9 Class, Public Policy and Social Movement
Contents
1. Objectives
2. Introduction
3. Learning Outcome
4. Class: A Search For Meaning
5. Public Policy
5.1. Who Makes Public Policies?
5.2. Policy Framework
5.3. The Public Policy Cycle
5.4. Factors determining policy Formulation
6. Role of Social Movement and Class in Policy Framing
7. Social Movement in the Context of Class Analysis
7.1. Marxian Optimism
7.2. Neo-Marxian Position
7.3. Some More Explanations
8. Class, Public Policy and Social Movement: Interrelations
9. Summary
1. Objectives
The objective of this module is to introduce you the very idea, concept and interrelationship of class, public policy and social movement. We will focus on whether and how social class and movements shape policy processes, that is, the processes by which governments identify and respond to public problems (or fail to do so). Further, we will critically assess public policy formulations to counteract conditions of disadvantage.
2. Introduction
The concept of class is inherently related to the idea of asymmetrical accumulation that stratifies society and to the possibility of changing society in collective practices. Modern society is still characterized by the asymmetrical distribution of material and non-material resources and by struggles relating to these cleavages and stratifications. The concept of class is not outdated, but should be incorporated into a contemporary theory of society and social movements. Generally, social movements are formed to express dissatisfaction with existing policy in a given area. Thus, for instance, environmentalist demand interventions to protect environment; peace lovers oppose the culture of war; students oppose authoritarianism within educational system; feminists fight for rights of women; the World Social Forum activists criticize neoliberal globalization. These instances clearly demonstrate the way social movements of different varieties are organised around social, economic, political, cultural, gender or environmental issues. Even though we often make distinctions between different types of social movements, all of them ultimately tend to make demands on the political system (De la Porta & Diani 2006). One of the reasons for this is social movement more often than not forces public policy makers to rethink on their plans and programmes. The demands that generate out of the protest activity of a social movement in most cases relate to either withdrawal of an existing policy or introduction of new policy. Interestingly, policy perspectives desirable for members of a class say industrial workers or farm labourers inform the contours of many ‘old social movements’. Even participants of ‘new social movements’ like gender or environment remain concerned about issues that affect the lives of people from different strata. Hence, the relation among class, public policy and social movements is omnipresent in many contexts. This module will try to explore these possibilities.
3. Learning Outcome
The focus of this lesson is the relationship among protest movements, class issues and public policies. The specific objectives are to acquaint students with the idea of class, public policy and social movements and find the way they influence each other. It would also try to make students aware about different types of public policies that had influenced members of different social classes as well as social movements in the past.
4. Class: A search for Meaning
Many discussions of the concept of class confuse the terminological problem of how the word class is used within social theory with theoretical disputes about the proper definition and elaboration of the concept of class. While all uses of the word class in social theory invoke in one way or another the problem of understanding systems of economic inequality, different uses of the word are imbedded in very different theoretical agendas involving different kinds of questions and thus different sorts of concepts. In other words, class is a political economy category referring to a social group embodying certain relations of production. As a social group, it occupies a particular position in a particular mode of production. In the typical Marxian discourse, the ruling class is the owners of the means of production. Means of production range from land and factories to technology and knowledge and other forms of capital. The ruled are those who are engaged in labour and are subject to exploitation by the owners. Thus, class is not an income group or a simple economic category. It is a political category that is placed in production relations as well as power relations (Mohanty 2004: 25).
A “class” may also mean any occupational category though their members may not necessarily form a coherent group definitely related to one another in a social structure. The various occupations make up vertical divisions of the community, whereas the divisions that reflect the principle of social class are the horizontal strata, always a graded order. Wherever social intercourse is limited by considerations of status, by distinctions between “higher” and “lower”, there social class exists (MacIver and Page 1950: 348). By starting from a particular definition, sociologists can assess the extent to which such things as inequality in life chances among individuals and families are structured on the basis of class. If we want to understand the exact nature of class, we need to examine the two main varieties of contemporary class analysis – namely Weberian class analysis and Marxist view point and others school of thought which are linked with class involvement in the field of social movement. The core of the differences captured by the favourite buzz words of each theoretical tradition: life chances for Weberians, and exploitations for Marxists.
Weber (1978: 302) writes that ‘a class situation is one in which there is a shared typical probability of procuring goods, gaining a position in life, and finding inner satisfaction’. In other words, members of a class share common life chances. If this is what members of a class have in common, what puts them in this common position? Weber’s answer is that the market distributes life chances according to the resources that individuals bring to it, and he recognized that these resources could vary in a number of ways. Aside from the distinction between property owners and non-owners, there is also variation according to particular skills and other assets. The important point, however, is that all these assets only have value in the context of a market: hence, class situation is identified with market situation. One possible approach to construct a Weber-inspired class schema might then be to group together individuals possessing the same or similar assets. After all, Weber defines ‘class situation’ as the sharing of a ‘specific causal component of … life chances’ (1978: 927) and it might therefore seem reasonable to define classes in terms of such causal components of life chances. Life chances can be understood as, in Giddens’s terms, ‘the chances an individual has for sharing in the socially created economic or cultural “goods” that typically exist in any given society’ (1973: 130-1) or, more simply, as the chances that individuals have of gaining access to scarce and valued outcomes.
In the traditional Marxist concept of class the position of the subjects in the production process as possessors of the means of production or as property less wage-earners defines their class status. The exploited subjects would form a class that feels alienated, dissatisfied, and deprived, hence class consciousness and protest would emerge. Ronald Inglehart (1977) has suggested that the new protests are caused by changing values, i.e. a shift from material to post material values. Such an explanation is idealistic and ignores the class structure of modern society. Late capitalism still is a class society characterized by exploitation, unequal distribution, and stratification.
According to Poulantzas (1973/1982), “… The expanded reproduction of social classes (of social relations) involves two aspects which cannot exist in isolation from one another. First, there is the expanded reproduction of the positions occupied by the agents. These positions mark out the structural determination of classes… Secondly, there is the reproduction and distribution of the agents themselves to these positions…” Class implies on a system of ordering society whereby people are divided into sets based on perceived social and economic status.
Pierre Bourdieu (1986) defines capitalism as a society that is based on the accumulation of economic (money capital, commodities), political (social connections), and cultural capital (education, status, ranks, titles). He does not as in classical Marxism define class as depending on the position in the economic relationships of production, but as depending on the volume and composition of total capital. The social position and power of an actor depends on the volume and composition of capital (i.e. the relative relationship of the three forms of capital) that he owns and that he can mobilize as well as the temporal changing of these two factors (Bourdieu 1986: 114). The main classes of society are for Bourdieu a result of the distribution of the whole (i.e. economic, political, and cultural) capital. This results in a social hierarchy with those at the top who are best provided with capital, and those at the bottom who are most deprived. Within the classes that get a high, medium or low share of the total volume of capital, there are again different distributions of capitals and this results in a hierarchy of class fractions.
Erik Olin Wright offered a divergent view from classical Marxists framework. He divided the working class into subgroups of diversely held power and therefore varying degrees of class consciousness. In contrast to Marx, Wright argues that exploitation is based on three criteria: the inverse interdependence principle, the exclusion principle, and the appropriation principle. The first principle says that exploitation occurs when the material welfare of one class is causally dependent upon the material deprivation of another. For the capitalist-class to be the capitalist-class it must deprive the working-class of some level of material welfare. The exclusion principle states that the inverse interdependence of capitalists and workers, found in the first principle, depends on the exclusion of workers from access to certain productive resources. This exclusion usually depends on some form of property rights, but this isn’t necessarily the case. Finally, the appropriation principle states that the mechanism through which both the interdependence and exclusion principles work is the appropriation of the labour effect of the exploited.
There are two important ramifications of seeing exploitation in this more robust way. First, exploitation varies qualitatively and may not exist at all. Economic oppression may exist without exploitation (Wright, 1997: 11). Exploitation may also vary in kind. The second significant ramification of Wright’s expansion of exploitation is that the capitalists need workers: “the exploiter needs the exploited since the exploiter depends upon the effort of the exploited” (Wright, 1997: 11). This dependence of the capitalist upon workers is the source of worker power. Workers can go on strike; or, they can incite a worker slowdown. Marx saw this, but what he didn’t see that because of the capitalists’ dependence upon exploitation, this exploitation ironically gets translated into higher wages, benefits, and better working conditions.
Middle class position is another problem in classical Marxian analysis. Wright very strongly pointed out it. David Grusky’s (2008: 165-175) analysis about class is based on multidimensional problem and it occurred by the structure of a given society. Grusky follows closely Durkheim’s footsteps by proposing that we consider occupations as the basic units of modern social hierarchy. Occupations are the product of spontaneous differentiation and “organic” social clustering. They form genuine “moral communities” (rather than mere associations) and engender strong identities. Occupations are also recognized and sponsored by the state and implicated in all forms of reward determinations. As well, they serve as conduits for career aspirations and promote similarity of lifestyles, tastes and consumption. Even if they become temporarily aggregated into large-scale classes, such aggregates are fragile.
It appears from the foregoing discussion that there are a lot of paradoxes and differences in the construction of the concept of class by many scholars. Classical Marxists are countered by neo-Marxist. Weberian ideas are reinterpreted by structuralist and post structuralist. From the modernist view point, class as a macro entity is involved in organising ‘old social movements’. But from the postmodern point of view, class is micro and multilevel construction; hence it is always de-constructed by people’s self-interest and articulate identity. When class is identified with multi-level position and status, it also reflects on the character of a social movement. The changing nature of working class, for instance, has serious bearing on the nature of their struggle. There has also been effort to relate everyday resistance of marginalised people with life style, values and social scenario. The discussion on the issues and agendas of social movements today is therefore linked to the way we categories people, analyse their relations, goals, values on the basis of their complex and changing class and social positions.
5. Public Policy
Public policy is a frequently used term in our daily lives. We often read in the newspaper about public health policy, education policy, environmental policy, agricultural policy, industrial policy, and so on. Public policies are primarily framed by the government to satisfy public needs and demands. They are the means by which, ends of a collective community are served. Without policy, government and administration are rudderless. Successful policies make for successful government and administration and hence there is a saying that when the policy fails, the government fails (Chakraborty and Chand 2012: 181).
Since Second war, the idea of welfare state emerged as institutions to implement Keynesianism to combat the effects of the depression. Subsequently, the idea appeared as a blueprint for social reconstruction of Western Europe and the rest of the world. Policy was then formed for affecting this kind of state administration. Despite several criticisms, public policy is one of the best pillars for continuing the governance of this kind of state. When a policy fails, people start to mobilise themselves and in due course social movement occur. Theoretically, therefore, the idea of development administration, rolling back of the state and the rise of new social movement instead of old social movement and the idea of governability, good governance are associated with public policy.
As per the Marxist understanding, the rise of welfare state is nothing but new form of exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalist class. From such a point of view, capitalists rely on such policies to hide the exploitation they carry out. Marx’s (1867/1976), ideas on the politics of public policy emphasizes the historical development of class relations. Policy and capital relations are the result of constantly evolving historical relationships (Isenberg 2000). As such, research analyses the historical development of critical aspects of U.S. public policy including welfare policy, the anti-welfare counter movement and neoliberalism. The politics of public policy research demonstrates how class conflict results in social expenditures like social security and welfare policy (Jenkins and Brent 1989). Poulantzas argued that public policy study highlights the historical power bloc (Jenkins and Brent 1989). Welfare policy is the result of historically contingent political resources and actors (Hicks and Misra 1993). Drawing from Poulantzas (1973), one may argue that public policy is related to the historical development of a power bloc resulting from class conflict. Social movement organizations create a sense of crisis among elites. As a result, class factions politically mobilize to create a dominant power bloc necessary to push forward and implement welfare policy (Jenkins and Brent 1989).
Drawing from Poulantzas and the social structures of accumulation framework, public policy research demonstrates how neoliberalism is a historical ideological structure which emerged to support capital accumulation (Prechel and Harms 2007). According to Prechel and Harms (2007), neoliberalism is an ideology which emerged out of the interests of a historically contingent power bloc. During the decay-exploration social structures of accumulation transition, the power bloc politically mobilized to implement neoliberal policy in order to better accumulate capital.
Against this backdrop, we may analyse the understanding of the modernist and post-modernist thinkers about public policy in respect of class. Modernist perspectives do offer critical possibilities about how welfare policy is a form of denial in the sense that it defers recognition of how problems of poor families are today intimately connected to structural shifts of post-industrial transition. Such perspectives, however, fail to highlight how welfare policy is also a form of denial in the sense that it denies how state practices are themselves critically involved in constituting and reproducing the very problems that those policies ostensibly are designed to attack (Connolly 1991).
A postmodern orientation allows for the possibility that welfare policy discourse and the practices of the welfare state are actually constitutive forces, contributing to the conditions of poverty which are supposedly addressed by such public policies. Stone (1988) argues that implied policy solutions animate policy discourse and unavoidably get insinuated into the representation of policy problems. Edelman (1988) emphasizes the political limitations which constrain the state so that the policy solutions that prefigure the political representations of problems are necessarily self-serving and politically conservative.
Thus, conceptually the idea of public policy is complex. We need to focus on some general discussion on public policy by which we can understand the involvement of class conscious people in political movement for making and influencing the public policy for their class interest.
Public policy is basically constituted by two components – ‘public’ and ‘policy’. As we know, public administration emerged as an instrument of the state to serve ‘public’ interest rather than ‘private’ interest. In this sense ‘public’ consist of all the people in general having something in common rather than few individuals having their personal interests. In the political life, the government is the main vehicle to serve the needs and demands of the ‘public’. The term ‘policy’ refers to overall programmes of action towards a given goal. Robert Presthus defines policy as ‘a choice made by an individual or group of individuals that explains; justifies, guides, or outlines a certain course of action’ (Presthus 1975: 14). Thus, policy can be broadly defined as a proposed course of action of an individual, a group; an institution or government, to realize a specific objective or purpose; within a given environment (Chakraborty and Chand 2012: 181).
Public policy is the means by which a government maintains order or addresses the needs of its citizens through actions defined by its constitution. If this definition sounds vague or confusing, it’s likely because a public policy is generally not a tangible thing but rather is a term used to describe a collection of laws, mandates, or regulations established through a political process.
Policy can be broadly defined as a proposed course of action of an individual, a group, an institution or government, to realize a specific objective or purpose, within a given environment. Policy formulation is necessary prior to every action in every form of organization, private or public. It is a prerequisite for all management (Basu 1994: 436). Policy making process is a part of politics and political action. According to Gabriel Almond (1966), political system is a set of interactions having structures, each of which performs its functions in order to keep it like an on-going concern; it is a set of processes that routinely converts inputs into outputs. Almond classifies inputs of political system into generic functional categories like political socialization and recruitment, interest aggregation, interest articulation and political communication. Output activities are those which are carried on by a political system in response to demands or stresses placed upon the system in the form of inputs. Outputs can take the form of governmental policies, programmes, decisions etc. Being a propounder of structural-functional analysis, Almond argued that public policy is the part of political and social action and process by which society developed.
Another model on politics-policy relationship is the ‘Feedback’ or the ‘Black Box Model’ coined by David Easton (1951) in his system Theory. According to this model the remaining demands which have not been included in the decisions and policies will again be feedback through the same process for the purpose of its conversion into decisions. These two models establish clearly the relationship between politics and policies in a political system.
The policy process is a process of balancing different solutions that address the different aspects of a cluster of problems. Every policy has three key elements: a problem definition, goals to be achieved, and the policy instruments to address the problem and achieve the goals. Policy may be formal or informal: a formal policy might take the form of a planned policy document that has been discussed, written, reviewed, approved and published by a policymaking body. It could be a government’s national plan on HIV/AIDS, for example. An informal policy might be an ad hoc, general, unwritten but widely recognized practice or understanding within an organization that a course of action is to be followed.
The following points will make the nature of public policy clearer:
1) Public Policies are goal oriented. They are formulated and implemented in order to attain the objectives which the government has in view for the ultimate benefit of the masses in general. These policies clearly spell out the programmes of government.
2) Public policy is the outcome of the government’s collective actions. It means that it is a pattern or course of activity or the governmental officials and actors in a collective sense than being termed as their discrete and segregated decisions.
3) Public policy is what the government actually decides or chooses to do. It is the relationship of the government units to the specific field of political environment in a given administrative system. It can take a variety of forms like law, ordinances, court decisions, executive orders, decisions etc.
4) Public policy is positive in the sense that it depicts the concern of the government and involves its action to a particular problem on which the policy is made. It has the sanction of law and authority behind it. Negatively, it involves decisions by the governmental officials regarding not taking any action on a particular issue.
5.1. Who Makes Public Policies?
Policy comes from those who have legitimate authority to impose normative guidelines for action. It is made by elected officials acting in concert with advisors from the higher levels of the administration. Government ministers are the elected officials at the apex of government who have the right to articulate policy. Non-elected officials then are required to implement the policy through programmes.
5.2. Policy Framework
A policy framework is a broad set of policies that governs the actions of groups and organizations. The broad set of policies forms a web and impacts new policy development and policy amendments. The presence or absence of a policy affects all other policies within the web (both existing and new).
5.3. The Public Policy Cycle
Public policy development is an interactive process, rather than a linear one. There are five key phases which result in public policy:
1. The emergence of a problem that requires the attention of the public and decision makers.
2. Placing this problem on the government’s agenda in order to find a solution.
3. The formulation of various alternatives to resolve the problem.
4. The adoption of a policy.
5. The implementation and evaluation of the policy.
In reality, the process is less orderly than this: the idea of a ‘cycle’ facilitates more organized thinking about policy. The policy cycle links a variety of key players in the policy process through their involvement with the different stages. Individuals, institutions and agencies involved in the policy process are called actors. Government is often thought of to be the only entity involved in policy making. Government does have the ultimate decision making and funding power, but there are many other actors like media, political parties, interest groups, NGOs that contribute to public policy, often in a network on which government relies for the delivery of complex policy goals.
5.4. Factors determining policy Formulation
Four different levels in policy making may be distinguished:
(i) Political or general policy framed by the legislature.
(ii) Executive policy framed by the government.
(iii) Administrative policy, that is, the form in which the administrator carries out the will of the government
(iv) Technical policy, that is, the day-to-day policy adopted by officials in the working out of the administrative policy.
Policy formulation in practice often overlaps with the policy decision stage of the policy making process. Formulation aims at getting a preferred policy alternative approved; an affirmative decision is the reward of the whole process (Basu 1994: 438). Policy-making cannot be adequately understood apart from the environment in which it takes place. Demands for policy actions are generated in the environment wherein it takes place. Demands for policy actions are generated in the environment and transmitted to the political system. At the same time, the environment places limits and constraints upon what can be done by policy-makers. Class identity, political culture and socio-economic variables also influenced policy formulation.
6. Role of Social Movement and Class in policy framing
All social movements have a definite set of goals to achieve. While doing so, they crop up issues relating to the failure of existing policies or absence of clear cut policies. In case of anti-corruption movement, for instance, a demand for a powerful Lokpal was made. Social movements, then, can be thought of as organized social entities that are engaged in extra-institutional conflict that is oriented towards a goal. These goals can be either aimed at a specific and narrow policy or be more broadly aimed at cultural change.
The involvement of groups and civil society – consumers, private entrepreneurs, employees, citizens, community groups, and NGOs in designing public policy is critical in any society. This is more so when the state and its agencies tries to be transparent and effectiveness in devising their policies as well as establishing the legitimacy of any public policy. Socio-economic and political conditions of a country determine or shape the network of a particular policy. The relationship of social movements to partisan politics grows out of the role of parties as “bridges” between the electoral apparatus and organization of government and civil society.
In public policy world, the policy formulation is part of the pre-decision phase of policy making. This task includes the crafting identification of a set of public policy alternatives to address the socio-economic problems, and selection process by narrowing that set of solution in preparation for the final policy solutions for the next stage. The policy formulation is to deal with the problem, goals and priorities. Solution options for the achievement of policy objectives, cost benefit analysis, negative and positive externalities are associated with each alternative. However, the specification of policy alternatives does not always follow neatly from the agenda setting process and not lead competently into implementation. Apparently, the issue of policy implementation is more significant for the developing countries where there are weak institutions, regulatory capacity, accountability and participation and responsibility of sub-system of government.
Policy formulation is always influenced by social movements and political activists for their vested interest. When a policy fails to find out the solution of a given problem, demand of new policy then becomes a normal outcome. Class consciousness and interests here play a vital role. Bourgeois tries to make policy for their concern, but the working class oppose it. In the Indian context, expanding base of middle class also make its present felt in putting pressure on the government. For instance, in the case of Nirvaya Rape at Delhi, protest by different members of the civil society could force the policy makers to introduce new rules and institutions.
The Indian middle class has many critics, the most eloquent, almost without exception, being members of that class itself. Middle class Indians tend to oscillate between self-congratulation and self-recrimination although the oscillation takes different forms in different sections such as academics, lawyers and civil servants. The Indian middle class now deserves serious attention if only because of its great size and diversity. It has grown steadily in size since Independence and particularly in the last couple of decades. At a moderate estimate, it will number 100 million which is more than the total population of any European country, Russia excepted. The Indian middle class, like the middle class anywhere in the world, is differentiated in terms of occupation, income and education. But the peculiarity in India is its diversity in terms of language, religion and caste. It is by any reckoning the most polymorphous middle class in the world. The problems of the contemporary middle class derive as much from this polymorphy as from its roots in India’s colonial experience (Béteille 2001). Middle class has its own interest and they always try to influence policy makers for fulfilling their desired. Official policy makers including bureaucrats also exert their identity and interests while framing a particular policy. However, such interests very often remain obscured and hidden as a declared policy is always to be drawn in the larger interest of public in general.
7. Social Movement and class analysis
Social movement is not a political party or interest group, which are stable political entities that have regular access to political power and political elites; nor is it a mass mania or trend, which are unorganized, fleeting and without goals. Instead they are somewhere in between (Freeman & Johnson 1999). Some characteristics of social movements are that they are “involved in conflictual relations with clearly identified opponents; are linked by dense informal networks; [and they] share a distinct collective identity” (De la Porta & Diani 2006: 20). It is possible to analyse social movements from the class perspectives. Let us deal with some major variety:
7.1. Marxian Optimism
The link between social class and social movements goes back to Marxian optimism. Marx stressed on the unity of the all working class people of the world. He was hopeful that such unification would be helpful to create a revolutionary movement and transform the ‘class in itself’ to ‘class for itself’. He also referred to the small tenants in France as a famous example of a class not capable of developing a collective consciousness of itself and therefore being unable to act collectively. He referred to them as a “sack of potatoes.” Regarding the industrial worker, Marx was much more optimistic because of the intersection of two critical factors: (1) the presumed centrality of the conflict that this class would address; and (2) the social conditions that makes communication and strong relationships among workers more probable. Marx and Engel had made several remarks on the revolutionary potential of working class under modern capitalism. In Marx’s words (1975: 159-60), Economic conditions had first transformed the mass of the people of the country into workers. The domination of capital has created for this mass a common situation, common interests. This mass is thus already a class as against capital, but not yet for itself. In the struggle…this mass becomes united and constitutes itself as a class for itself. The interests it defends become class interests. But the struggle of class against class is a political struggle.
In the last stage of this revolutionary movement organised by the united working class, it would be possible to destroy capitalism and usher in a socialistic society where the proletariat would dictate. Lenin later talked about the role of Communist Party in providing leadership to the struggle of workers. But, in China, the role of peasants along with workers in forming a platform for resistance and revolution was highlighted. The potential of working class in forming any solid opposition to advanced capitalism was later debated by Marxists themselves.
7.2. Neo-Marxian Position
Neo-Marxists like Gramsci had doubted the possibility of any historical law by which the working class movement would inevitably triumph. He wanted to abandon such a fatalistic doctrine and stressed on the need for popular workers’ education to encourage development of intellectuals from the working class. Because the capitalists are able to manipulate the consent (he used the term hegemony to refer to this process) of workers to support exploitative rule. Hence, as compared to Marx, Gramsci (1971) gave much thought to the role of intellectuals in society. He saw modern intellectuals as practically-minded organisers who are capable of producing hegemony through ideological apparatuses like education and media. Among these intellectuals, he particularly stressed on the role of “organic” intellectuals who do not simply describe social life in accordance with scientific rules, but instead articulate, through the language of culture, the feelings and experiences which the masses could not express for themselves. For this reason, Gramsci gave a call for development of working-class intellectuals. Gramsci therefore stressed more on the cultural processes to explain modern social movement.
Changes in the nature of contemporary capitalism have also prompted some sociologists to doubt the orthodox philosophy of ‘industrial conflict’. Dahrendorf (1959), for instance, has argued that there is a divorce between the ownership and control of industry and that, in consequence, managers who are employees control industry and do not adopt the same attitude towards profit making and relations with other employees as do employers. Using this assumption, it is argued that conflict does not have an economic class basis, but is created by the distribution of authority.
Again the role that working class has played in Western capitalist society has come under severe criticism. Thus, C. Wright Mills (1951) finds that trade unions have become managers of discontent and that they have been fully incorporated into the structure of capitalism. Goldthorpe and other’s (1969) research among Vauxhall workers at Luton had made them conclude that workers lack class-consciousness and, therefore, class struggle belonged to the past. There are yet some Marxists who pin their hopes on the outbreak of shop floor protest by workers. Beynon’s (1973) study of the Ford automobile plant in England shows that the shop stewards are more militant, if not revolutionary. On the contrary, Serge Mallet (1975) claims that it is the technically and professionally qualified workers in the most modern industries who have been most opposed to the capitalist organization of industry, and who have taken up most vigorously the traditional working-class struggle to transform the ownership and management of economic enterprises. Bottomore (1973) also agrees that there are some indications of the kind of change that Mallet discusses in the growth of white-collar and professional trade unions and in their increasing militancy and even radicalism.
Similarly, Jenkins and Wallace (1996) have found that educated salaried professionals, especially socio-cultural and public sector professionals, display greater protest potential, especially for civil disobedience, and are supportive of emerging “middle class” movements. A set of general social trends centring on increased education, life-cycle and generational change, secularism, and increased women’s autonomy also create greater action potential. Reflecting mobilization against political exclusion, African Americans display a consistently strong generalized action potential. These protests reflect the rise of new political repertoires, particularly “protest activism,” which combines protest with high levels of conventional participation and is centred among the more educated.
7.3 Some More Explanations
In recent years the apparent fragmentation of established class structures and the emergence of new social movements – in particular the women’s movement and environmentalism – have altered the traditional expressions of class in society. At the same time, these changes have posed fundamental questions for the concept of class in sociology and political science. In a major reassessment, Klaus Eder (1993) has offered a new perspective on the status of class in modernity. Drawing on a critique of Bourdieu, Touraine and Habermas, he outlines a cultural conception of class as the basis for understanding contemporary societies. His model re-evaluates the role of the middle classes, traditionally the crux of class analysis, and links class to social theories of power and cultural capital. The result is a cultural theory of class which incorporates the changing forms of collective action and the new social movements of contemporary societies.
It is worth noting here several critical theorists including Subaltern theorists have stressed on role of the marginalised people in the field of social movements. The effort of these Marxist historians to study ‘history from below’ has evolved a critic of orthodox Marxism to ignore the history of the masses or ‘subaltern classes’. It is argued that traditional Marxist scholars have ignored cultural factors and put forward a linear development of class consciousness (Guha 1983). But at the same time, consciousness cannot be viewed as an independent factor external to structural conditions.
In a brilliant analysis, James C. Scott (1985) has emphasised on everyday resistance of peasants by which ‘invisible power’ of the marginalised is revealed. Scott’s research finds that overt peasant rebellions are actually rather uncommon, do not occur when and where expected, and often don’t have much impact. Rather than seeing ‘resistance as organisation’, Scott looks at less visible, every-day forms of resistance such as ‘foot-dragging, evasion, false compliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance, slander and sabotage’. It appears that the role of class in organising a movement is tremendous and despite changes in the nature of capitalism today, one cannot totally deny the involvement of different segments of modern classes including occupational groups to develop resistance.
8. Class, Public Policy and Social Movement: Interrelations
A particular demand frequently becomes non-negotiable, being the basis for a movement’s identity. For example, in many countries the feminist movement has been constructed around the non-negotiable right of women to “choose” concerning childbirth. Again, the halting of the installation of NATO nuclear missiles filled a similar role for the peace movement. In the first case, mobilization was pro-active, seeking to gain something new, the right to free abortion. But in the second, it was reactive, seeking to block a decision (to install cruise missiles) which had already been taken. One of the founding organizations of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, ATTAC, emerged around the demand of a tax on transnational transactions. But at the same time, it also demanded debt relief and asked for totally written off the foreign debt of poor countries.
In all cases, considerable changes in public policies are being demanded. Characteristic of these non-negotiable objectives and demands is their role in the social movements’ definitions of themselves and of the external world (Pizzorno 1978). Demands, whose symbolic value is very high, such as the Equal Rights Amendment as in the case of the American feminist movement, remain central for a movement even when their potential effectiveness is questionable (Mansbridge 1986). The importance of such non-negotiable objectives is confirmed by the fact that although activists may be willing to negotiate on other demands, even partial victories on these issues, such as a woman’s right to voluntary interruption of pregnancy, are considered as defeats. Although the campaign of Jubilee 2000 has been defined as “strategically challenging, politically complex, relatively successful,” having “effectively pressured creditor governments to make significant moves to write off unplayable third world debt,” and having “focused unprecedented public scrutiny on official macroeconomic policies” (Collins, Gariyo, and Burdon 2001: 135), many activists have been unsatisfied with the institutional responses to their claims.
While non-negotiable demands are particularly important in the construction of collective identities, social movements rarely limit themselves to just these. In the case of the Global Justice Movement, the general aim of “building another possible world” has been articulated in specific requests, from the opposition to privatization of public services and public good (i.e., the campaign for free access to water) to the rights of national governments to organize the low-cost production of medicines in emergency cases; from the opposition to specific projects of dam construction to a democratic reform of the United Nations. Cooperating in global protest campaigns, the ecological associations have stressed on the environmental unsustainability of neoliberal capitalism, trade unions have identified the negative consequences of free trade on labour rights and levels of employment, feminist groups have revealed the suffering of women under the welfare state. From the public-policy point of view, the changes brought about by social movements may be evaluated by looking at the various phases of the decision making process: the emergence of new issues; writing and applying new legislation; and analysis of the effects of public policies in alleviating the conditions of those mobilized by collective action.
Social class also play a vital role in shaping public policy. Class involvement always influences social movements because the leadership and involvement of the elite portion of an identified class is important factor for mobilising the movement. When the elites or enlightened members of a class get involved into policy cycle, they are kin to serve their community interest and if they fail to fulfil their desired. Then these policy makers influence their community or class member for protest against the policy and demand for new policy formulation by the means of social movement. A social movement may be able to raise a widely shared demand for change in some aspect of the social or political order. The environmental movement provides a good example of how a social movement gives rise to interest groups formed from reliance on purposive incentives. Though a strong sense of purpose may lead to the creation of organizations, permanent incentives will affect how the organization participates in politics. In many cases a-political labour union also involve in politics for influencing policy formulation, Student movements also fall in this category. When social movements run out of steam, they leave behind organizations that continue the fight, as with labour unions. The most important action of interest groups is supplying credible information. Lobbyists are specialists who gather information and present it in as organized, persuasive, and factual a manner as possible. Lobbying has gone from an insider-strategy, working closely with a few key members of Congress in private, to an outsider strategy mostly as a result of technology that allows the same information to be gathered quickly. Social movements have led to so many dramatic changes in societies around the globe, scholars have spent a great deal of time trying to understand where they come from, who participates in them, how they succeed, and how they fail. Much of what they have discovered is that social movements do not just happen; they require many resources and have many stages through which they develop. In other words, people do not suddenly become upset with a policy or even a ruling system and then instantly form a social movement with a coherent ideology that is capable of holding mass demonstrations or overthrowing an existing power structure. A social movement takes shape over a period of time during which its focus may also change. The Jharkhand movement, for instance, has gone through several changes in its ideological and political stand as and when the movement leadership gained maturity to adjust to a new situation. It may be argued here that while policy framework is in most cases influenced by social movements, class issues also play a dominant role in determining the contours of any social movement. In another sense, it may be argued that growing class consciousness and community feelings not only give birth of a new social movement, they also affect the process of policy making.
9. Summary
It is clear from the foregoing discussion that class dimension of any social movement is important. The class dimension of traditional social movements in particular has therefore been a matter of intense scrutiny for long. It is however true that social movements nowadays very often criss-cross class boundaries. But it is equally true that due to changes in the traditional notion of class as fixed economic category, it is possible to form collectivities of human beings sharing a common life style or affected by market situation. This makes possible for a wide range of people to join together in a movement against say price rise or corruption. Hence, the class issues of people joining a movement are still relevant today.
So far as the question of policy formulation is concerned, members of different classes do have stake in arguing for a particular policy. But there are policies that cater to the interest of many across class divisions. Moreover, growing class consciousness and community feelings not only give birth of a new social movement, they also affect the process of policy making. On the whole, therefore, issues of class, public policy and social movement influence each other and as they intersect each other it is desirable to take a wider view in analysing each of them.