English

Jacek Tittenbrun

doi:10.25167/sk.1366

English

Jacek Tittenbrun

DOI: https://doi.org/10.25167/sk.1366

Abstract

The present paper offers a critical analysis of what its authors call a new approach to social class. The analytical framework concerned is based on a large BBC-sponsored Internet survey and co-coauthored by a team of researchers led by Mike Savage. In theoretical terms, the most relevant observation to be made regarding the appproach under examination is its total dependence upon Pierre Bourdieu's concepts and ideas. This concerns first of all his theory of multiple 'capitals', two of which, e.e. social and cultural have been singled out by the exponents of the framework analysed in the paper as the building blocks of their own class theory. In other publications of the present author it has been shown that the purported Bourdesian 'capitals' are not any capitals at all, that they constitute misnomers, or even oxymorons. The consequences of this theoretical misunderstanding, to say the least, are as devastating in the case of Savage et al. as in the case of French thinker. The typology of social classes built upon such shaky grounds is found wanting in many respects; inter alia, such concepts as the middle class and the precariat are being criticised in more detail. Overall, the authors' shameless self-adevertising campaign, their analytic framework contains scarcely any new insights or ideas and mirrors other people's errors and failings instead.

Riferimenti bibliografici

Beck U. (1992). Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage.
Google Scholar

Bradly H. (2014). Class Descriptors or Class Relations? Thoughts Towards a Critique of Savage et al. “Sociology”, June 2014, 48 (3), 1-8.
Google Scholar

Breen R. (2005). Foundations of neo-Weberian class analysis [in:] Wright E.O. (ed.). Approaches to Class Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Google Scholar

Doogan K. (2009). New Capitalism? The Transformation of Work. Cambridge: Polity.
Google Scholar

Dorling D. (2014). Thinking about class. “Sociology” 48 (3), 452–462.
Google Scholar

Marx K. (2015). Grundrisse, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch10.htm [10.10.2015].
Google Scholar

McGovern P., Hill S., Mills C., White M. (2007). Market, Class and Employment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar

Mills C. (2013). The Great British Class Fiasco: A Comment on Savage et al. “Sociology” 47 (2), 219–250.
Google Scholar

Mythen G. (2005). Employment, individualization and insecurity: rethinking the risk society perspective. “Sociological Review” 53(1), 129-149.
Google Scholar

Savage M. et al. (2013). A new model of social class? Findings from the BBC’s Great British Class Survey experiment. “Sociology” 47 (2), 219–250.
Google Scholar

Scott J. (2000). Understanding Contemporary Society: Theories of the Present. New York: Sage Publications.
Google Scholar

Tittenbrun J. (2011a). Economy in Society. Economic Sociology Revisited. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Google Scholar

Tittenbrun J. (2011b). Ownership and Social Differentiation. Understandings and Misunderstandings. Saarbrucken: Lambert Academic Publishing.
Google Scholar

Tittenbrun J. (2013a). Anti-Capital: Human, Social and Cultural. The Mesmerising Misnomers. Farnham: Ashgate.
Google Scholar

Tittenbrun J. (2013b). A critical Handbook of ‘Capitals’ Mushrooming Across the Social Sciences. Saarbrucken: Lambert Academic Publishing.
Google Scholar

Download