ISM AND CLASS THEORY A Bourgeois Crítique @ Ð CLASS EN Frank Parkin "The opening passage of Parkin's Mar.xism and Class Theor|; A Bourgeots Critique ts savage' sarcastic and ùãautifuity construõted, and the quality is maintained throughout the book'" LiterarY SuPPlentent l:', lt,, l-..',;:.'È; Ï' -Timei t ,lt .,, ...r...', ''- -.'t' L'.-' ' "This is an unusually well-written essay' Its- wit' lt Y, i:.1i-i sense of irony, and elägance of phras-e-add.stylistic I power tô a trenchani critique of Marxist class Fr,.i\j, [i"l1'l j iheories. . . . In sum, Parkin has succeeded not only .):, *'¿1' in offering us an upjto-date "bourgeois" critique of Marxism but also in elaborating a genuinely'neo- VjeUerian' position.." Socíology -Contemporary :York rkin Columbia University Press/,Ngw t" Printed in U-S.A. ISBN: t-¿f l,-0qgå1-5 \ .: -^ri^]" þr.r-*- .:Þ Marxism and Class Theory Mørxism and CIøss Theory: A Bourgeois Critique Frank Parkin Columbia University Press New York l:' Copyright @ Frank Parkin t979 AII rights reserved To Rosø Published in t979 in the United States of America by Columbia University press Library of Congress Cataloging in publication Data Parkin, Frank. Marxism and class theorv. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Communism and society. 2. Marxian school of sociology. 3. Social classes. I. Title. HX542.P28 335.4'1 79_.1.4222 ISBN O-231{)488O-Z (ctoth) ISBN 0-23L-0 4BB1-S (paper) Printed in Great Britain clothbound editions of Columbia university press books are smyth-iewn and printed on peÍnanent and durable acid'-free paper. .,ffi,Eãf' *..ff#f, \ Contents Acknowledgments viü Preface ix PÁ.RT ONE: RETIIINKING CL.A.SS ANALYSIS L Introduction 3 2 The 'boundary problem' in Marxism and sociology Ll 3 Internal class cleavages and the ethnic factor 29 4 Social closure as exclusion t 4 5 Social closure as usurpation 74 6 Dual closure 89 PART TWO: CLASS A'ND STATE 7 Social cleavages and the forms of state A19 PART TIIREE: CLASS ÂND P.å'RTY 8 On the transition to socialism 145 9 The dictatorship of the proletariat and social democracy 176 Bibliography 2O5 Index 213 t\^1 ----.-1 1 rerlfs Preface - ^sr\lf\_rvvt\- .LröII The author and publishers are grateful to the following who have Lenin's wry comments on the efflorescence of Marxism in Russia at given permission for material to be reproduced: the turn oi tt. century seem quite pertinent to our own time and Figure 7 page 79, frtst appeared in G. D. Newbould and j. R. place: Sparkes, 'Managers' Pay', New Socíety February 17, 1977, p. 237. ,Marxistbookswerepublishedoneafteranother,Marxistjour. DoTilfsb tlHreib e1ur tMiopnaa gjoeefs I8tny0c'o,s mi sSe r teaapntidroo Wnde uercayelt hdO, wfRfiiecthpe o,t hrtfe roN pmoe. r Rm3,oi sy(1sa9ilo7 C n6o )o,m fT mtahbiseles Cio2no5 ,n opt rn-o 5ltlh5ee.r Mtnoaaolsrkx aipsntu,db Mlniseahrwexrsisãp tsrtep wjeoei.cJreewd ef laarett tt ehforee uednx, dtMreadao,rr xdniisentaasrr lywy, e errveeea rcdyoyou nsreatel edb o eafc nMadma terhx ea- ist literature Lenin was not too enthusiastic about a species of Marxism that to be more congenial !" tlt literati than to the class that ".åpJlUãyã .*"uatt "red. On these'grounds alone, it is unlikely that he would t u"J f.fa very d.ifferently aibout the Marxist products that have been manufacturá and marketed in western universities over the past decade or so. Contemporary western Marxism, unlike its classical oredecèssor, iswholly the creation of academic social theorists - more |;;;tfi*lly;ih. .r".tío., of the nêw professoriate that rose uP on the wa,ue of university expansion in the 1960s. The natural constituency of this Marxism iÁ noi of course the working class, but the massed ranks of undergraduates and postgraduate students in the social sciences; its content and design *utl it out exclusively for use in the lecture theatre, the seminai.oo*, and the doctoral dissertation- Hencethestrangeandfascinatingspectacletobewitnessedinsocial science faculties throughout *""itttt Europe and beyond of diligent bands of research studãnts and their mentois busily combingthrough the pages of ,Theoriæ of Surplus Value in search of social reality' ix Preface Preface As if to make secure its riewly-won respectabilit-yc,u prrrio.dfe ssorial since a great deal of that literature is intrinsically forgettable. Even in Marxism has, in the manner of all exclusive bodies, out its being selective I run the risk of being charged with paying undue adicscceosusrsib_ele tthoro tuhgeh uthnein smtreudcituemd. oCf earnta ainrclyan re,o l-aonngãu acgãeu nldo tp oresasidbillyy rise sinpcercetd tuol ocuesrt alianu gahrgteumr. eInt tiss ftoor wthhei crhe atdheer oton ljyu dagpep rwophreiathtee r remsyP oonwsen accuse the Marxist professoriate of spreading the kind of ideas rikely attempts at solemnity have been entirely successful. to cause a stampede to the bar¡icades or the picket lines. Inceed, th; I should like to express my gratitude to Steven Lukes for his sharp uncomplicated theory that has traditionalþ inspired that sort of and constructive comments on a preliminary rlraft of Part One. My extra-mural activity is_now rather loftily dismisseá as ,vulgar, Man<- colleague, R. W. |ohnson, took time off from more important things ism - literally, the Marxism of the ,common people,. iÉis is not to read the entire manuscript and to produce in response a kind of necessarily to suggest that the new breed of Mårxists are less dedi- monograph of his own which forced me to make extensive revisions cated than the old to the revolutionary transformation of society; their to the original draft. My debt to him is especially great. presence- at the gates of the winter palace is perfectly conceivable, provided that satisfactory arrangements courd Ëe madé for sabbaticar Oxford leave- Noaember 1978 F.P Classical Marxism, including the applied or vurgar version e-spoused by the working-class movement, counterfosed itself sharply to bourgeois sociar theory, the intellectual construct of its class, qpponents. Professorial Marxism, on the other hand, is less fitted to adopt such a stance, rooted as it is in that most bourgeois of all western institutions. This is ilrustrated by the fact, to be dielt upon later, that many of the recent contributións to Marxist class anaÇsis bear the unmistakable imprint of bourgeois sociology - in particurar that version of it associated with tñe writing" ãf lvf.* Weber. Nevertheless, there is perhaps something to Èe said, if only on grounds of courtesy, for respecting the stanãard Marxist classification of all non-Marxist conceptsãnd üieories as bourgeois. As the subtitre of this book indicates, I hãve willingly agreed to h"ave ihis labJ pinned o1 to my own work. Given what now passes for Marxist tï"ory, almost any_ imaginable bourgeois alternaiive seems preferable. This preference is made qaiqcutudy clear in part One, ,Rethinking Class Analysis', in which ihe WeUe¡an concept of social closure is used as the basis for an alternative moder of crass to that recom- mended by Marxism. No-one will fail to notice that the same moral and intellectual prejudices are present throughout the discussion in Parts Two and Three. The division of the book into three parts is meant to signal the fact that each of the broad issues treated.-courd be read u, ñ-,or" or ress sePârate essays. The parts are connected more by their relation to a commÒn general theme than by an unbroken narrative thread. Those who prefer that dramatic format in which all expository stranãs are neatly tied together in the final act will have good äause fá. complåir,t. The reader is also entitred to advance warnirig that what folrowå i" .,ot intended to be an exhaustive review of the \i'arxist riterature o.r-.t.r" and social theory. This does not call for much in the *"y "i "poiogy x xl I I I tôl k. "'¡l^ t \ i/ .i^^ PART ONE Rethinking class analysis 1 Introduction Ì i",1 t; i! li ti ri I : lr ì :l ì Orre of the objects of class theory has been to identify the principal line of social cleavage within a given system - the structuial 'fault' running through society to which the most serious disturbances on I the political landscape are thought to be ultimately traceable. The i geological metaphor of stratification, with its attendant imagery of Ì snrtãces and substructures, has been employed freely in the sei¿iie of both Marxism and sociology as part of the theoretical discourse on class. Such imagery would seem, however, particularly congenial to Marxism, given its fondness for the contrast between the óutward appearances of social reality and the underlying structures that sup- posedly contain the essence of things. one of Marxism's various c-laims to- higher understanding is thal it enjoys privileged access to these subterranean levels of meaning closed off to tlie humdrum þourgeois mi_nd. Thus, one of the routine indictments of sociological and, above all, Weberian analyses of class is that they are pitched at what is solemnly called the wrong level of reality. Thatìs to say, attention.is directed to the .manifest forms of sociai.inequality as revealed in the distúbutive system, instead of upon the concealed forces of the productive system that are believed to govern the pattern of distribution and much else besides.t lhrough W-eberian lenses social classes do appear to take -{-_þS-*ea,e--un_y -ry.y of-thq agfreg!¡ion of gioups lhat share a c^oinmon set of .fifg:,chances and circumstances, as mèasurea Uy_iþe colygntlg¡al i¡rdices of distribution. For Marxism, by contrast, ciasseJ aiã ãääned in terms.of syÀtemicproperties, independently of the social make-up of constituent groups. thé inuullt antagonism between capital and 3