Using Mamaroneck High School in Westchester County, New York, as his primary case study, Mathews examines the realities of the top public high schools in the United States. He offers "a penetrating view of the competing -- and often damaging -- forces that nurture the Ivy League goals of the academic and economic elite while often squashing the less glamorous ambitions of the rest."--Jacket.
For those who want to build a fighting labor movement, there are many questions to answer. How to relate to the union establishment which often does not want to fight? Whether to work in the rank and file of unions or staff jobs? How much to prioritize broader class demands versus shop floor struggle? How to relate to foundation-funded worker centers and alternative union efforts? And most critically, how can we revive militancy and union power in the face of corporate power and a legal system set up against us? Class struggle unionism is the belief that our union struggle exists within a larger struggle between an exploiting billionaire class and the working class which actually produces the goods and services in society. Class struggle unionism looks at the employment transaction as inherently exploitative. While workers create all wealth in society, the outcome of the wage employment transaction is to separate workers from that wealth and create the billionaire class. From that simple proposition flows a powerful and radical form of unionism. Historically, class struggle unionists placed their workplace fights squarely within this larger fight between workers and the owning class. Viewing unionism in this way produces a particular type of unionism which both fights for broader class issues but is also rooted in workplace-based militancy. Drawing on years of labor activism and study of labor tradition Joe Burns outlines the key set of ideas common to class struggle unionism and shows how these ideas can create a more militant, democtractic and fighting labor movement.
Much ink has been spilled in attempts to prove that humans are only animals and are, like other species, only aggressive. Marx distinguishes both class and cooperative relations as inorganic: humans create their subjectivity through their mutual social production. They build upon their previous forms of social production and, with capitalism, become not only an opposition of classes, but have the capacity for urban individualism and cooperation. Dialectics of Class Struggleexamines the historical development of classes from ancient times to present. It analyses the development of ancient slavery into feudalism and the latter into capitalism. It focuses on the laws and limits of capitalist development, the contradictions inherent in the capitalist state, revolutions in the twentieth century and the possibilities for human freedom that they revealed. It concludes with an examination of class struggles in the global economy and shows the human deprivations as well as the human possibilities.
"Social classes and class conflict have defined social relations ever since the division of society into hostile classes based on the exploitation and oppression of one class by another. This has become especially important in modern capitalist society through the globalization process, where class divisions have solidified with enormous inequalities in wealth and income that are the most glaring in the history of humanity." "Class and Class Conflict in the Age of Globalization presents a macro-sociological analysis of class and class conflict through a comparative-historical perspective. Focusing on class as the motive force of social transformation, Berberoglu explores class relations and class conflict in a variety of social settings, stressing the centrality of this phenomenon in defining social relations across societies in the age of globalization. Going beyond the analysis of class and class conflict on a world scale, the book addresses the role of the state, nation/nationalism, and religion, as well as the impact of race and gender on class relations in the early twenty-first century."--BOOK JACKET.
In the 1960s and 1970s the study of history and sociology was heavily influenced by Marxism and theories of class. But the collapse of Communism and significant changes in culture and society threw the study of class into crisis. Its most basic premises were called into question. More recently accelerating globalisation, proliferating multinational corporations and unbridled free-market capitalism have given the study of class a new significance and caused historians and sociologists to revisit the debate. This book looks at the changes that caused the crisis in the study of class and shows how new, vibrant theories have appeared that will drive forward our understanding of history and sociology.
Many of Karl Marx's social and economic theories have the concept of class struggle at their core. This essay length guide examines Marx's concept of class struggle in some detail, and explains its role in the revolutionary process. Topics covered include a definition of class, the dialectic development of society, and the formation of the capitalist state from the remnants of feudalism, and the creation of a classless society.
Highlighting the need to find solutions for current problems in American society moving forward, Berch Berberoglu provides a captivating read for anyone interested in understanding how working people today can have a lasting impact on a better and more equitable society in the future.
