Ronald Aminzade provides an original analysis of how the development of early industrial capitalism transformed the political landscape in mid-nineteenth-century France and gave rise to the revolutionary political upheavals of 1848 and 1871. In a detailed local case study of the city of Toulouse, the author carefully documents how the developing solidarities and antagonisms of social class were reflected in the changing character of working-class associations, cultural institutions, collective actions, and political ideologies. Aminzade employs a coherent and sophisticated Marxist class analysis to systematically explore a wide variety of important issues, ranging from the changing organization of the industrial workplace to the decline of patronage politics and the central role of artisans in revolutionary working-class politics. His study of the role of the Republican party in forging the changing political class alliances of the period and his analysis of the contradictory character of working-class political incorporation and repression are provocative and incisive. The book concludes with a theoretical interpretation of the concept of hegemony, exploring the role of ideologies, political parties, and the state in the development of hegemonic forms of class domination.

Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution represents both a continuation of, and a stark contrast to, the impressive tradition of social history which has grown up in Britain in the last two decades. Its use of sophisticated quantitative techniques for the dissection of urban social structures will serve as a model for subsequent research workers. This work examines the impact of industrialization on the social development of the cotton manufacturing town of Oldham from 1790-1860; in particular how the experience of industrial capitalism aided the formation of a coherent organized mass class consciousness capable by 1830 of controlling all the vital organs of local government in the town. This will be a useful study to any student of the industrial revolution.

The work details the emergence, in the post-Napoleonic War period, of a growing popular interest in the critical potentialities of political economy. It considers why this occurred and discusses how the conceptual and analytical tools of political economy were utilised to formulate a critique of early industrial capitalism. The book examines the theories of labour exploitation and capitalist crisis which represented the essence of that critique both as they were elaborated by early-nineteenth-century British anti-capitalist and socialist writers and as they were popularised by writers in the working-class press of the period 1816-34. The book argues that by 1834 in consequence of the efforts of writers such as Hodgskin, Thompson, Gray, Owen and their popularisers the foundations of a distinctively anti-capitalist and socialist political economy had been established and widely disseminated. But these foundations were theoretically flawed. They were flawed by an overconcentration on the sphere of exchange which derived from a particular conception of the determination of exchange value under capitalism; an overconcentration which led on to the suggestion of remedies for the problem of working-class poverty and distress which were necessarily doomed to failure.

This study, first published in 1986, provides a systematic account of the processes and structure of class formation in the major advanced capitalist societies. The focus is on the organizational mechanisms of class cohesion and division, theoretically deriving from a neo-Marxian perspective. Chapters consider the organization and structure of the ‘corporate ruling class’, the middle class and the working class, and are brought together in an overarching analysis of the organization of class in relation to the state and the economy. This title will be of particular interest to students researching the impact of recession on societal structure and the processes of political class struggle, as well as those with a more general interest in the socio-economic theories of Marx, Engels and Weber.

The work is provocative and ambitious and the writing is clear. --Choice "It is a topic in need of systematic analysis. . . . Joel I. Nelson understands and, in fact, has mastered the issues. . . . It will undoubtedly be a major contribution. . . . His approach is fresh and refreshing. . . . He has the appropriate conceptual tools to complete his synthesis. . . . I believe not only scholars--sociologists, economists, political scientists, and historians, would find Post-Industrial Capitalism useful but policymakers might also find it of interest. . . . The book can also be used as a text in an advanced undergraduate class and in a graduate seminar. . . . Nelson′s thesis is coherent and logically developed. . . . I imagine this book as a college text or on a desk in Washington, DC. . . . Nelson′s last book Economic Inequality was a huge success. . . . Certainly the many who relied on it in their teaching and research will welcome and use Post-Industrial Capitalism." --Lionel L. Lewis, State University of New York at Buffalo "Too often authors focus only on the positive aspects or on the downside of postindustrialism. Joel I. Nelson is proposing something that fits neatly between the two camps. . . . Nelson′s strategy of building a new explanation based on a synthesis of these older approaches is very attractive. . . . There are no other books that attempt this. . . . Post-Industrial Capitalism might also be used in an advanced undergraduate course on economic sociology or social change. . . . [It] will be also acquired by professionals in sociology, social work, political science, and economics. . . . The sequence of the topics are clear and concise. . . . Each chapter pulls together arguments that--heretofore--have been scattered across numerous books and articles (and across disciplines for that matter)." --Charles M. Tolbert II, Professor of Sociology and Rural Sociology, Louisiana State University The social and economic well-being of many Americans is increasingly at risk. Disparities in earnings and wealth are escalating, reversing a century of declining inequality. Excesses of the free market are growing-and growing more difficult to contain. Politics are increasingly conservative across the ideological spectrum, with economic competitiveness considered more important than equality and humanitarian aid. Post-Industrial Capitalism offers an alternative to the dominant and unsuccessful Marxist and industrialist views by providing a framework for explaining the widening polarization within American society. This work demonstrates a more comprehensive explanation of inequality and locates its source in the transformation of American business. It provides a fresh illustration of Schumpeter′s insistence on the ability of capitalism to develop by creatively destroying its past. It not only describes the shifts in corporate resources, illustrates their use by the corporate sector, and traces their implications for inequality across the institutional spectrum, but also demonstrates how these strategies have been used by companies to intensify competition, effect greater political control, and widen the economic gap in America. Scholars interested in the question of modernity and post-industrialization, theorists of multiple theoretical persuasions, and students interested in social stratification, inequality, and social change will find Postindustrial Capitalism to be extremely valuable.

Bringing together ethnographic case studies of industrial labor from different parts of the world, Industrial Labor on the Margins of Capitalism explores the increasing casualization of workforces and the weakening power of organized labor. This division owes much to state policies and is reflected in local understandings of class. By exploring this relationship, these essays question the claim that neoliberal ideology has become the new ‘commonsense’ of our times and suggest various propositions about the conditions that create employment regimes based on flexible labor.

A study of popular politics in pre-industrial Britain.