Tipping Point for Advanced Capitalism: Class, Class Consciousness and Activism in the “Knowledge Economy”

The aim: to rejuvenate study and understanding of class relations in advanced capitalism. The book is an original synthesis of theorizing about class grounded in the production process, revealing a distinct tripartite class structure of owners, managers and non-managerial workers. Changes since the 1980s are traced and significant increases of non-managerial professional employees and middle managers are documented beyond any prior empirical research. Higher levels of oppositional and revolutionary class consciousness are conceptualized in terms of support for rights of capital and labour, and the extent of their expression in employed labour forces is estimated in terms only previously attempted briefly in the wake of 1960s protest movements. Connections between objective class positions and levels of class consciousness are analyzed in unprecedented depth; the solidary hegemonic consciousness of corporate capitalists, declining pro-capital oppositional consciousness among other employers and upper managers, and the pro-labour oppositional consciousness of pluralities of non-managerial workers (including professional employees) are all documented more fully than in prior studies. Strategic connections between class, class consciousness and issues of poverty and global warming are identified. Contending class forces’ engagement in actions toward an imminent system tipping point are uniquely traced. Main sources of evidence are all the national surveys in G7 and Nordic countries in the 1980s that provide relevant data, and the author’s unique Canadian national surveys in 2004, 2010 and 2016, supplemented by interviews with class leaders. A website encourages further class-based studies of advanced capitalism with similar measures to aid ecological sustainability and economic democracy. --Publisher's description (WorldCat record)

OCLC: 1379420700