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The aim of this paper is: first, to show that the relationship between Latin America and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a faithful reflection of a class struggle on a world scale, where the correlation of internal and external forces has been articulated over the years in favor of capital; second, to analyze the concrete possibilities that the region will face in the future if it intends to reverse this unfavorable history. The paper argues that the IMF has played a key role in the reconfiguration and extension of the dominance of international finance capital over the productive resources of Latin America by favoring the consolidation of a local capitalist class subordinated to the designs and power of transnational capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the archaeology and history of labor is based on organized labor, unions, and strikes, and the common rhetoric emphasizes the success or failure of union strike activities. This frames labor activism with clear winners and losers and inadvertently adopts the vantage point of capital. Given the modern world where union membership is plummeting, "success" seems even more unlikely. In this paper, I use the case of the Coalwood lumber camp to argue that labor's "success" was much more complicated than simply winning strikes. Recognizing the difference between concrete and abstract labor provides a way to think about worker's decisions to structure their lives based more on concrete than alienated labor that gives them more autonomy over their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the homilies of the Bishop of Cuernavaca, Sergio Méndez Arceo, in the 1970s. The objective is to deepen the multiple messages that economic problems take up, by contextualizing these ideas, within the general framework of Liberation Theology. The main axes of the homilies focus on two positions: 1) conversion and 2) dualism. By conversion, Méndez Arceo constantly returns to the idea of “class struggle”, at the same time, from the perspective of Holy Scripture, he emphasizes the Liberation of the man. While by dualism he insists on the division between a ruling class of wealthy businessmen or landowners and a dominated class of workers and peasants, dividing society into good and bad Christians. It is worth highlighting that this article takes up a novel theme, considering that an in-depth analysis of the economic problems in the homilies has not been carried out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the variety of agrarian classes of labour and the challenges they face in organizing and pursuing their interests. By taking the cotton sector in Burkina Faso as a case study, it analyses how various 'classes of labour' organize and mobilize for collective action to raise their claims: poor cotton farmers and workers in the cotton factories. Poor and middle farmers recently came to the fore when they boycotted cotton production in large numbers. The study focusses on the boycott campaign, and more broadly on class struggle and collective action by farmers and workers, on interclass alliances, and on capital's attempts to play the classes of labour against one another. The boycott campaign provides an outstanding case to analyse the interests of the various classes of labour and of opportunities for rural–urban mobilization and alliances across classes of labour. I argue that poor farmers and factory workers along the chain of cotton production can be considered as various classes of labour that are not necessarily antagonistic to one another but, first and foremost, to capital. In order to achieve radical transformation in the agrarian context, what is needed are networks and organizations to establish interclass solidarity and alliances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Golden Age of Malay cinema, Hussain Haniff was a prolific filmmaker who made 12 films within a period of five years. Started as an extra, escalated to editor, Hussain Haniff's films mostly questioned the powers advocating the subject of rebellion and class injustice. Known as a rebel with modernist approaches, Hussain Haniff made films with rebellion being the theme within its narratives. This can be seen in his first directorial debut Hang Jebat (1961) that tells the story of how the warrior Hang Jebat stood up for his comrade Hang Tuah who was unjustly sent to the gallows. Hang Jebat in defying the orders of the Sultan and thinking that Hang Tuah had been executed, went into a fit of rage and as an act of rebellion ran amok while killing several villagers. In the Malay culture and Malay purbawara films, this treasonous act of rebellion known as "durhaka" is caused by an expression of "rajuk" - the sulk, or "merajuk" - the act of sulking, and occurs when a servant or warrior rebels against the act of injustice of his master. This paper aims to discuss the act of merajuk which often stereotyped as a feminine trait but in Hang Jebat it can be understood as a form of rebellion against feudalism and can be further attributed to understanding issues related to marginalisation and class oppression. Through an intertextual study of this film, this paper unravels how the rajuk of Hang Jebat represents an act of rebellion that challenges class inequality and gender representations. This article analyses rajuk in two main focuses; firstly on how explosive rajuk which is an allegory to the anti-feudal nature is expressed by Hang Jebat and how rajuk resulted an implication in his more feminine character compare to his rebel character at the beginning of this film. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the notion of taste for teaching a subject, especially science, as a conceptual framework to analyse the aesthetics of teacher development as a lifelong process. We draw on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and John Dewey in order to account for how teachers distinguish admirable practices and, in doing so, distinguish themselves as inspiring professionals. In order to illustrate this framework, we report a narrative inquiry on the life story of Tomas, a white man nationally prized for his science teaching. This inquiry was inspired by sociological portraits recommended by Bernard Lahire. Results indicate how a practical disposition (as opposed to a theoretical one) played an important role in developing Tomas's individual taste for science teaching, producing a strong continuity between his early experiences as a masculine boy raised in a family of construction workers, on the one hand, and his later experiences as a biologist and a science teacher enacting inquiry-based activities. The significance of the findings for science education is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the tourism in places in connection with "class struggle" during the era of state socialism in Czechoslovakia. During the time of economic crisis in the 1930s, there were some incidents between gendarmerie and striking workers in the areas of high unemployment. These events were misused in the propaganda as legitimization of the Communist Party's leading role after the 1948 revolution. These places of "class struggle" were privileged in hierarchy of heritage preservation during the communist era (1948-1989). The author focuses on sources connected with tourism (guidebooks, maps) and raises the question if historical agents and society adopted these places. The methodological remarks are an important part of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze the first false messages composition on the new coronavirus and Covid-19 that circulated in Brazil. The analysis problematize the relationships between form and content that give legitimacy to the messages and how they are inserted in the class struggle. We used the contributions of the Circle, especially Volóchinov, on the nature of language associated with contributions from the field of historical and dialectical materialism, to analyze 11 messages, two of which were analyzed deeply. The results indicated that false communications are inserted in the class struggle seeking to manipulate the interlocutor and they appropriated and mobilized elements, mainly from the spheres of Science and Journalism, to give the effect of credibility and legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In lights of the resurgence in South America of the Marxist version of dependency theory, especially of the theoretical developments by Ruy Mauro Marini and considering the criticisms that followed its reappearance, this present paper hopes to make a contribution in this last sense, to emphasize the limitations of Marxist Dependency Theory when presenting the specific determination of the political consciousness of the working class. Starting from what Marini says about the political course that led to the 1973 coup d'Etat in Chile, we will show how his generic conception of the working class. An ideological conception that emerges from the naturalization of the national character of the accumulation process, obliterates the place of ground rent as a fundamental determination of capital accumulation in South America, therefore limiting the potential of political action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Japanese proletarian literature movement, including a brief discussion of some of its main historical events and notable personalities. It also explores the following works by Yoshiki Hayama (葉山嘉樹 1894-1945), one of the most influential authors from the early years of this movement: "The prostitute" (inbaifu 淫 売 婦), published in November 1925, and "Letter Found in a Cement-Barrel" (semento-daru no naka no tegami セメント樽の中の手紙), published in January 1926. The analysis of these stories aims to show the richness of topics and diversity of characters in Japanese Proletarian Literature, even though the central theme is limited to issues related to class struggle, and to demonstrate that the study of this type of literature remains relevant in the contemporary world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To those of us who have been consistently critical of leisure, we have mapped our critique of leisure onto discussions of leisure as a concept, as a tool, or as a social construct in society that has had serious implications on the gendered, the racialized, and the classed as disposable. Leisure is a life-politic that hides: dominant lifestyles, harmful environmental engagement, and political regimes. But in the midst of pandemic, there are two enemies, at the mirco- and macro-level to the life of a person via leisure that are becoming exposed at this time: 1) Person to Person; and, 2) The State to Person. With the coronavirus pandemic, it reveals a need to depart from a happiness and titillation orientation of leisure, and more a collective life-giving requisite in our research, instruction, and advocacy. For with COVID-19, leisure (as it is predominantly conceived) is the enemy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper considers the nature that Kalecki's contributions represent a significant contribution to the Marxist tradition. While we argue that the underlying method of both Marx and Kalecki — their vision of society and its dynamics — and much of their analysis is fundamentally the same, differences arise because of the development of capitalism and the different stages of society each is analysing. For Kalecki, developed capitalist economies have reached a stage of capital accumulation where the existing capital stock is sufficient to employ all the economy's labour. Associated with this is the rise of imperfectly competitive firms. The economic dynamics of capitalism have evolved as a result, with growth and employment being determined by different factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a debate from a critical perspective on quilombola struggles and resistances in Brazil. These struggles are understood as contesting movements against different forms of contemporary oppression and exploitation. It also points out that the "freedom" black people conquered with 1888's abolition of slavery in Brazil didn't come true in terms of access to basic rights or historical reparation, which created the racial inequality at the core of Brazilian society. This paper also gathers elements for the debate on quilombos in the present day, and the expressions of the social issue in quilombola communities as a locus for social workers' interventionist practices. Finally, the article points out that quilombola struggles against the old system can serve as a reference to reinforce contemporary anti-capitalist actions, reasserting the importance of studying these struggles for the debate in the field of social work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on Marxian and Marxist assumptions, in particular, the contributions of György Lukács to law as ideology, we try to elicit reflection on the current theoretical and practical challenges to social service to prevent the profession from seeing its ethico-political project capitulate in view of the intensification of the capital offensive against labor. In this paper, the contradictions of the social worker’s work in defending and extending rights vis-a-vis the own logic of bourgeois sociability are discussed. We address the challenges imposed by the limits of such sociability, which require, to be faced, an understanding of critical social theory, given its potential to contribute to professional work in line with the values and principles of the aforementioned project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on Marxian and Marxist assumptions, in particular, the contributions of György Lukács to the law as ideology, we try to elicit reflection on the current theoretical and practical challenges to social service to prevent the profession from seeing its ethico-political project capitulate in view of the intensification of the capital offensive against labor. In this paper, the contradictions of the social worker’s work in defending and extending rights vis-a-vis the own logic of bourgeois sociability are discussed. We address the challenges imposed by the limits of such sociability, which require, to be faced, an understanding of critical social theory, given its potential to contribute to professional work in line with the values and principles of the aforementioned project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although, historically, the first political manifestations of Pakhtun nationalism may be traced to Bayazid Ansari's (1525-85) Roshani movement (Gregorian, 1969 :43-45; and Misdaq, 2006: 36-39) and Khushal Khan Khattak's (1513-89) rebellion against the Mughal rule, however, its ethno-nationalist roots are usually mapped out from the pre-partition mobilization of common Pakhtun masses by the Khudai Khidmatgar (servants of the God) movement of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Starting off as a social reform society, the Khudai Khidmatgars metamorphosized into first an anti-colonial nationalist movement, evolving on the eve of partition of India, into one of ethnic nationalism. The post-independence period witnessed calls for attainment of either an independent Pakhtunistan or greater autonomy for the Pakhtun regions within a federal structure of the state. The irredentist trend in Pakhtun ethno-nationalist politics manifested itself in the controversial Pakhtunistan issue that strained relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistani state's growth and rise in ethnic Pakhtun share in the civil-military bureaucracy witnessed greater integration of Pakhtuns within the polity of Pakistan and a dampening of separatist tendencies in them. Renaming of NWFP as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and extension of provincial autonomy under the 18th Amendment further boosted Pakhtun ethnic integration into the state of Pakistan. More recently, however, Pakhtun ethno-nationalist movement is believed to be assuming a distinct fervor. The rise of Taliban phenomenon in the tribal belt and settled districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been labeled as a violent manifestation of Pakhtun ethno-nationalism manifested in an Islamist garb. The paper, besides analyzing the integrationist and the separatist (irredentist) trends in Pakhtun ethno-nationalist politics, also aims at exploring the more recent phenomena of its construction around the conceptual framework of 'ethnicizing Islam' in the Pakhtun context. It argues that the current Islamist manifestation of Pakhtun ethno-politics is a product of Pakistani state's attempts at subduing the irredentist Pakhtun strain (that bothered the state throughout the 1960s and the 1970s in Pakhtunistan issue) through support to the Islamist movement inside Afghanistan, especially in later half of 1970s and in the wake of Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This paper analyzes the Pakhtun ethno-nationalist struggle, especially in the earlier decades as a form of class struggle to attain political power in the state. As such, it primarily adopts a Marxist lens to the problem of ethnic nationalism among the Pakhtuns for the beginning phase of it. Most of the analyses are historical in a sense that the paper traces the history of Pakhtun ethno nationalism in Pakistan. Moreover, the paper does not claim to be a consummate effort, rather it proposes that there are alternative explanations as plausible as this one to understand the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With expansive digital networks supporting circuits of accumulation, facilitating both new forms of value capture and proletarian organization, Marxian scholars have shown renewed interest in questions of technology in class struggle. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire, the most conspicuous autonomist Marxist theorizing on the subject, presents networked technology positively, as part of the revolutionary body, the multitude. Against the affirmative view, critiques of technology and technological rationality, drawn from a thread of Frankfurt School critical theory, have been posed as challenges to Hardt and Negri's conception of technology in class struggle. After identifying a genealogy of what this paper calls foreclosure politics running through the works of Herbert Marcuse, Jodi Dean, and Christian Fuchs, the paper closes by suggesting a conception of technology in class struggle triangulated by critical theory and affirmative conceptions of use. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper proposes a scientific discussion from a Marxian-feminist point of view as a critical response to the European "austerity policies". Nowadays global inequalities are very relevant, particularly a proletarization process based on an increase in class struggle, growing inequalities, unsustainability and the transnational concentration of power and wealth. The neoliberal approach ignores Marx's theory and suggests that the Marxian view fails to explain the current economic system. However, I believe this to be a (dishonest) simplification of Marx's theory (because data is very clear). This misrepresentation has a negative effect on the overall validity and sustainability of several European policies, mainly distribution and migration policies. Consequently, some policy recommendations need to be readdressed, including from a feminist point of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally when Americans went to work they expected that they would earn a reasonable wage, work in a safe environment, put in a 40 h week, collect paid vacation days, earn sick leave, have the right to organize and receive health and retirement benefits. Increasingly, however, fewer and fewer workers receive these rights and today only a minority of people in the United States work under these conditions. The decline in real wages, benefits, rights and safety experienced by twenty-first century American workers has correlated with a decline in organized labor. Corporations and the right have assailed unions to erode worker's rights and 'increase competitiveness' in a globalized, neo-liberal, capitalist, world. The attacks on unions spring from a monstrous lie, that politicians and corporations gave labor these benefits and thus workers no longer need unions. On the battlefield of public policy, these assaults on organized labor work in a fundamentally ideological way that calls the continued existence of unions into question. In this paper, I will discuss how archaeological studies of labor's struggle can reveal that contrary to the monstrous lie, workers and their families won worker's rights with blood and that solidarity and organization remain essential to maintain these rights. The paper begins with the present state of labor's struggle and looks to the past to consider its preconditions. Archaeologists have studied strikes, the lived experience of working class life and class war to study history backwards and these studies contribute to the labor's struggle for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The class struggle in Argentina from 1973 to 1983 passed, from a process of increasing and complex political mobilization, to its quasi complete paralysis through the state's terrorist repression. This contrasting course followed by the class struggle has been the object of numerous studies that try to advance in their explanation. In this paper, some of the arguments developed in these studies are systematized and discussed, in order to contribute to an integral explanation that transcends beyond the immediate will of the historical actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that, despite claims to the contrary, there has not been extensive, egalitarian reform in Bolivia since Evo Morales assumed the presidency in 2006. In order to explain agrarian processes in the country during the decade under Morales thus far (2006-2016), it examines the changing balance of agrarian class forces in Bolivian society and associated changes in the class composition of the ruling bloc between 2006 and 2010. It divides contestation over agrarian reform processes during this decade into two periods-one of insurgent contestation (2006-2009), and one of agro-capital-state alliance (2010-2016). The transformations in class alliances over these periods can be understood theoretically through Gramsci's concept of transformismo (transformism). In particular, this concept captures both the way in which leading layers of indigenous-peasant movements have been absorbed into the apparatuses of the state and thus decapitated, and the dialectic of transformation/restoration that characterizes Bolivia's ongoing 'process of change'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to his theoretical expectations, Veblen provided various reasons as to why a revolutionary overturn by the technicians was a remote possibility in America. In contrast to the American engineers, the engineers of Turkey have constructed an engineering outlook commensurate with Veblen's abstract line of reasoning and participated in a political struggle against business interests. In this paper, using Veblen's cumulative causation methodology, a theoretical answer for the origin, growth, persistence, and variation of the anti-business engineering outlook in Turkey is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The categories of productive and unproductive labour have been a source of contention among Marxist scholars since Marx first committed them to paper. This article will offer a critique of both the orthodox and autonomist approaches to this issue, arguing that they constitute transhistorical and analytically inadequate interpretations. In contrast, a social form approach to productive and unproductive labour provides a substantive definition of these categories in relation to the commodity form, and brings class struggle back to the forefront in a theoretically consistent manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that a class against capital emerged in Guangdong province between 2007 and 2014. I base my arguments on data drawn from significant strikes in the province and the processes of collective bargaining that partially resolved them. I observe that the formation of a working class against capital in Guangdong, made up primarily of migrant workers, has at least partially overcome fragmentary pressures it continues to face. I argue that it is the self-activity of workers themselves that is chiefly responsible for the significant improvement in wages and, to a lesser extent, working conditions that unfolded during this period. While collective bargaining remains mostly—but not exclusively—outside institutional norms, workers’ agency pushed the practical application of forms of collective bargaining on to both the political and labour relations agenda in Guangdong and beyond. Continued pressure from below will keep it there. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Female workers represent a fundamental component of the workforce to the extent that it is true that the Industrial Revolution owes them a huge debt. However, despite the unfair exploitation of many women in factories in which conditions resembled manslaughter, they have been often neglected and reduced to liminal characters by Victorian novelists. An interesting exception in the early Victorian period is represented by the writer Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, whose fiction works as a medium of social criticism. Her semi-fictional The Wrongs of Woman is a reform novel which sheds a controversial light on female working conditions. On the one hand she indeed deplores the inhuman treatment of female labourers, but on the other hand she also argues that female employment provokes a consequent increase in male unemployment! My paper aims to investigate the role of Tonna's text and her attempt to alleviate working-class suffering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking as its starting point the debate about the "book" or "theory" of wage labor of Marx, this paper seeks to shed light on the subject -apparently a marxologic one- with the purpose of a critical approach to the problem of revolutionary potential of the working class, to advance in its scientific comprehension. Following the proposal of Marx and Juan Iñigo Carrera, we hope to show the limits and implications of the two lines identified as dominant regarding the specified topic, to discover its purely ideological character in order to advance in an alternative solution to the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the nature of capitalism by critically employing Marx’s comments in Capital on forms of subsumption of labor. It argues that to the extent that property owners employ wage laborers to produce for the market for a profit, they are capitalist, even if they may not reinvest their profit in technology. In this situation, wage-labor is formally subsumed under capital. The transition from this stage to real subsumption of labor, which signifies capitalist development with technological change, is not, however, automatic, as Marx tended to assume. It is mediated by class struggle, which occurs in the context of geographically varying factors, such as state interventions. Uneven development, seen as the uneven transition to real subsumption, is partly a product of place-specific outcomes of class struggle. The paper thus emphasizes the relation between class struggle and dynamics of capitalism including technological change. The conceptual arguments are illustrated with empirical evidence from India. The implications of the arguments for radical development theory and politics are also briefly explored.JEL classification: P16, O53, O14, B24 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper shows the presence of a silence in Argentinean social sciences (including Marxism) regarding systematic reflection and discussion on the ways in which social classes are formed, particularly the working class, and on the dialectic between changes in industrialization and class struggle. First, through a series of significant examples we show that so far the reflection on this problem has been mechanical or notoriously poor, even in cases where this was supposed to be the core of the publications. Then the article illustrates the centrality of this issue based on the notions of class in Marx and concludes that the central issue of E. P. Thompson's classic work The Formation of the English Working Class has not yet had the impact it deserves in Argentina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The story told in much of the mass media and the rhetoric of US and European officials is that the popular uprisings in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab spring have primarily been a struggle to overthrow individual tyrants and establish democracy. But this paper argues that the anti-democratic character of so many of the regimes in the Arab world is the political form of capitalism in the region, and that the popular uprising in Egypt and the struggle to depose Mubarak from state power is in essence a class struggle against Egyptian capitalism and its dynamics. La historia que se ha relatado en la mayoría de los medios y la retórica de los altos funcionarios estadounidenses y europeos consiste en que las famosas insurrecciones en Egipto y demás lugares de ‘La primavera árabe’, han sido fundamentalmente una lucha para derrocar a los tiranos individuales y establecer una democracia. Pero este artículo sostiene que el carácter antidemocrático de tantos de los regímenes en el mundo árabe es la forma capitalista en la región, y que la famosa insurrección de Egipto y la lucha para derrocar a Mubarack del poder estatal es esencialmente una lucha de clases contra el capitalismo egipcio y su dinámica. 多数大众传媒讲述的故事和美欧官员的言辞是：埃及以及“阿拉伯之春”中其他地方的民众起义主要是一场推翻个人暴政、建立民主的斗争。但本文认为，阿拉伯世界中如此之多政体的反民主属性是该地区资本主义的政治形式，埃及的民众起义和把穆巴拉克赶下台的斗争本质上是反对埃及资本主义及其原动力的一场阶级斗争。 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent left academic work on the consequences of economic restructuring and local labour market change in old industrial cities has been important in emphasising the role of local context and contingency in the shaping of labour market outcomes. However, in such accounts agency is often limited to capital and state actors, albeit working across scales from the local upwards. There is little sense of agency for individuals and communities in the midst of economic restructuring. Instead, they are usually treated as passive victims of deeper underlying processes. In this paper, our purpose is to highlight the autonomy and agency of workers, people and communities in old industrial cities. Rather than starting from the perspective of capital, our starting point is to emphasise how those experiencing economic change forge strategies and practices for “getting by”. This leads us to call for a re-theorisation of labour agency, drawing upon the Autonomous Marxist tradition and the more recent work of Cindi Katz, in order to offer fresh insight into the agency of labour and the prospect for recovering a class politics based upon lived experience over reified abstractions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares critically Cabral and Frantz Fanon's readings of class struggle in Africa. Class definitions imported from Marxism had a different utilization by Cabral, more close to a pragmatic interpretation based on the groundroots experience. The divergence between Cabral and Fanon's interpretations can be projected to current debates to demonstrate these are still unresolved issues amongst most African scholars when assessing other revolutionary experiments in the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author looks into Dahrendorf's conflict theory beginning with Dahrendorf's 1957 interpretation of conflicts and ending with his most recent works of 2003 and 2005. The paper begins with an account of the evolution of Dahrendorf's conflict theory and its foundations. Highlighted are the conflicts stemming from class struggle and Dahrendorf's relevant taxonomy of conflicts. According to Dahrendorf, conflicts are divided into the endogenous and the exogenous, the political and the industrial, plus fifteen subtypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an analysis of the role of language in historical class formation in light of the recent developments in postmodern social theory and historiography. Revisionists from within this perspective have questioned if not abandoned E. P. Thompson's class struggle analysis, arguing that he fails to account for the constitutive character of language in the construction of collective identities. They oppose his account of the making of the English working class with alternative histories emphasizing populist and other non-class identities. Drawing on the Bakhtin Circle of literary studies, and returning to Thompson's own writings, I argue that we can incorporate language into class struggle analysis as a critical mediating force. I maintain that class struggle occurs largely within a hegemonic discursive formation, and that class consciousness and identity thus in part are formed through counter-hegemonic strategies of resistance to ideological domination. To illustrate this theory I analyse the role of language in the class struggles of the silk weavers of the Spitalfields district in London in the 1820s. I analyse how the silk weavers articulated a class consciousness through their counter-hegemonic struggles with the large capitalists and the language of political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]