Next reading group: class composition
Thank you all who came for making last week's sex work reading group such a success!
This week's reading group is alternating back to a more "theoretical" (and unfortunately dense!) topic: “class composition”. Though it has a history dating back to Marx, it really came to prominence in post-WWII Italy. In essence, class composition as a concept developed as a way to understand the new changes in the working class under the war, including the development of some quite radical struggles.
In contrast to traditional Marxist theories that saw the working-class as passive, and the production process as something "automatic", the class composition approach stressed the active role of the working-class in both the system of production, and in the fight-back itself.
We've only got one reading for this week, a section from "Reflections on combined and uneven development and class composition" by Angry Workers World. The entire article is worth a read and includes on how the concept compares with the more commonly Trotskyist "combined and uneven development" approach, but for this group we'll only be focusing on this excerpt.
Class composition - Google Docs
From: https://libcom.org/article/reflections-uneven-and-combined-development-and-class-composition Class composition It is striking that Davidson uses the consequences of the rapid industrial development in post-war Italy as an example for ‘uneven and combined development’ when this development …
Feel free to make notes of your impressions or anything you were curious about, so we can help each other work through the tricky parts.
See you all at the Business School at 6:30, 30/11!
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