when a serious

Book Review: But the Beat Goes On: James A. Geschwender, Class, Race & Worker Insurgency: The League of Revolutionary Black Workers; Cambridge University Press, New York, 1977; 250 pp., and Racial Stratification in America; Wm. C. Brown Company Publishers, Dubuque, lowa, 1978; 282 pp

are increasing legal attacks on affirmative action programs (the Bakke case being the prime example), the left in the United States is once again reminded that racism is well and alive in the institutions of &dquo;American society.&dquo; Although reverse discrimination charges may remind us of the systematic discrimination against non-white people, these legal repercussions tend to obscure the historical evolution of racism in the United States