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The No-Nonsense Guide to Class, Caste & Hierarchies
Seabrook, Jeremy
Publisher: Between the Lines, Toronto, CanadaYear Published: 2002 Pages: 144pp Price: $15 ISBN: 1-896357-56-3 Library of Congress Number: HT609.S37 2002 Dewey: 305.5 Resource Type: Book Cx Number: CX6695 Concentrates mainly on the history of social hierarchy in Western civilization, and particularly the struggles of the working class. Abstract: This guide concentrates mainly on the history of social hierarchy in Western civilization, and particularly the struggles of the working class. The author, Jeremy Seabrook, describes the form of social hierarchies in feudal Europe, the effects of the Industrial Revolution on this system and the new class-based stratifications that emerged. He explores Marx's contributions to theory around class inequality and what has happened to the working class as the economy becomes increasingly driven by advances in information and communication technology Even though it can be argued that Marx, in "prognostic" terms, appears to have been incorrect, at least so far, in foreseeing that capitalism in industrial societies would necessarily result in a socialist revolution, his "diagnostic" evaluation of the class dynamics of capitalism is more-or-less accurate. Marxist theory continues to be relevant to both Western society, where working class jobs now tend to be in retail and service and lack security or benefits, and the global South, where transnational corporations have set up manufacturing operations with conditions as bad as those experienced by the British working class during the Industrial Revolution. The continuing pertinence of class relations in an increasingly globalized world is currently obscured by a number of factors, not least the fact that the traditional understanding of class has been replaced by the term 'inequality'. 'Inequality', explains Seabrook, is an abstraction appearing to be solely statistical in nature and unchangeable in its enormity. It does not highlight the ways in which relationships between the working and upper classes are characterized by exploitation or the common interests of those exploited. In the view of the author, Western-based social justice movements have become individualistic in nature by focusing on identity politics to the exclusion of class. Barriers to (traditional middle class) privileges for individuals affected by racism, homophobia, ableism, and sexism are addressed, but not the ultimate injustices that are the result of the dynamics of advanced capitalism. The last part of this book focuses on the difference between caste and class, caste being a position that is inherited and hence a societal position from which the individual cannot move. A history of the caste system in India is described, including an examination of what parts of this system, ostensibly eliminated, have survived to the modern day. The author notes that caste-like elements can also be discerned in Western class-based societies. [Abstract by Meg O'Brien] Table of Contents Preface 1. What are 'class' and 'inequality'? 2. The importance of a working class 3. Class: alive and kicking 4. The consistency of change 5. Class and globalization 6. Goodbye to the working class? 7. The enduring injuries of class 8. Caste and class 9. Conclusion Contacts Bibliography Index Excerpts: There are around 7 million millionaires in the world, half of them in the US. There is also a fast-growing and powerful global middle class.... These people are a significant force in the world. Their role is twofold. They offer a model to the aspiring poor, and they help police poverty: for privilege, even modest privilege, may expand and grow only if the gap between rich and poor is maintained, or increased, as is the case in almost every country in the world. The discrepancy in these categories was pointed out by philosopher and social critic Raymond Williams. He wrote: 'Most people in Britain think of themselves as "middle class" or "working class". But the first point to make is that these are not true alternatives. The alternatives to "middle" are "lower" and "upper"; the alternative to "working" is "independent" or "propertied". The wonderful muddle we are now in springs mainly from this confusion, that one term has a primarily social, the other a primarily economic reference.' The idea of a growing middle class expresses a relationship not so much to the means of production, as to other people. It is as though existential rather than social factors have become the main influences upon our sense of who we are. People see themselves, not in terms of social function, but as a reflection of the most irreducible elements of their being - female, male, black, white, lesbian, gay or straight, young or old. All the contemporary data on wealth and poverty consist of facts and figures, which merely state the existing situation. There is nothing in such data to suggest how such a state of affairs came about, even less about what might be done to change it.... The war between classes has sunk out of sight, and instead, we see a continuum of haves and have-nots.... It seems that there are no more foreign countries. But there are. This widening of horizons has also been accompanied by narrowing of interest in these places, except insofar as they serve us: the air-conditioned beach-house, the quality of hotel catering, the value for money of cheap fabrics and souvenirs, the seating arrangements for the promised Mogul banquet in the hotel in Arga; would you recommend Kuwait Airlines and what is the safety record of Air Lanka? Here is the strange paradox. The people whose incontinent and often brutalized lives are so disordered, living in ghettoes or housing developments smelling of violence, piss and despair, are actually agents of social control. They impose a salutary discipline on the majority, a powerful encouragement to keep us to beaten pathways, lest our fate come to resemble theirs. Those who in the 19th century resisted extending the franchise to poor people were terrified that these would vote to dispossess the wealthy peaceably, through the ballot-box. This possibility has now been canceled. The opportunities open to the rich to avoid tax, by means of off-shore havens, secret accounts and chains of electronic concealment, ensure that even if a majority voted to limit their wealth, they could avoid the consequences. The idea of meritocracy again advantages the already privileged.... It is only natural that the beneficiaries... should accept the heroic role offered them by society: 'See what I have done by my own efforts.' They collude with the vanishing trick of society, whereby proud individuals stand, raised up by the sweat of their brow; which conveniently elides the oceans sweat by those in the past - and elsewhere in the present - for little or no reward. Bonded labor, particularly in South Asia, is still widespread, despite formal prohibition. Many bonded laborers in rural India enter into unofficial contracts for the sake of loans for marriage, dowry or medicines....In July 2000, the Government of Nepal abolished the kamaiya system of bonded labor, which affected about 100,000 of the ethnic Tharus. Many landlords expelled the laborers from their land, even though they were entitled to keep their houses and a portion of the land they farmed. This is what the bland phrase 'growing inequality' actually means. While the poorest are increasingly deprived of both liberty and livelihood, at the same time a new rich class has grown and developed with global economic integration. This demonstrators another deficiency in dependency upon statistics, and the importance of recovering a sense of the relationships between rich and poor, if the poor are to make meaningful gains. This cannot be done without a strong feeling of moral revulsion against injustice and this is absent from the modern world, blunted as it has been by the iconography of universal wealth and prosperity which dominates the media in every country. What might constitute enough for human beings has been written out of the global scenario; and so has what might be possible outside and beyond market economics. We can now begin to see exactly how the loss of class consciousness has affected the world. Losing consciousness is a troubling experience at the best of times; particularly if, when you come round, you find you are in an unfamiliar place, where the landscape is unknown, everything is strangely altered. We are in the land of the great mythic sleepers of folklore and literature - Rip van Winkle, Sleeping Beauty, the drinking of the waters of Lethe, the arms of Morpheus - epics of amnesia, the effects of opiates and the 'end of history'. Subject Headings
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