Beyond the factory: Struggling with class and class struggle in the post-industrial context

Abstract

A dominant strand of literature adopting an identity-oriented approach towards industrial decline and post-Fordist flexibilisation argues that we are in a ‘post-industrial’ world in which class struggles and ‘old’ labour movements have been replaced by struggles around identity. This article examines working-class politics in the city of Ahmedabad, India, in the pre- and post-liberalisation phases in order to understand whether class struggle is indeed being replaced by identity struggle. In juxtaposing Marx with E.P. Thompson, the article re-visits concepts such as class, class struggle and exploitation in order to understand them in new ways in an increasingly ‘post-industrial’, ‘post-Fordist’ world.