Capitalist Relations of Production and Class Formation at the Turn of the Century: Comparative Analysis

• In Event: 398 - Section on Marxist Sociology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 07. Historical-Comparative Analysis

Abstract

There has been little comparative research concerning the development of class structures and class formation during the great wave of capitalist industrial development and class mobilization which swept across Western Europe and its settler colonies during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. An exception to this is Hicks’ (1999) study of early (c. 1920) welfare state consolidation – but this work is concerned with political mobilization and treats questions of development only peripherally. In this paper I undertake a systematic comparative investigation into the relationship between the historical development of capitalist class structures in terms of capitalist relations of production to working class political formation at the turn of the century. I engage in a qualitative comparative analysis of 15 nations indicated in Hicks’ study, comparing a crisp-set operationalization of capitalist relations of production with measures developed by Hicks of early labor mobilization. Consideration of aspects of agrarian class structure, patriarchal authoritarian state lineages and federal vs. unitary structures are also considered. I find ultimately that the development of capitalist relations of production in general – or in the agrarian sector in the context of a repressive landed upper class – constitute a necessary condition for early working class mobilization.

Author

• Oliver Cowart, Emory University