Working Class Research Articles

Utilizing Marxist-Leninist Viewpoints to Construct the Vietnamese People's Army in the Present Era

The formation of the military is a historical and social occurrence that possesses significant class attributes. According to the Marxist-Leninist texts, the armed forces are considered as a tool of organized violence controlled by the ruling class. They are trained, taught, and utilized to fulfill the purposes and ideals of the ruling class. Following the October Revolution, the establishment of the socialist state gave rise to a new kind of military known as the socialist army or the army of the working class. This army possessed inherent distinctions from prior armed formations, since it operated in alignment with the objectives of the proletariat and the socialist state. In accordance with Marxist-Leninist ideas, the construction of the socialist army must encompass all aspects of politics, ideology, organization, discipline, weapons, technological equipment, and science. This complete approach is necessary to safeguard the revolutionary accomplishments and the socialist rule. The directives outlined by the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam for developing a "streamlined, strong, and modern" army demonstrate the Party's ongoing adherence to Marxist-Leninist principles in establishing the Vietnamese People's Army at present. This study examines the essential elements and original aspects of applying these rules, which contribute to the protection of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Using Bourdieu’s concept of habitus to explore higher education decision-making for working class women on an access to higher education course

Despite the increasing number of non-traditional students entering higher education (HE) in England, HE choices remain stratified by social class. Mature working class students are a target group of the widening participation policy, yet little attention has been given to their HE choices and decision-making. Through narrative inquiry, this study uses a creative method alongside focus groups and semi-structured interviews, and contributes a class perspective to the HE decision-making for 13 women on an Access to HE course. It links sociological theory to adult education, through a Bourdieusian framework. It evidences structural constraints and perceptions of belonging that impeded choices. A sense of place and feelings of fit (habitus) were significant for destination decisions. However, Access to HE course teachers were positively influential in helping students challenge embedded habitual ways of thinking and practice and in raising self-efficacy. The findings offer explanations as to why participation rates may be increasing but not widening enough. It illuminates how social class differences (intersected by age and gender) are crucial to understanding HE decision-making and places a much-needed focus on mature students to the widening participation and social mobility agenda.

“I Know Well and Appreciate the Repose and Delight to Be Found in Gardening”: Class, Gender, and “Garden Elements” in Charles Dickens’s Dombey and Son

ABSTRACT Drawing upon Michael Waters’s and Sarah Bilston’s studies of Victorian literary representations of gardens, this article delves into scenes, activities, and imagery related to gardens and gardening in Charles Dickens’s Dombey and Son. Examining these “garden elements” in the novel, it explores how seemingly apolitical garden scenes and gardening activities were embedded in Victorian schemas of gender and class configuration. Specifically, it analyses how Dickens skilfully exposes the unjust exploitation of women and the working class by a capitalist economy that prioritised the bourgeois male elite. The article argues that through his depiction of the transformative changes taking place in Staggs’s Gardens, Dickens expresses a cautious optimism towards the emerging railway economy, subtly suggesting that it has the potential to benefit the working class and supplant the out-dated mercantile economy symbolised by Dombey.

“‘A Period Favorable to Economic Imperialists’: Railroads and the Hidden History of Slum Clearance in Cleveland, 1910–1930”

Between 1910 and 1930, the Van Sweringen brothers of Cleveland, allied with many of Cleveland’s business leaders, undertook three railroad projects--including the nationally renown Union Terminal--that collectively displaced between 15 and 20,000 working class residents from two neighborhoods near downtown long believed to be slums. They also erased a significant portion of Cleveland’s oldest section of its downtown, and even dramatically altered the city’s food economy by reorienting the city’s produce district. This “hidden era” of slum clearance predates postwar urban renewal and indicates railroads may have had a greater role in urban redevelopment than previously thought.

At War with the Machine: Canadian Workers' Resistance to Taylorism in the Early 20th Century

This essay looks at the ways Frederick Winslow Taylor’s modern theories of scientific management (Taylorism) transformed Canadian workplaces in the early 20th century. In particular, it shows how Taylorism negatively impacted Canadian workers’ lives,and examines the various ways that workers consequently resisted Taylorist methods. The essay argues that although workers were unable to stop the widespread implementation of Taylorism in Canadian workplaces, their resistance to Taylorism still played an important role in unionist and radical political movements that gradually gained important concessions for Canadian workers during the first half of the 20th century. Additionally, the essay argues that resistance was significant as an outlet for workers to retain bodily autonomy in work environments that increasingly aimed to make workers more automated. Ultimately, the essay highlights important ways that the Canadian working classes have exercised agency via solidarity and perseverance.

Malamente? Niełatwe relacje lokalności i kultury popularnej w twórczości Rosalíi

MALAMENTE? UNEASY RELATIONS BETWEEN LOCALITY AND POPULAR CULTURE IN ROSALÍA’S WORK The aim of the text is to ask questions about how contemporary popular culture enters into transcultural interaction with artistic manifestations of local Spanish identities, using the example of selected works by the Catalan artist Rosalía Vila Tobella, known as Rosalía. The artist mediates between several cultural spaces: Spanish, Andalusian, Roma and Latin American, but also subcultural ones – related to urban culture and the Spanish working class. Importantly, her artistic message should be analyzed both musically and visually. The text examines the relationship between local flamenco culture and popculture in the artist’s work, using the example of the song Malamente from the album El mal querer. There will also mentioned other artist’s audiovisual productions created between 2018 and 2023, which consistently build Rosalía’s musical and visual imaginary on the border of local form of expression – flamenco and global pop culture.

High‐status versus low‐status stakeholders

AbstractThe literature on stakeholder theory has largely ignored the difficult and central issue of how judges and firms should resolve disputes among stakeholders. When the issue is addressed, focus has largely been on the potential for management to use stakeholder theory as cover for rent‐seeking or on disputes between classes of stakeholders. Sharply underappreciated is the potential for disparate interests within a stakeholder class. That potential is particularly acute due to a (largely education‐driven) stark and growing class divide in the United States. There is a substantial difference between the interests of a highly educated professional and managerial elite and a pink‐collar and blue‐collar working class who mostly do not hold 4‐year degrees. Despite their smaller numbers, the professional and managerial elite will frequently win out in intra‐stakeholder disputes with working‐class stakeholders due to their greater status, power, and influence. Because this class divide is cultural, social, and political, as well as economic, these disputes will go beyond financial pie‐splitting to culture war issues. This threatens to be destabilizing for both the republic and individual firms and undermines both the practical and ethical arguments for the stakeholder theory.

Political Rituals and Ideological Competition: The Emergence of an “Islamic” May Day in Turkey

ABSTRACT This study focuses on the decoding of some of the many aspects of Islamism—labour relations in Turkey, based on the political rituals that historically operate as self-assertions and self-definitions of the working class. The epicentre of this article is May Day and seeks to analyse the process by which an organic part of the Islamist movement in the country, Hak-İş, dealt with it, through the effort for transformation of the symbolisms, and confrontation for the ideological meaning and social vision of this labour political ritual in Turkey. Through this framework, the study highlights three different stages in the political mobilization of Hak-İş regarding the 1st of May, within the broader framework of a process named ‘loss of proletarity’ and the Confederation’s vision about a classless society. The first stage is that of the absolute denial of the class content and hierarchies in society. The second stage is the process of the ‘reluctant adoption’ of May Day, combined with strategies to transform its material culture. Finally, the third stage is the attempt to ‘nationalise/Islamise’ this political ritual through the organization of separate May Day mobilizations in various cities in Anatolia.

A pedagogy for the end of the world: teaching environmental health and justice in a sacrifice zone

This article describes pedagogical changes that I have made to my Environmental Justice class at the University of the Pacific in response to increasingly crisis conditions with regard to both climate change and higher education. Over the past 15 years, my students are increasingly low-income, first generation, and from Stockton, a so-called “sacrifice zone” with abysmal environmental health outcomes in the heart of California’s Central Valley. My increasing focus on local environmental health disparities, combined with the intensification of the climate crisis, and my decision to prioritize support for student mental health in the midst of climate anxiety, have resulted in a class that feels both connected and immersive. Students are engaging with readings and other course materials, actively participating in discussion, and pushing us further with their own questions, passions, and lived experiences. In this “post”-covid world in which student engagement has become increasingly difficult, student mental health is increasingly tenuous, and climate anxieties plague students and faculty alike, this feels extraordinary and worth sharing. This essay is a chance to reflect on why this shift has occurred, and the potential for university classes to draw working class, diverse students into environmental and climate justice movements at a time when they are so desperately needed.

Aligning working‐class interests and preferences: The case of inheritance tax

AbstractThis article addresses a lack of alignment between the material interests and economic preferences of the working class. It argues that the link between class interest and support for specific economic policies that benefit the working class becomes stronger when it is made clear that the policy targets the rich. Working‐class support for the repealed and unpopular inheritance tax in Norway is chosen as a hard test of this argument. Employing two straightforward survey experiments, this article demonstrates that clarifying who will pay the tax raises support in general and is especially important for ensuring the support of the working class. Further analysis shows that class differences, when the tax is explicitly redistributive, can be accounted for by general redistributive orientation. Additionally, differences in education levels partly explain why clearer class differences in tax support are not observed. This study underscores the importance of considering both the demand and supply sides when examining the economic preferences of social classes and highlights that clearly formulating who pays the tax is crucial for garnering support from working‐class voters.

Air fryer: reflections on working class objects of desire and changing food culture

Air fryer: reflections on working class objects of desire and changing food culture

Classical Economists in the Face of the Old English Poor Law: Prejudice in Scholarly Clothes

Objective: The purpose of this article is to identify the ideological functions of economic theory using the historical case of the opinions of classical economists on the poor law as an example (treating ideological sets of ideas as justifications for the social order). Research Design & Methods: The research method adopted in this paper is an analysis of the text carried out in the context of its social function. Findings: The article analyses some moral and social aspects of the emergence of economic theory and shows classical economists’ criticisms of the Old Poor Law as rationalisation of social prejudices of upper classes of society. The essence of the discourse of mainstream economists has been to show low moral resources in the working class as the cause of poverty, together with the thesis that social assistance perpetuates this condition. The opposite of these theories were John Barton’s arguments, portraying welfare as an investment in the moral resources of the poor, allowing them to return to the ranks of working people. This dispute was forgotten for many years, but seems still relevant in the 21st century context. Implications / Recommendations: This paper supports the opinions of eminent scholars (like Blaug or Lindert) that the main problems with poverty are essentially the same in our times as in the 19th century. Blaming poor people for their poverty seems as familiar to us today as it was two hundred years ago. Thus the issue of the welfare state is more moral and political than it is theoretical. Contribution: This paper is a contribution to the identification of the role of social prejudice in the emergence of economic theory.

When the Ruling-Class Parties Harden

Iqra Angurah elucidates the strategic role in the Indo-Pacific in the context of the New Cold War and, in particular, the country's close ties to the forces of multinational capital and Western imperialism. The alignment of the Global North and local elites underscores the need for a popular, socialist, and anti-imperialist movement among the Indonesian working class.

The Problems and Countermeasures in the Implementation of "Flipped Classroom" in Colleges and Universities: From the Perspective of Education Master's Students

With emergence of Covid - 19 flipped classroom became essential not only in reducing the number of students in the face to face sessions but also provided more learning time. Kenyatta University is one of the first Universities in Kenya to have a fully - fledged digital school (DSVOL), which offers a wide range of courses from diploma to post graduate courses. Majority of the potential students targeted by the school are the working class group who attend classes either as part - time or full - time. Although Kenyatta University has made many strides in implementing the flipped classroom approach, little has been done on research to ascertain learners’ attitude and perceptions on flipped classroom approach on academic performance of postgraduate diploma in education students in Kenyatta University. The study deployed a mixed - research approach, where both qualitative and quantitative techniques were used to collect and analyze data. The target population was heads of departments and post - graduate diploma students at Kenyatta University. The study used a purposive, convenience sampling technique to get 30 post - graduate diploma students and five heads of department, totaling to 35. Primary data was collected using questionnaire. Open and close - ended questions were used to maximize results. Data collected from the participants were analysed using two methods; statistical and thematic content analysis. Based on the findings, the study concluded that learners have positive attitudes and perceptions towards the flipped approach. The study further concluded that flipped approach is fun, engaging, motivating, and encourages active learning. From the conclusion the study recommended that the departments that implement the flipped learning approach should ensure that there is room for peer interaction and collaborative working.

O movimento pendular da grande burguesia industrial brasileira

Between 1996 and 2016, the Brazilian industrial bourgeoisie carried out a pendulum movement of rapprochement and subsequent separation from working class organizations and their political perspectives. In the long term, however, the tendency is for the possibility of new “developmentalist” cycles to narrow and for neoliberalism to deepen in Brazil.

Bukovyna as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its socio-economic development on the eve of rail way construction

This article examines how the socio-economic conditions in Bukovyna influenced the formation and development of the railway network in the region. It explores whether these processes aligned with the global trends of the time. Based on the analysis of scientific literature, memoirs, and archival materials, it was found that the topic of the formation and functioning of the railway network in Bukovyna had not been systematically studied. It was revealed that the Austrian authorities, by turning Bukovyna into an internal colony of the Habsburg Empire, kept the region in the position of a raw material appendage and a market for the industry of the empire's central provinces. The tariff, customs, credit, and tax systems introduced by the imperial government supported this process, acting in the interests of Austro-Hungarian capital. The development of the railway network was aimed at ensuring the economic interests of the empire, which affected the socio-economic development of Bukovyna. In particular, the construction of railways improved the transport infrastructure, leading to increased trade and higher volumes of raw material and goods transportation. However, this development had a dual nature. On one hand, it promoted economic growth and modernization of the region, but on the other hand, it intensified Bukovyna's dependence on the central provinces of the empire, limiting its economic autonomy and the development of local industry. The article also analyzes the impact of railway construction on the social aspects of life in Bukovyna. The railway became an important factor in migration, contributing to urbanization and the growth of the working class. However, at the same time, social tensions increased due to the unequal distribution of economic benefits and the intensification of local population exploitation. The conclusions of the article emphasize the need for further research to fully understand the impact of railway development on Bukovyna in the context of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and to compare these processes with similar developments in other parts of the world.

QUALITY WORK LIFE BALANCE OF SELF-FINANCING COLLEGE TEACHERS IN PALAKKAD DISTRICT IN PERSPECTIVE OF TOILING CLASS THEORY

Kerala’s performance in the area of higher education is widely recognized. Self-financing college have played relevant role in educational sector . Teachers from self-financing colleges faced different problems to balance their work and family life together. The schedules are busier than ever before. They should impart all types of qualities for doing their job. When they satisfied and doing, they are given a skilled society or world. According to the KM Mani Theory of the toiling class, there is a group included farmers, teachers, labours, and those belong to working class who survive not merely on labour power alone but marginal ownership of production-management, entrepreneurship and tradeable skills and they jointly ensure their rights. By the way qualified teachers of self-financing college are not getting adequate mental and financial support from the superiors of the institutions, definitely lead to job dissatisfaction. For the successful running of the self-financing college is possible only by retaining satisfied teachers. In this study an attempt to throw light on work-life stress issues of 50 self-financing college teachers in Palakkad district.

Marxism and Class-Based Analysis in the Body of Knowledge: The Scientometric Analysis and Research Agenda

This study provides a comprehensive scientometric analysis to examine the incorporation and impact of Marxist theory and class-based analysis within the broader academic knowledge base. By utilizing Scientometric data from renowned scientific databases covering the last seventy years, we can pinpoint important patterns, notable authors, essential publications, subject groups, and relevant keywords relating to Marxism and class analysis. These findings show increasing interest in the topic, especially after the 2000s. This analysis emphasizes the importance of theoretical study and the working class as topics that often appear in recent research. Additionally, we analyze the distribution of research output and country collaborations, observing substantial clustering in the Americas and the United Kingdom. Despite increasing interest in this topic, our analysis reveals gaps in existing research, namely in the practical implementation and integration of different disciplines. Based on these observations, we suggest a study plan that prioritizes the need for more detailed empirical investigation, examination of social class dynamics in non-Western settings, and the incorporation of Marxist analysis into current topics such as globalization and the working class. This agenda aims to increase the significance and practicality of class-based analysis in understanding contemporary socio-economic phenomena.

The Centrality of the Workplace and Class Consciousness in the US South: The New Orleans Community Studies

Abstract The popular and scholarly imagination considers Americans—especially those from the US South—to be averse to working-class politics. The South, in particular, is regarded as having especially low levels of class consciousness, hopelessly mired in racist or racialized ideologies which effectively eliminate the possibility of working-class solidarity. This article problematizes these conclusions by presenting the results of a series of studies conducted in New Orleans, Louisiana. Interviews with activists and community leaders, as well as two representative surveys of the city find that New Orleanians are remarkably class conscious, and almost universally regard the workplace as the central social system for determining their overall well-being. These findings are contextualized in Louisiana’s oft-ignored labor history, and contrasted with the currently en vogue “white working class” literature.

Losing consent – the evolution of the danwei management policies from a Maoist perspective

ABSTRACT The danwei (work unit) system is a unique political and economic institution in China; inside a danwei, all aspects of workers’ activities are taken care of. The transformations of the danwei system’s management have long been a hot topic in academia. Many scholars have shared their views on understanding the transformations of the danwei’s management. However, very few of them have understood danwei’s management transformations from the perspective of Mao Zedong. Mao, as one of the most important founders of the danwei system, had conducted numerous studies on Marxist theories and Soviet practices of socialist enterprise management and had formed a unique understanding of how a genuine socialist enterprise operates. By setting up a triangular comparison model, this article compares Maoist thoughts on management with danwei’s management policies before and after 1978. This article concludes that, from a Maoist perspective, the pre-1978 danwei system had set up a management system in which workers drew their ‘self-generated consent’ through democratic mechanisms. In contrast, the post-1978 danwei management has abnegated most of the democratic mechanisms and replaced workers’ ‘self-generated consent’ with cadre-controlled ‘manufactured consent.’ The entire danwei system is gradually ‘losing its consent’ from the working class unless multiple reform initiatives take place in the future.