The Class Structure of Capitalist Societies, Volume 2
The second volume of The Class Structure of Capitalist Societies maps the distribution of social powers and associated properties and lifestyles in unparalleled detail by examining the results of a brand-new survey delivered in Sweden, Germany and the US.
Continuing the cross-national investigation of the shape and effects of class systems across capitalist nations, the analyses in Volume 2 are embedded in a novel sociological theory of international relations, sustained reflections on the relationship between national standing and class structure and extensive reconstruction of the histories of class in each of the three nations studied. The ultimate conclusion, however, is not only that the fundamental structure of class today is the same across the three cases, for all their unique cultural and historical features, but that their translation into differences of taste, practice and symbolic violence, always cross-cut by gender, follow highly familiar patterns too.
This volume will appeal to scholars and advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in sociology, politics and demography and is essential reading for all those interested in social class across the globe.
Will Atkinson is Professor of Sociology in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol, UK.
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The Class Structure of Capitalist Societies, Volume 2
Social Space and Symbolic Domination in Three Nations
Will Atkinson
First published 2022
by Routledge
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2022 Will Atkinson
The right of Will Atkinson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Atkinson, Will, 1983 author.
Title: The class structure of capitalist societies. Volume 1,A space of bounded variety/Will Atkinson.
Other titles: Space of bounded variety
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2020. |Series: Routledge advances in sociology | Includes bibliographicalreferences and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020007188 (print) | LCCN 2020007189 (ebook) |ISBN 9781138342538 (hardback; vol. 1) | ISBN 9780429439728 (ebook; vol. 1)
Subjects: LCSH: Social classes. | Social stratification.
Classification: LCC HT609 .A853 2020 (print) |LCC HT609 (ebook) | DDC 305.5dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020007188
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020007189
ISBN: 978-0-367-65474-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-65477-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-12961-5 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003129615
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Newgen Publishing UK
Contents
Figures
Tables
Boxes
Preface
This work is the second title in a projected three-volume series on the class structure of capitalist societies, the first being published in 2020 and the last, dealing with the intersections of class with family life and employment, currently being in preparation. The survey on which the current and third volumes are based was delivered in 2017 to 2018, which means the findings relate to a time before the disruption engendered by the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic. The latter, or at least government responses to it, undoubtedly had profound effects on social positions and cultural activity across nations, including those surveyed here. The extent of those effects will have varied across countries, depending not least on government policy, but also by social position and cultural practice before the pandemic. Those with certain resources and working in certain fields will have been impacted by job loss, business failure, school closures and lockdowns at different rates and in different ways, and existing tastes and orientations are likely to have been re-channelled toward new forms of goods and practices (e.g. streamed theatre, meal delivery) or simply given more time (video games, television, listening to classical music, etc.). The extent to which these impacts and re-channellings will persist after the pandemic has fully abated is for the future to tell, though there is a good chance that governments, many businesses and cultural producers will be keen to see a quick return to the status quo ante. The point for our purposes, though, is that the class structure and its symbolic translation pre-Covid-19 as mapped here for three countries are not only the condition of possibility for any transformations in structure or practice, temporary or permanent, that took place in the wake of Covid-19, but, as the following pages demonstrate, more or less stable in their core dimensions through short-term shocks. Though relating to a time before Covid-19, then, there is every reason to believe that the relationship between class and culture mapped here will remain relevant for decoding social structure and symbolic domination long after Covid-19 has been tamed.
Acknowledgements
This work is based on research funded by the European Research Council under the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement no. 677055). I am immensely grateful to my research assistant at the time of data collection, Piotr Marzec, who liaised with the data collection agency, ensured the datasets were robust, completed much of the tedious coding, made helpful suggestions on analysis, assisted with interpretations of the German-language sources, collated the information for constructing the space of states and gave valuable feedback on chapter drafts. Others to have kindly offered advice, feedback and support at various stages of this part of the project include Jakob Hartl, Sarah Kunz, Torsten Michel, Nick Moon of GfK UK, Lennart Rosenlund, Maarja Saar, Mike Savage, Andreas Schmitz, the team at GfK Belgium, Lakshita Joshi and Emily Briggs at Routledge, colleagues at the Universities of Uppsala (Ylva Bergstrm, Mikael Brjessen, Donald Broady, Andreas Melldahl, Mikael Palme) and Bonn (Clemens Albrecht, Alice Barth, Jrg Blasius, Julian Dresser, Richard Hiedler and Daniel Witte) and conference audiences in Glasgow and Manchester. I am sorry I could not incorporate all their suggestions into what was already a packed manuscript. As ever, no one but me is to blame for the mistakes herein.
