Social class, collective action, and their effects on class interests: a view from Latin America

• In Event: Trade Unions and workers

Abstract

Scholars interested in social class usually analyze the relationship between class, consciousness, and collective action by emphasizing how class location shapes people’s material interests and their propensity to act collectively. As a result, class analysts have paid little attention to the study of how collective action is a mechanism that might reinforce people’s understanding of the material interests shaped by their class location. This article focuses on this less-examined side of the causal relations between class, collective action, and class consciousness. Following a neo-Marxist approach (Wright, 2015), we examine whether class location shapes people’s class interests and whether collective action participation is associated with a stronger awareness of class interests. We draw upon data from the World Value Survey (2011-2013) and analyze several Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Uruguay). Country fixed-effect regression models suggest that class location is a significant determinant of class interests; people located in a working-class or informal self-employed class location have more critical stances towards neoliberal institutions, values or outcomes (e.g. they are more likely to criticize income disparities or the absence of government intervention) than the respondents located in a privileged class location (e.g. expert managers). The models also show that the effect of collective action participation is more complex than that of class. In several cases, participation in collective actions does not produce significant variations in people’s sociopolitical interests. We explain these results by noting differences in the socio-political trajectories of these countries.

Authors

• Pablo Pérez Ahumada, Universidad Alberto Hurtado / COES

• Rodolfo G Elbert, Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani/CONICET