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Summary Olin-Wright - Class Counts (notes)
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Erik Olin Wright - Class CountsChapter One: Class Analysis
● Class analysis is based on the conviction that class is a pervasive social cause and thus
that it is worth exploring its ramifications for many social phenomena
● Historical materialism claims that ‘the overall trajectory of historical development can be
explained by a properly constructed class analysis’
● Class structure is one aspect of class analysis. There is also class formation, class
struggle and class consciousness
○ class structure is conceptually pivotal to understanding any other strand
of class analysis, because it will identify the essential difference between a class and any
other group, for example
● Parable of the schmoo etc
○ the preference oredering of workers corresponds to universal human
interests i.e. pre-class interests
○ the deprivations of the propertyless in a capitalist system are not an
unfortunate byproduct of the pursuit of profit, they are a necessary condition for that
pursuit
■ this is exploitation: exploiting classes have an interest in
preventing the exploited from acquiring the means of subsistence even if this
doesn’t come through a redistribution of wealth
● Exploitation is defined by three principal criteria:
■ a) the material welfare of one group of people causally
depends on the material deprivations of another
■ b) the causal relation in a) involves the asymmetrical
exclusion of the exploited from access to certain productive resources e.g.
property rights
■ c) the causal mechanism that translates exclusion b) into
differential welfare a) involves the appropriation of the fruits of labour of the
exploited by those who control the relevant productive resources
○ without the final condition we have nonexploitative economic
oppression, in which the exploiters have no interest in the life/well-being of the exploited
e.g. settlers/Native Americans
○ exploitation doesn’t just define status, but also ongoing interactions
■ the dependency of exploiter on the exploited gives the
exploited some power
● We can talk of exploitation in terms of surplus value, but this requires us to define ‘the
costs of producing and reproducing labour power’ and this is difficult
○ if we set it as the empirical cost of living for a person, then an extremely
extravagant lifestyle could be called the cost of reproducing labour power
○ if we call it basic subsistence at a culturally acceptable level, then it is a
bit arbitrary
○ if we set up a counterfactual model of equilibrium wage rate in an ideally
egalitarian society then we get there, but it is looooong
○ so we should generally talk in terms of ‘the extraction and appropriation
of effort’
● Marxism defines class divisions in terms of the link between property relations and
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