Harvard University Press
The Class Matrix
About this book
“A quite thorough and impressive work, not only a compelling defense of materialism but also a fair-minded if highly critical engagement with cultural theory. It isn’t clear how culturalists—especially the anti-Marxist ones—can effectively respond to this broadside, tightly and cogently argued as it is.”—Chris Wright, CounterPunch
“Chibber…has developed a sophisticated, elegant, and readable defense of the sociological significance of class structure in understanding and addressing the key problems inherent in capitalism.”—Choice
“[A] clear, compelling, and systematic statement of the view that class is an objective reality that predictably and rationally shapes human thought and action, one we need to grapple with seriously if we’re to comprehend contemporary society and its morbid symptoms.”—Jacobin
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, theorists argued that social and economic life is reducible to culture—that our choices reflect interpretations of the world around us rather than the limitations imposed by basic material facts. Today, gross inequalities in wealth and power have pushed scholars to reopen materialist lines of inquiry. But it would be a mistake to pretend that the cultural turn never happened. Vivek Chibber instead engages cultural theory seriously, proposing a fusion of materialism and the most useful insights of its rival.
Chibber accommodates the main arguments from the cultural turn within a robust materialist framework, showing how one can agree that the making of meaning plays an important role in social agency while still recognizing the fundamental power of class structure and class formation. He vindicates classical materialism by demonstrating that it accounts for phenomena cultural theorists thought it was powerless to explain, while also showing that aspects of class are indeed centrally affected by cultural factors.
The Class Matrix does not seek to displace culture from the analysis of modern capitalism. Rather, in prose of exemplary clarity, Chibber gives culture its due alongside what Marx called “the dull compulsion of economic relations.”
Reviews
-- Chris Wright CounterPunch
-- Choice
-- Jacobin
-- Chris James Newlove Marx & Philosophy Review of Books
-- Goran Therborn, University of Cambridge
-- James Mahoney, Northwestern University
-- Michael Burawoy, author of The Politics of Production
Topics
-
Download PDFPublicly Available
Frontmatter
i -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Contents
vii -
Download PDFPublicly Available
A Note on Terminology
ix -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Introduction
1 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
1. Class Structure
22 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
2. Class Formation
46 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
3. Consent, Coercion, and Resignation
78 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
4. Agency, Contingency, and All That
117 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
5. How Capitalism Endures
154 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Notes
181 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Acknowledgments
193 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Index
197
