Financialisation and Working Class Happening – Short Exam Prep Essay for Class, Work and Global Economy Module – Sociology With Weekly Reading and Recommended Reading List

This was another favourite module for me in my final year at University. I highly recommend that you find Sylvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch book to show how society and class has been created and changed over time from the perspective of women. There’s great historical stories surrounding witch hunts and how matriarchs were once the rulers of our societies.

With the reading lists, these are in every module guide you get on day one of all your classes. It outlines your essay questions, submission date, expectations for formatting and where to submit. There is a weekly reading list which has a mandatory text to read and you’re also expected to read at least a minimum of two readings in the recommended list. You’ll find that there’s over lap with your readings for other classes and from previous years which lightens the load if you’ve been studious and taking your learning seriously. If you do that, as well as a minimum of writing 3 generic essays per exam question then you’re easily on your way for a 2:1/1:1 honours degree. Doing the bare minimum is not going to get you very far. This is why it’s so important to instil these good study practices in early so that you’re well used to handling life, work and studying and still be very successful.

After a while, you get used to the workload and reading becomes easier so the mountain summit gets easier to reach as the years progress. These reading lists provide the minimum expectations for a 4th year university student of Sociology and is expected in all your modules. Remember, essays are your friends for exams!

Essay on Financialisation

Adam Smith believed that the ‘invisible hand of capitalism’ would always create a balance between supply, demand, prices and competition in order for individuals and businesses to reach their own goals, and unintentionally create a positive effect on the rest of society. This notion of the invisible hand has been twisted by neoclassical economics for over 40 years in order to facilitate the normalisation of neoliberalism throughout the western world; allowing for states to withdraw their involvement in national economies in the hope of creating more responsible, free thinking citizens who are less reliant on the state, but ultimately to create monopolies for the wealthy. This essay will explain the process from the highly regulated Keynesian economic system to the current unregulated system of neoliberalism and why states choose this method over an alternative.

Classical economics bases itself on a small government which regulates institutions and allows individual autonomy, whereas neoclassical economics (which includes Keynesianism and neoliberalism) seeks a small government separate from institutions within society to create a cultural hegemony where consumers proactively participate in the free market which regulates itself through supply and demand.

As a result of the Great Depression, the 1944 Bretton Woods conference brought together 44 governments to create a comprehensive and legalised set of regulations to create a more stable and open international financial system, allowing governments to adjust exchange rates and control all capital movements with the creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) – now the World Bank – for long term investments in infrastructure and short term balance payments, which supported John Maynard Keynes’ theory explained in ‘General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money’ (1936) (Helleiner 2010). This meant that economic markets were now open with money easily transferred throughout all western countries, overseen and regulated by the IMF.

Rising disposable income fuelled consumer demand which is where difficulties in Fordism arose. Inflation in the 1970s resulting in rising unemployment levels and the growing threat of outsourced industries in the Far East and South America (who offered far lower labour costs) were the first signs of Britain in transition from an industrial to a post industrial society. Alain Touraine (1971) and David Bell (1973) both recognise a decline in manufacturing at this time with and a significant growth in services which created a shift in class identity, leading us to see an emergence of the middle class who moved into the new IT and service sectors.

IT is a natural development of the capitalist process and concentrates on sectors which requires a more educated and trained workforce which Schumpeter (1943) refers to as a ‘creative destruction’ in that it replaces outdated, expensive manufacturing industries into efficient service industries. David Bell called this society the ‘information society’ rather than ‘post industrial’ where a counter culture develops out of these struggles which questions Fordist management of the economy during the late 1970s, leading to the election of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister in 1979 after bitter workers strikes and rising unemployment.

The elites were trying to resolve the 1973 financial crisis by embracing economic reforms developed by Milton Freidman and the ‘Chicago Boys’ from 1975 associated with their experiment in Chile under the Pinochet Regime which Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Regan gladly embraced. Harvey (2007) believes the success of South American neoliberalism lead to a compliant and easily persuaded population ready to embrace open markets. Neoliberalism has the intention of redistributing wealth by making sure that what was given to the poor is taken away and given back to the elites. This is done in the form of lowering state investment into public sectors and privatising publically owned assets including natural resources such as oil, gas and coal. Property rights were changed to allow for the accumulation of private property where physically removing the poor from areas of land was carried out in order to take control. Thatcher’s message for the UK was ‘there is no such thing as society’ which meant that the state were no longer going to look after the population, they had to survive on their own success, even though there is always going to be losers amongst the winners.

This process of selling off state assets continued with Tony Blair’s New Labour government from 1997 – 2007 now dubbed the IT revolution; fuelling further consumerism, heightened by increased borrowing from banks as housing prices soared. For Crouch (2009) this boom was a new kind of privatised Keynesianism where debt is transferred onto the individuals rather than the state.

Debt is created by private banks who offer it to consumers as credit which is paid back with interest. Banks will try to convince people it is their fault as consumers for increasing inflation and house prices therefore needing higher wages; even though it is the central banks who affect the changes in interest rates and inflation by speculating on the market. In 1971 the gold standard which regulated how much money could be printed and circulated by a state ceased and the introduction of fiat (Latin for ‘let it be done’) money took over, which is necessary for neoliberalism to function. Fiat money gives banks the opportunity to create money based on the market’s situation which will be legally enforced by the government through legal tender.

Allan Greenspan was chosen as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board by President Reagan in 1987 – 2008 to oversee deregulation of the central banks where he slashed interest rates to allow banks to lend to people who could not afford loan repayments to buy homes which were fast becoming incredibly expensive due to inflation. The housing bubble which lead to the 2008 economic crisis took capital and used it to speculate house values in order to increase the housing prices to earn a profit as their value consistently increased over time. Like in the UK, the US were pushing for people to own their own home as a sign of success and a way to invest in their futures for it to only improve the profits for the banks. This growing need for owning property lead to the subprime housing crisis which all financial institutions knew was a reckless decision and it was only a matter of time before it collapsed. Bankers took advantage of customers by introducing flexible interest rates on mortgages to those they knew could not afford to buy a house, which hit places like Baltimore and New Orleans in the US the hardest as areas were populated by predominantly black people in precarious work situations. To continue the exploitation of black home owners, financial institutions lobbied to Congressman to block race related acts which would have stopped minorities falling victim to predatory scams called reverse redlining. Financial institutions will recruit five lobbyists per Congressman to persuade them to pass legislation to influence the financial market (Pell and Eaton 2010) which is commonly known as the Wall Street – Washington Corridor. Campaign contributions will allow an industry’s opinion to speak louder than the national interests. This is also seen in the UK with Transparency UK stating from 2001 – 2010 £250 million of the £425 million pounds in party donations were given from a small amount of individuals where donations were £100,000 and over (Corruption in Politics Report, 2012). There has been efforts from the Financial Stability Forum (FSF) to update regulations on the securitisation on subprime loans and the unrecorded long term structured investment vehicles (SIVs) (tax free offshore accounts) which is part of the shadow banking system – a system which most banks are involved in as it allows assets to be transferred to corporations from investors with a fee charged for doing so (Shadow Banking: Strengthening Oversight and Regulation, 2011).

From 1979 onwards the Conservative government set out to make the economy flexible in terms of organisation, work practices and workers by the breaking down of demarcation barriers; outsourcing production and increasing the supply of labour by encouraging more temporary part time staff rather than permanent full time staff. From this time the state is seen as too involved in the market and it should be up to the private sector to stimulate growth in order to cut back on state spending. A long process of financialisation begins through public manipulation using the media, universities and public policy reforms to encourage and promote neoliberalism to the masses. This then initiated the public into the world of investment and savings of neoliberal thought whereby privatisation of publically owned industries were welcomed and also included the Right to Buy scheme to free up state assets for investment. Harvey (2007) sees Reagan’s destruction of the air traffic controllers (PATCO) in 1980 and Margaret Thatcher’s defeat of the British miners in 1984 as crucial moments in the global turn toward neoliberalism. The problem with neoliberalism is though that it will create great inequalities with regular booms and recessions which the state has to intervene in to soften the blow of losses made to industries and also to invest in service improvements. The state will always bail out the financial sector on the backs of the poor by cutting public services and welfare and raising inflation, all of which are further expanding the gap of inequality between the working class and the elites. The increasingly widening gap of inequality was reasoned by supporters of neoliberalism by stating if anyone was to fail in the market it was due to their lack of drive to succeed, laziness and lack of educational attainment and solely the individual’s fault. “While ‘blame’ should rest on the financial sector, governments failed to protect the market from itself and to protect society from the kinds of excesses that have repeatedly imposed high costs on taxpayers, workers, homeowners, and retirees.” (Stiglitz, 2009).

These processes are allowed to happen after the repeal of The Glass-Steagall Act of 1932 which separated investment and commercial banks from one another to protect customers. With the advice from Deputy Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, President Clinton in 1999 repealed the Act in the hope to free up the market to make it perform better. After the 1999 repeal Goldman Sachs went from an investment to commercial bank, which allowed for state protection in case of economic downturn and as one of the biggest banks in the US were a major player in selling subprime mortgages. They made profits from the subprimes by insuring the debts to other financial companies in a process called ‘short selling’ up until 2008. Wall Street are effectively high rollers using the working class as poker chips in a casino where governments turn a blind eye, causing massive negative repercussions to society as huge stakes are at risk, allowing for mass unemployment, destitution and financial collapse which did eventually happened in 2008. The only people who do not experience the devastating effects of recession and austerity are the bankers and elites themselves. Forbes 400 offers real time analysis on who the richest people in America are, which constitutes as the top 3% of the population, showing that they are the only group in society in the current climate who are making steadily increasing annual profits in real terms.

Goldman Sachs’ recklessness until 2008 resulted in them needing a $10 million bail out from the state because one of the biggest banks defaulting will inevitably lead to civil unrest, so the government had to make money through quantitative easing. Government should be small in neoliberal capitalism but it is more bloated than it has ever been as it is constantly buying out banks for reckless behaviour caused by deregulation. Good enterprise should be rewarded and bad enterprise should fail which unfortunately has not happened. Rather than the free market working for the consumer who participate in it, we are now at the mercy of the financial institutions. With all financial institutions passing the buck and denying the true factors at fault while having the ability to fund think tanks and access universities and media outlets they are able to spread disinformation in order to keep the support for neoliberalism going.

Neoliberal capitalism has improved living standards and created wealth for the baby boomers of the ‘50s and ‘60s who have experienced an age of decadence over the past 40 years, giving them instant gratification which has made them apathetic to the destructive system that perpetuates their immediate needs and its impact on future generations. There are still great inequalities around the world where people are exploited and living in destitution while the elites gain profit from these people’s misfortunes; it simply cannot be claimed it is due to a lack of hard work and drive to succeed. Neoliberal capitalism has crescendoed to create a paradox where the more we consume the more debt we create. Our level of consumption today is akin to that which Huxley speaks of in Brave New World and it should be seen as a warning. Most of these problems can be improved by fairly redistributing wealth; localising economies instead of globalising them; creating a system revolving around production not consumption; introducing strict banking regulations and create a strong government that will follow Iceland’s example of holding reckless bankers responsible for unethical financial practices.

References

Bell, D. 1973. The Coming of Post Industrial Society: a venture in social forecasting. USA: Basic Books

Crouch, C. 2009. Private Keynesianism: An unacknowledged policy regime. The British Journal of Politics & International Relations 11(3): pp. 382–399.

Federal Reserve Bulletin. 2014. Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2010 to 2013: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances. [Online]. Available from: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/bulletin/2014/pdf/scf14.pdf [Accessed 16 November 2015].

Financial Stability Forum. 2011. Shadow Banking: Strengthening Oversight and Regulation Recommendations of the Financial Stability Board. [Online]. Available from: http://www.financialstabilityboard.org/wp-content/uploads/r_111027a.pdf?page_moved=1 [Accessed 16 November 2015].

Forbes 400. 2015. [Online]. Available from: http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/list/#version:realtime [Accessed from 16 November 2015.

Harvey, D. 2007. Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 610(1): pp. 21 – 44.

Helleiner, E. (2010) A Bretton Woods Moment? The 2007-2008 Crisis and the Future of Global Finance. International Affairs. 86(3): pp. 619 – 636

Hinnant-Bernard, T. and Crull, S. R. (2004). Subprime lending and reverse redlining. Housing and Society. 31(2): pp. 169 – 189

Keynes, J. M. 1936. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. [Online] Available from: http://cas.umkc.edu/economics/people/facultypages/kregel/courses/econ645/winter2011/generaltheory.pdf [Accessed 16 November 2015].

Pell, M. B. And Easton, J. 2010. Five Lobbyists per congressman on financial reforms Public Integrity [Online] http://www.publicintegrity.org/2010/05/21/2670/five-lobbyists-each-member-congress-financial-reforms [Accessed 15 November 2015].

Schumpeter, J. 1943. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. London: Routledge

Stiglitz, J. E. 2008. Capitalist Fools. Vanity Fair. [Online]. Dec 10. Available from: Common Dreams on the World Wide Web: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2008/12/10/capitalist-fools [Accessed 15 November 2015]

Stiglitz, J. E. 2009. The Stiglitz Report [Online]. Available from: http://www.un.org/ga/econcrisissummit/docs/FinalReport_CoE.pdf [Accessed 15 November 2015]

Transparency International UK. Documents. 2012. Corruption in UK Politics: Policy Paper Series Number 3 [Online]. Available from: http://issuu.com/transparencyuk/docs/corruption_in_uk_politics?e=10896477/7671081#search [Accessed 15 November 2015].

Touraine, A. (1971) The Post Industrial Society. Tennessee, USA: Kingsport Press

Exam Prep Notes

E. P. Thomson’s (1963) notion of a class happening involves a shift from a subsistence economy to a money economy and an understanding of the history involved in the creation of classes as a relationship found within people, who share similar experiences, are like minded and see themselves as a group different to others. As class happening is a historical phenomenon for Thompson, it is defined by the every day lives of every person and that we are creating our own class history as we live today. Thompson sees class as a form of social evolution in that there is no hindsight into its creation and is simply formed by trial and error over the ages.

In the age of Antiquity, it was seen as an embarrassment to work, with the slaves of the great empires allocated to 100 days of work per year, with the rest of their time devoted to religious practice, crafts, singing and dancing. Those who were not slaves carried out work which was seen as essential to their survival, a subsistent form of living which had no demarcations between work and life, true vocations where work was carried out in task oriented time. The working day revolved around the necessities needed for the day such as collecting food, water and caring for animals. This way of life continued through to the feudal period before the Enlightenment which brought a new way of life involving as Weber called the Protestant work ethic and the spirit of capitalism. For Adam Smith, revenue was important to class because the income from wages and rent indicated a person’s class. The belief at the time was that God created differences between the poor and rich and believed that commodification was natural as we are born to trade, sell and buy. Bartering is our human nature and in order for the poor to help themselves they needed to support capitalists in their economic ventures. Smith believed in 3 distinct classes of the capitalists/industrialists, landowners and the working class.

Puritans believed that they were nothing without work and their hard work while alive would be their salvation when they come to meet God when they die. The Christian Directory targeted workers, rather than employers, to instil a work ethic which saw work needing to be utilised as it was taking up time, which had a value and is seen in Benjamin Franklin’s writings that ‘time is money’. The efforts of hard, long work resulted in more money and in turn brought people out of poverty. Thompson sees the growing use of the clock as an important aspect to this change in our way of life as it soon became a tool to dictate to communities how they managed their day and how long tasks should take. The Reformation affected the views of work in that any work was worthy of God’s praise, like any ‘sacred’ calling. Money that was earned from hard work was not to buy luxuries, as it was deemed a sin, as money should not be wasted. It was also against the Protestant practice to give their earnings to charity as it encouraged beggary, which was an affront to God as it was a sign of laziness. The only option that was left was to invest in land and property and with this, we see the developments which spurred capitalism and on the Industrial Revolution as it forced many of the poor off the communal lands and into cities for waged work. Capitalism is based on conflict of class and large scale primitive accumulation. The Spanish Colonies from the 16th century according to Federici (2002) had a mode of production that couldn’t be matched by Europe which is why colonialisation was carried out on such a large scale. At this time, we see the emergence of the working class as industrialisation brought working men into one place and gave them the opportunity to develop new solidarities and share their own interests, traditions and who believe themselves to be separate to their capitalist masters.

The wide use of the clock which created a new discipline, a new human nature created a workforce less reliant on the natural rhythms of the Earth and allowed for increased input of production for employers. Communities no longer followed natural work patterns of days of inactivity and intense labour, but regimented time structures that all employees followed. Thompson called this the ‘tyranny of clock time’. Up until the 19th century parishes set clocks by the sun and had a bell ringer peal the bells to notify the community when it was 4 am and 8 pm during winter, this was because it was still relatively expensive to own a clock and was reserved for the propertied for prestige amongst their ilk. However, as the Industrial Revolution continued to expand, the standard of living improved and allowed workers to afford timepieces which they were used as a source of investment (for pawning in difficult times) and prestige. In 1700 the Law Book of Crowley Iron Works created time sheets and civil and penal codes to control workers. Industrial capitalism now saw workers clocking in with time sheets, overseen by time keepers and informers regularly would notify management of workers not working when they should, resulting in fines.

With factory work came the efficiency to increase production and profit for employers because factory workers were allocated to monotonous work, where they are deskilled and their personal talents ignored as there was no need for skills as anyone can be trained for factory work. This is a process of alienating workers from their mode of production whereby capitalists turn workers concrete labour into abstract labour an act of commodification. Workers have an economic compulsion to work, and since workers now have the rights to the freedom of work, they will choose to work for capitalists and divorce themselves from their means of production. When serfs and slaves were under direct coercion to work for masters, in the factories it is now hidden under the guise of social rights offering the freedom of movement.

Holloway (2002) believes that people accept misery, violence and exploitation associated with capitalism because they have been dehumanised and deprived of their relation between objects after losing the skills associated with subsistent life. Again, the significance of how people have come to this point is historical, beginning with the first factories employing the first generation of workers where the main objective for capitalists was to instil time keeping and the importance of it and forcing people to work 12 – 16 hours per day. The introduction of schools to child factory workers taught the importance of industry order and regulation to create a docile workforce. However, factory workers would continue to struggle with capitalists over their working conditions and saw the rise in the working class solidarity in which they managed to successfully fight for a reduction in working hours, lowering it to 10 hours per day. The struggle continued further by a third generation of workers who wished to have their overtime work acknowledged and paid for. With the conflicts arising in factories, capitalists begun to expand their empires throughout the world by appropriating land from indigenous people and forced them into work. Federici (2004) states Mercantilism saw populations key to prosperity and power of nations. Humans were seen as a raw material, workers and breeders for the state through work houses, slaves and declaring idleness a social plague.

The working class have become complicit in their own alienation and are ignorant to historical class consciousness because they are happily integrated in capitalist society. Gunn (1987) believes the working class are mystified by freedom of the labour market stating that the feet of the worker are “mired in exploitation whilst their heads breathe in the bourgeois ideological clouds” where the clouds are equal and free bargaining over wages and conditions of work.

Primitive accumulation is the central point of a specific capitalist mode of existence consisting of labour power as a commodity. It is for Marx, the historical ‘act’ that constitutes capitalist social relations. Further, Marx believed it difficult to assume social groups as part of a social relation which is why a class consciousness was not of interest to Marx. Class is relations between things and a living contradiction in that it is as Holloway (2002) states a class and anti-class in that if there is no exploitation then there is no class, but also the labour itself is a class and the production that comes from that labour makes up a class and acknowledges that class existed beforehand.

To be working class is to be subordinated from capital. John Holloway (2002) states “we don’t struggle AS working class, we struggle AGAINST being working class, against being classified.” And goes on further to say “we are the anti-class who are in-against-beyond being working class.”

According to Max Weber, who critiques Marxist views on class, he believes that there is no class consciousness as there is no community which people are a part of. Class is dependent on power, prestige and wealth; dependent upon a person’s life chances such as their educational attainment, experiences and who they know as well as their income, assets and the skills that they have that may be useful to the market.

It is difficult to define class as it’s difficult to analyse and describe. Savage (2013) tried to design a new model of class based on Bourdieu’s social theory on habitus and doxa which dismantled the notion of a single working class into 3 separate categories dependent on education, networks, income and hobbies. However there are political implications of defining class as cultural and family relations is who someone is and changing those relations changes the person. Only social relations can be changed to avoid detection of changing behaviours, which is an insidious form of control which goes beyond the social rights of freedom of movement in the early stages of capitalism. Gunn (1987) sees class as structuring our lives through struggle and creates struggle for us to act on it. He believes that we should not pigeonhole individuals because every life is complex and different and because we all divide in and against each other we therefore cannot be considered in ‘pure’ classes.

If Puritanism created industrialisation to combat poverty, why has there been no opportunity for workers to relax? As long as people are put to work to produce commodities that make the most profit, capitalism will enforce it on a massive scale. Capitalism’s creation of abstract labour allows a constant compulsion to increase production and profit. “The logic of separation entails that a capitalist needs to expand his capital in order to preserve it, but extend it he cannot, except by progressive accumulation.” Without accumulation, capitalists risk bankruptcy and so they must continue their cycle of accumulation and exploitation.

Core Texts

Bonefeld W. and Holloway J. 1995 Global Capital, National Sate and the Politics of Money, Basingstoke:Macmillan
Dicken P. 2007 Global Shift: Mapping the changing contours of the world economy London: Sage.

Dinerstein, A. and Neary, M. 2002. (ed.) The Labour Debate, Ashgate Aldershot, 2002

Federici, S., 2004 Caliban and the Witch, Autonomedia.

Radice, H. (2014) Global Capitalism, London: Routledge.

Williams S., Bradley H., Devadason R., Erickson M. 2013 Globalization and Work Cambridge: Polity.

Weekly Reading List

Introduction to Module and Film Screening of ‘The Happy Lands’

Seminar-Essential Reading:

Federici, S., 2004 Caliban and the Witch, Autonomedia, pp. 61-85. Available at https://libcom.org/files/Caliban%20and%20the%20Witch.pdf

Work, Discipline and Resistance

Seminar-Essential Reading:

Thompson, E. P. 1967 ‘Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism’, Past and Present, No 38, pp. 56-97.

Further Reading:

Cleaver, H. 2002 ‘Work is Still the Central Issue! New Words for New Worlds’, in A. Dinerstein and M. Neary, The Labour Debate, Aldershot: Ashgate.

Holloway, J. 2010 Crack Capitalism, London: Pluto, esp. pp. 83-161.

Lafargue, P. 1883 ‘The Right to Be Lazy’,

available at http://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/1883/lazy/

Morris, W. ‘Useful Work versus Useless Toil’,

https://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1884/useful.htm

Postone, M. 1996, Time, Labour and Social Domination, Cambridge University Press.

Russel, B. ‘In Praise of Idleness’, https://libcom.org/files/Bertrand%20Russell%20-%20In%20Praise%20of%20Idleness.pdf

Tronti, M. 1965 ‘The Strategy of Refusal’, available at http://libcom.org/library/strategy-refusal-mario-tronti

Vaneigem, R. 1994, The Revolution of Everyday Life, Rebel Press.

Capital, Accumulation of Labour and the Degradation of Women

Seminar-Essential Reading:

Federici, S., 2004 Caliban and the Witch, Autonomedia, pp.85-115. Available at https://libcom.org/files/Caliban%20and%20the%20Witch.pdf

Further Reading:

Aston, T.H. and C..E. Philipin (eds), The Brenner Debate, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985.

Bonefeld, W., Imagining the Future – Subverting the Present, Autonomedia, New York, 2008, chapters by Bonefeld, Dalla Costa, de Angelis, Midnight Notes, and Zarembka.

Dalla Costa, M., ‘Development and Reproduction’, in Bonefeld, W. (ed.) Revolutionary Writing, Autonomedia, New York.

Dinerstein, A. and Neary, M. 2002. (ed.) The Labour Debate, Ashgate Aldershot, 2002, chapters by Bonefeld, Clarke, and Holloway.

Dobb, M., 1946. Studies in the Development of Capitalism, Routledge, London.

Hobsbawm, E. 1969. Empire and Industry, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London.

Marx, K., 1973. Grundrisse, Penguin, London, pp. 459—471.

Perleman, M., The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation, Duke University Press, Durham and London.

The Sociological Approaches to Class from Smith to Weber

Seminar-Essential Reading: (08/10/15)

Weber, M. (2010) ‘The distribution of power within the community: Classes, Stände, Parties’, Journal of Classical Sociology, vol. 10, (2): 137-152

Further Reading:

For Adam Smith:

Smith, A., The Wealth of Nations, Book I, chs. 1-9, various dates of publication and publishers.

Clarke, S., Marx, Marginalism and Mondern Sociology, ch. 2, Palgrave, London, 1991.

Clarke, S., Keynesianism, Monetarism and the Crisis of the State, chs. 1-3, Edward Elgar, Aldershot, 1988

Dobb, M., Theories of Value and Distribution, chs. 2-4, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1973.

Hirschman, A., The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism Before its Triumph, Princeton University Press, 1977.

Ricardo, D., Principles of Political Economy, Preface, chs. 1,2,4-6, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1971.

Rubin, I., History of Economic Thought, Parts 3 and 4, Pluto, London, 1989

Wilson, T. and A. Skinner (eds.) (1976), The Market and the State, OUP, Oxford.

For Max Weber:

Breen, Richard and David B. Rottman, 1995, Class Stratification: A Comparative Perspective, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Breen, Richard and David B. Rottman, 1995, ‘Class Analysis and Class Theory’ Sociology 29, 3: 453-73.

Breen, Richard, 1997, ‘Risk, Recommodification and the Future of the Service Class’, Sociology, 31, 3: 473-489.

Breen, Richard and John H. Goldthorpe, 2001, ‘Class, mobility and merit: the experience of two British birth cohorts’, European Sociological Review, 17, 2: 81-101.

Erikson, Robert and John H. Goldthorpe, 1992, The Constant Flux: A Study of Class Mobility in Industrial Societies, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Erikson, Robert, John H. Goldthorpe and Lucien Portocarero 1979, ‘Intergenerational Class Mobility in Three Western European Societies: England, France and Sweden’, British Journal of Sociology, 33: 1-34.

Goldthorpe, John H. 1980, Social Mobility and Class Structure in Modern Britain, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Weber, Max, 1978, Economy and Society (2 vols) (edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich) Berkeley: University of California Press.

Weber, M. (1994), Weber: Political Writings, CUP, Cambridge.

Whimster, S. (ed.) 2004. The Essential Max Weber. A Reader, Routledge, London.

Class and the Stratification of British Society

Seminar-Essential Reading:

Savage, M. Devine, F. et al. 2013 ‘A New Model of Social Class? Findings from the BBC`s Great British Class Survey Experiment’, Sociology, 47 (2): 219-250.

Further Reading:

Woodward, K. Murji, K. Neal, S. and Watson, S. 2014. ‘Class Debate’, Sociology, 48:427-428.

Bradley, H. 2014. ‘Class Descriptors or Class Relations? Thoughts Towards a Critique of Savage et al.’ Sociology, 48(3): 429-436.

Dorling, D. 2014. ‘Thinking about Class’, Sociology, 48(3): 452-462.

Mills, C. 2014. ‘The Great British Class Fiasco: A Comment on Savage et at.’, Sociology, 48(3): 437-444.

Rollock, N. 2014. ‘Race, Class and “The Harmony of Dispositions” ’, Sociology, 48(3): 445-451.

Class as a Critical Concept

Seminar-Essential Reading:

Thompson, E.P. 1981. The Making of the English Working Class, Penguin, esp. read Preface, pp. 8-12 and Postscript, pp. 938-939.

Gunn, R. 1987. ‘Notes on Class’, Common Sense, 2:15-25. Available at http://www.richard-gunn.com/pdf/4_notes_on_class.pdf

Further Reading:

Adorno, T., 2003. ‘Reflections on Class Theory’, in Tiedemann, R. (ed.) Can one live after Auschwitz?, Stanford University Press, pp. 93-110.

Bonefeld, W. 2002. ‘Capital, Labour and Primitive Accumulation: On Class and Constitution’, in Dinerstein, A. and Neary, M. (ed.) The Labour Debate, Ashgate Aldershot, pp. 65-88.

Bonefeld, W. 2014. ‘Class and Struggle: On the False Society’, in Bonefeld, W. Critical Theory and the Critique of Political Economy’, Bloomsbury, pp. 101-120.

Holloway, J. 2002. ‘Class and Classification: Against, In and Beyond Labour’, in Dinerstein, A. and Neary, M. (ed.) The Labour Debate, Ashgate Aldershot, pp. 27-40.

Tischler, S. 2008. ‘The Crisis of the Classical Canon of the Class Form and Social Movements in Latin America’, in Bonefeld, W., Imagining the Future – Subverting the Present, Autonomedia, pp. 161-175.

Keynesianism and the Welfare State

Film Screening: ‘The Spirit of `45’ (2013)

Seminar-Essential Reading: (05/11/15)

Marshall, T. 1950. Social class and citizenship. In: C. Pierson, F. Castles and I. Naumann, eds. The welfare state reader. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Polity. 2013, pp. 28-37.

Further Reading:

Blythe, M. 2002. Great transformations: Economic ideas and institutional change in the twentieth century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (chapter 3)

Cohen, L. 2003. A consumers’ republic: The politics of mass consumption in postwar America. New York: Vintage. (chapters 3 and 4)

Esping-Andersen, G. 1990. The three worlds of welfare capitalism. London: Wiley. (chapter 1)

Jessop, B. 2002. The future of the capitalist state. Cambridge: Polity. (chapter 2)

Pierson, C., Castles, F. and Naumann, I. 2013. The welfare state reader. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Polity

Rose, N. 1999. Powers of freedom: Reconfiguring political thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (chapter 3)

Skidelsky, R. 2010. Keynes: The return of the master. London: Penguin. (Part II)

Weir, M. and Skopol, T. 1985. State structures and the possibilities for “Keynesian” responses to the Great Depression in Sweden, Britain, and the United States. In: P. Evens, D. Rueschemeyer and T. Skopol, eds. Bringing the state back in. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 107-151.

The Rise of Neoliberalism

Seminar-Essential Reading:

Harvey, D. 2007. Neoliberalism as creative destruction. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 610(1): pp. 21-44.

Further Reading:

Chima, O. and Langley, P. 2012. Putting Humpty Dumpty back together again: Financialisation and the management of the subprime mortgage crisis. Global Society. 26(4): pp. 409-427.

Cutler, T., and Waine, B., 2001. Social insecurity and the retreat from social democracy: Occupational welfare in the long boom and financialization. Review of International Political Economy. 8(1): pp. 96-118.

Erturk, I., Froud, J., Johal, S., Leaver, A. and Williams, K. 2008. Financialization at work: Key texts and commentary. Abington: Routledge.

French,S., Leyshon, A. and Wainwright, T. 2011. Financializing space, spacing financialization. Progress in Human Geography. 35(6): pp. 798-819.

Froud, J., Haslam, C., Johal, S. and Williams, K. 2001. Financialisation and the coupon pool. Capital and Class. 8(3): pp. 271-188.

Froud, J., Johal, S., Leaver, A. and Williams, K. 2006. Financialization and strategy: Narrative and numbers. Abington: Routledge.

Langley, P. 2015. Liquidity lost: the governance of the global financial crisis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Leyshon, A. and Thrift, N. 2007. The capitalization of almost everything: The future of finance and capitalism. Theory, Culture and Society. 24(7-8): pp. 97-115.

Martin, R. 2003. Financialization of daily life. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Finance, Consumption and Debt

Seminar-Essential Reading:

Langley, P. 2014. Equipping entrepreneurs: consuming credit and credit scores. Consumption, Markets and Culture. 17(5): pp. 448-467.

Further Reading:

Deville, J. 2015. Lived economies of default: consumer credit, debt collection and the capture of affect. Abington: Routledge.

French, S. and Kneale, J. 2009. Excessive financialization: Insuring lifestyles, enlivening subjects, and everyday spaces of biosocial excess. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 27(6): pp. 1030-1053.

Langley, P. 2010. The everyday life of global finance: Saving and borrowing in Anglo-America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Langley, P. 2008. Sub-prime mortgage lending: A cultural economy. Economy and Society. 37(4): pp. 469-494.

Leyshon, A. and French, S. 2009. ‘We all live in a Robbie Fowler house’: the geographies of the buy to let market in the UK. British Journal of Politics and International Relations. 11(3): pp. 438-460.

Marron, D. 2014. “Informed, educated and more confident”: Financial capability and the problematization of personal finance consumption. Consumption, Markets and Culture, 17(5): pp. 491-511.

Watson, M. 2009. Planning for a future of asset-based welfare? New Labour, financialized economic agency and the housing market. Planning, Practice and Research. 24(1): pp. 43-56.

Watson, M. 2010. House price Keynesianism and the contradictions of the modern investor subject. Housing Studies. 225(3): pp. 413-426.

Climate Change and Global Carbon-Emissions Markets

Seminar-Essential Reading: (03/12/15)

Levy, D. and Spicer, A. 2013. Contested imaginaries and the cultural political economy of climate change. Organization. 20(5): pp. 659-678.

Further Reading:

Aldreda, J. 2012. The ethics of emissions trading. New Political Economy. 17(3): pp. 339-60.

Böhm, S., Misoczky, C. and Moog, S. 2012. Greening capitalism? A Marxist critique of carbon markets. Organization Studies. 33(11): pp. 1617-1638.

Bond, P. 2011. Emissions trading, new enclosures and eco-social contestation. Antipode, 44(3): pp. 684–701.

Callon, M. 2009. Civilizing markets: Carbon trading between in vitro and in vivo experiments. Accounting, Organizations and Society. 34(3-4): pp. 535-48.

Caney, S. 2010. Markets, morality and climate change: What, if anything, is wrong with emissions trading? New Political Economy. 15(2): pp. 197-224.

Lohmann, L. 2010. Uncertainty markets and carbon markets: Variations on Polanyian themes. New Political Economy. 15(2): pp. 225-54.

MacKenzie, D. 2009. Making things the same: Gases, emission rights and the politics of carbon markets. Accounting, Organizations and Society. 34(3-4): pp. 440-55.

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