1. Electronics technicians in an industrialising economy: some glimpses on the 'New Middle Class'
- Author
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Sek-Hong Ng
- Subjects
- *
WORKING class , *SOCIAL classes , *ELECTRONIC technicians , *SOCIOLOGY , *LABOR market , *RADICALISM - Abstract
The 'New Working Class' theory, popularised in French sociology during the 1960s and 1970s, envisages the advent of a politically inspired class movement that rekindles the vision of a new social order as the technicians rise to become its vanguard. According to writers like Mallet and Touraine, these technical 'white-collars' tend to take over from the traditional manual groups in posing as the 'standard-bearers' of class-based industrial radicalism and solidarity. This paper proposes to trace the recent vein of discussions on the class implications of occupational and technological transformation from such a neo-Marxian perspective. It also attempts to apply these arguments to interpret the characteristics of a new occupation in Hong Kong -- the technicians working m the electronics and related industries, with reference to an empirical study carried out in the early 1980s.[1]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 1986
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