In this chapter I have presented a theoretical discussion of the classic conceptions by Marx and Weber, as well as the four most prominent contemporary modes of class analysis, with respect to their concepts of class formation, their conceptions of the economic, their relationship to the state, and in regard to the problem of methodological nationalism. I have found them to present certain challenges for an engagement with class formation in the context of globalisation.
Firstly, on a very general level, a feature common to all but the Bourdieusian mode is the tendency of treating the economy as something external to the social, thereby losing Marx’ and Weber’s. original emphasis on the economy as a historically formed and therefore malleable process. By treating markets as entities governed by transhistoric laws, these approaches tend to conceptualise historical change as a change in distribution of economic goods, not as a
39
change in the conduct of the economic process. This removes contemporary approaches to class from the original intents of the concept as devised by Marx and Weber, who conceived of class in relation to a historically specific and contingent arrangement of economic and social relations. Instead, these approaches take these relations to a large extent as determined, emphasising an analysis of class in the form of established social positions, as “empty places”, allowing for change mainly in the weight of these positions relative to each other. The formation of new classes in the event of substantial changes – such as globalisation – remains a blind spot for most class theories.
Secondly, all contemporary theories of class hinge their analysis to a certain degree on the power of the state, which prevents a conceptualisation of class formation on the global level.
This state-centeredness however has different reasons and varies in its extent.
In the case of the individual-attributes approach the reason for this can be found, according to the typology of methodological nationalism by Wimmer and Glick-Schiller (2002), in
“ignorance” towards the statist constitution of the approach. Assuming the existence of a global market, on the theoretical level there are no reasons for such an approach to remain limited to a “containerized” conception of society, as its only theoretical elements are individuals and the market. It is rather the typical methodology employed, and the unconscious identification of state with society, which limits its application to a nation-state frame.
In the case of the opportunity-hoarding approach, the argument for treating class as a category on the level of the nation state is at a first view more pronounced. As classes enter the picture as collective actors, the relationship between class, the political, and the market becomes crucial. Since this approach separates the state and the economy into distinct spheres and treats the economy as an object governed by objective laws, the intervention of collective action necessarily has to be conducted through the state, tying classes – at least in their political articulation – to a nation-state frame.
A similar case can be made for the Bourdieusian approach, since Bourdieu shares the view of the administrative field being territorialised. However, given the multi-dimensional approach of field theory, the introduction of transnational fields is a possibility.
Finally, in the exploitation-approach, drawing on the Marxist tradition, state theory takes the most prominent position, as the state-class relationship represents a cornerstone of its theoretical endeavour. However, the Marxist approach pays the most attention to the globalising nature of the capitalist economy, which creates a tension out of which a fruitful discussion has developed.
40
Before I continue to examine how these obstacles can be overcome in Chapter Four, I turn to theories of globalisation and their depiction of the change it entails on class formation.
41
3 Globalisation without Global Class Formation?
In the previous chapter I surveyed the most prominent contemporary conceptualisations of class along the lines of their theoretical development and identified the obstacles hindering the analysis of global class formation through these established modes of class analysis. As I have shown, all these approaches in one way or another conceive of the problem of inequality and class as framed through the nation state as the primary organisational form of society. This notion of the identity of society and the state has however been called into question by the extensive literature on globalisation since the nineteen-eighties. The idea of globalisation offers the chance for a change in perspective: Instead of taking the nation state as point of departure for sociological inquiry, authors such as Giddens (1990), Beck (2000), or Castells (2000) suggest the opposite route, privileging the analysis of transnational social and economic processes over national specificities. In this chapter I therefore examine theories of globalisation and how they deal with the issue of class formation on the global level.
However, the concept of globalisation is a contentious subject. In the academic debate, the meaning and the significance of globalisation are frequently called into question. As I will discuss in this chapter, these conceptual differences also impact how the role of class in the wider field of global inequality is conceived of. In the following I therefore examine firstly the different conceptualisations of globalisation, and secondly at the idea of a world society as possible bases for theorizing the formation of a global class.
In the first section I argue that most conceptualisations of globalisation leave the social inequalities, which are a defining feature of any class formation, behind on a national level. In a second step, I argue that the theories of a world society artificially separate economic from social processes, which again creates a blind spot for the formation of a global class. Both perspectives on globalisation are therefore inadequate to address the issue of global class formation.