[lbo-talk] White-Collar Blues

Devine, James jdevine at lmu.edu
Mon Dec 29 11:36:26 PST 2003


I know I'm over-quota, but...


> Dwayne Monroe wrote:
> > All of this adds up to that curious combination of
> > (ever less) disposable income and status insecurity
> > which characterizes middle class life in early century
> > 21 America.

Carrol writes:
> I would say, "All of this adds up to that curious combination of (ever
> less) disposable income and status insecurity which characterizes
> [WORKING] class life in early century 21 America."
>
> It always was part of the working class, but 'romantic' views of the
> "working class" as brawny white males in blue shirts [in practice
> usually checked sportshirts] and dirty fingernails provided a point of
> departure for the (temporary) triumph of sociological "stratification
> theory" (even among marxists) over marxian undrstanding of class.

There's something else. Blue-collar workers traditionally have much more collective work-processes and thus are more likely to have unions, trade-union consciousness, etc. White-collar workers' jobs are more individualized, with their status seemingly based more on individual credentials, training, and effort. So there's a real-world basis for the ideological victory of stratification theory, hiding the unity between blue- and white-collar workers that's only latent at this point.

Stratification theory is empiricist, describing what is, while Marx's class analysis also is taking about what can be.

Jim



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