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Pakulski and Waters are ambitious,aspiring to both sound the death knell ofclass and to write its epitaph. The centralargument of The Death of Class is thatclasses are dissolving and that the mostadvanced societies are no longer classsocieties (p.4).

The authors begin, in chapter 1, bydescribing class theory and classanalysis, as they understand them. Ineach of the following six chapters, whichform the bulk of the book, they take aparticular aspect of society and attemptto demonstrate how the category class,

and class theory and class analysis areno longer relevant and useful. Theyconclude by suggesting alternatives toclass for analyzing and understandingsociety.

The first chapter, in which Pakulskiand Waters outline their understandingof class, is critical to their thesis.Explicitly rejecting E.P. Thompsonsargument, in the Preface to The Making

of the English Working Class, that class issomething which happens, Pakulskiand Waters instead insist that the mostsalient feature of class theory is itseconomism. Following from this basis arethe propositions of groupness ([c]lasses are real features of social structurehaving quite clear boundaries that set upthe main lines of cleavage in society.[They] are socially distinct from one

another and social relationships andassociations tend to be exclusive);behavioural and cultural linkage ([class]

determines political preferences, lifestylechoices, child-rearing practices, oppor-tunities for physical and mental health,access to educational opportunity,patterns of marriage, occupationalinheritance, income, and so on); and,transformational capacity (pp.8-10).

Somewhat softer than class theory isclass analysis, which, they suggest, issceptical about the transformativecapacity proposition, concentratinginstead on the group formation,behavioural linkages and class mobilityaspects of class. Pakulski and Waters

target both class theory and class analysis.However, they argue that since thepresuppositions of class theory include allthose underlying class analysis, if we canshow that this less ambitious classanalysis is inadequate then class theoryalso fails (p.11).

For Pakulski and Waters then, thestarting point is the economy, and, inparticular, the sphere of production,

defined traditionally in the sense of theproduction of physical goods. Theeconomy is taken as given, pre-determined. From this given economicstructure follow the separation ofhumanity into classes (or not, as theyargue in this book); class membership inturn determines consciousness, identity,politics, behaviour, culture, and so on.

The limitations of this understanding

of class, its economic determinism, theabsence of any considerations ofcategories such as work, value and

192 Capital & Class #62

Jan Pakulski and Malcolm Waters

The Death of Class

Sage Publications, London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi, 1996. pp.vii+173.

ISBN 0-8039-7838-3 (hbk) 37.50ISBN 0-8039-7839-1 (pbk) 12.95

Reviewed by David Harvie


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alienation, and the treatment of struggleas something which is only introduced atthe end of the analysis, as somethingwhich may only happen as a result ofclass, should be clear, especially to readers

of Capital & Class. Suffice it to say that,unfortunately, E.P. Thompsons twoparagraphs contribution to this book,dismissed so decidedly by the authors,remain for me one of its highest points.

Following chapter 1, Pakulski andWaters argument proceeds by takingtheir idea of class and showing how it isno longer applicable to contemporarysociety. Thus, for example, they citeevidence which suggests a dissolvingconnection between class and votingbehaviour: i.e., the British working classis less likely to vote for the British LabourParty than it once was, with similarresults for other industrial countries. Butquite apart from the problems withclass, this evidence would also beconsistent with a lessening of the

(working-)class nature of the LabourParty, as well as with the reducedsignificance of class. Pakulski and Watersdo not mention, let alone explore, thisalternative explanation. Other patterns ofhuman behaviour which class is nolonger helpful in accounting for, thusadding more nails to its own coffin,include: marriage-partner choice,interior-design tastes, occupational

(im)mobility and home-ownershipIfind it amazing that Pakulski and Waterscan seriously put forward the argument

that increasing home-ownership isevidence of redistribution ofproperty andtherefore of the decline in class (p.76).

Any notions of class composition, re-and de-composition, of class/labour-

power distinctions are missing inPakulski and Waters text. Thus they findBowles and Gintis suggestion thatschooling reproduces class byfragmenting it (in Schooling in Capitalist

America) bizarre (pp.102-3). Later theysuggest that [w]ithout institutionalizedmeans of social reproduction, classescannot survive! (p.133, my emphasis).

In the books final chapters Pakulskiand Waters suggest alternative socialreferents. For example, generations:[t]he carrier of new values in thedeveloped West is the post-wargeneration that shares the formativeexperience of the long boom (p.142).But these experiences, the long boom andso on, can (must) be explained in termsof struggles over money and work

which of course takes us back to class.Pakulski and Waters suggest theexplanatory deficiency [of class] isparticularly apparent when we try tounderstand changes in work structureand employment, post-Fordism andflexible specialization, globalization andthe so-called Asian tiger economies, thehistory of the welfare state and thechanging political landscape (p.151).

Again, I am amazed. I do not understandhow these things can be explainedwithoutclass.

Book Reviews 193

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capital & class 1997 pakulski 192 3

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