{"title":"The Problem of Class Abstractionism","authors":"M. McCarthy, M. Desan","doi":"10.1177/07352751231152489","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"With renewed interest in Marxism, class is back on the intellectual agenda. But so too is the familiar charge of “class reductionism.” This charge conflates two distinct claims regarding what we term the structural and political primacy of class. Structural primacy refers to the determinant role of class in social explanation, whereas political primacy refers to its centrality in radical politics. Crossing these distinct claims, we identify four possible positions on the primacy of class. Here, we focus on the two that affirm the structural primacy of class. What we call “class abstractionism,” which presumes to derive the political primacy of class from an account of its structural primacy, ultimately relies on an abstract conception of class that effectively presupposes its political primacy. In contrast, a more adequate account of structural primacy—what we call “class dynamism”—requires us to abandon the presupposition of class’s necessary political primacy.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.1000,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Sociological Theory","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/07352751231152489","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"SOCIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
With renewed interest in Marxism, class is back on the intellectual agenda. But so too is the familiar charge of “class reductionism.” This charge conflates two distinct claims regarding what we term the structural and political primacy of class. Structural primacy refers to the determinant role of class in social explanation, whereas political primacy refers to its centrality in radical politics. Crossing these distinct claims, we identify four possible positions on the primacy of class. Here, we focus on the two that affirm the structural primacy of class. What we call “class abstractionism,” which presumes to derive the political primacy of class from an account of its structural primacy, ultimately relies on an abstract conception of class that effectively presupposes its political primacy. In contrast, a more adequate account of structural primacy—what we call “class dynamism”—requires us to abandon the presupposition of class’s necessary political primacy.
期刊介绍:
Published for the American Sociological Association, this important journal covers the full range of sociological theory - from ethnomethodology to world systems analysis, from commentaries on the classics to the latest cutting-edge ideas, and from re-examinations of neglected theorists to metatheoretical inquiries. Its themes and contributions are interdisciplinary, its orientation pluralistic, its pages open to commentary and debate. Renowned for publishing the best international research and scholarship, Sociological Theory is essential reading for sociologists and social theorists alike.