Labor Avoidance is about work, something everyone hates, and something everyone longs to escape. At the same time, human nature is to sustain life that is physical, and thus constant labor is a necessity. This is what humanity, from Eden to our own post-industrial society, has always tried to reduce or avoid by making somebody else do it. Historically, this nature and origin of labor-avoidance is responsible for war, colonialism, slavery, and now, contract employment in market society. This book explores American capitalism and how labor (and the desire to escape it) has become responsible for so much human struggle and misery throughout history.

This volume focuses on intersections of race, class, gender, and nation in the formation of the fin-de-siecle Spanish and Spanish colonial subject. Despite the wealth of research produced on gender, social class, race, and national identity few studies have focused on how these categories interacted, frequently operating simultaneously to reveal contexts in which dominated groups were dominating and vice versa. Such revelations call into question metanarratives about the exploitation of one group by another and bring to light interlocking systems of identity formation, and consequently oppression, that are difficult to disentangle. The authors included here study this dynamic in a variety of genres and venues, namely the essay, the novel, the short story, theater, and zarzuelas. These essays cover canonical authors such as Benito Perez Galdos and Emilia Pardo Bazan, and understudied female authors such as Rosario de Acuna and Belen Sarraga. The authors included here study this dynamic in a variety of genres and venues, namely the essay, the novel, the short story, theater, and zarzuelas. The volume builds on recent scholarship on race, class, gender, and nation by focusing specifically on the intersections of these categories, and by studying this dynamic in popular culture, visual culture, and in the works of both canonical and lesser-known authors.

The Rise of Professional Society lays out a stimulating and controversial framework for the study of British society, challenging accepted paradigms based on class analysis. Perkins argues that the non-capitalist "professional class" represents a new principle of social organization based on trained expertise and meritocracy, a "forgotten middle class" conveniently overlooked by classical social theorists.

Fifty years ago, familiar images of the lottery would have been strange, as no state lottery existed then. Few researchers have uncovered the obscure role lotteries play in the changing composition of American taxation. Even less is known about what role race plays in this process. More than simply taxing those on the social margins, the emergence of state lotteries in contemporary American history represents something much more fundamental about state fiscal policy. This book not only uncovers the underlying racial factors that contextualize lottery proliferation in the U.S., but also reveals the racial consequences that lotteries have in terms of redistributing tax liability.

In the years 1849 and 1850, Henry Mayhew was the metropolitan correspondent of the Morning Chronicle in its national survey of labour and the poor. Only about a third of his Morning Chronicle material was included in his later and better known, publication, London Labour and the London Poor. First published in 1981, this series of six volumes constitutes Henry Mayhew's complete Morning Chronicle survey, in the sequence in which it was originally written in 1849 and 1850. It addresses a wealth of topics from cholera in the Jacob's Island area and to the food markets of London. The publication of this complete survey represented the first time in which the whole was Mayhew's pioneering work was available in one place. The set is introduced by Dr Peter Razzell, who was co-editor of the national Morning Chronicle survey. This first volume contains letters from October to November 1849. This series will be of interest to those studying the history of social welfare, poverty and urbanisation.

The German-Austrian social theorist and philosopher Leo Kofler (1907-1995) represents what Oskar Negt once called 'unmutilated, living Marxism'. Throughout his life he dealt with issues of history and modernity, Marxist philosophy, and the critique of ideology, philosophical anthropology, and aesthetics. In this volume, author and Kofler biographer Christoph Junke elucidates the contours of his philosophy of praxis, traces an arc from the socialist classics to postmodernism, and outlines the socialist humanist thinker's enduring relevance. The book also includes six essays by Leo Kofler published in English for the first time. The main work was first published in German as Leo Koflers Philosophie der Praxis: Eine Einfuhrung in sein Denken by Laika Verlag, 2015.

This book challenges sociologists and sociology students to think beyond the construction of social problems to tackle a central question: What do sociologists do with the analytic tools and academic skills afforded by their discipline to respond to social problems? Service Sociology posits that a central role of sociology is not simply to analyse and interpret social problems, but to act in the world in an informed manner to ameliorate suffering and address the structural causes of these problems. This volume provides a unique contribution to this approach to sociology, exploring the intersection between its role as an academic discipline and its practice in the service of communities and people. With both contemporary and historical analyses, the book traces the legacy, characteristics, contours, and goals of the sociology of service, shedding light on its roots in early American sociology and its deep connections to activism, before examining the social context that underlies the call for volunteerism, community involvement and non-profit organisations, as well as the strategies that have promise in remedying contemporary social problems. Presenting examples of concrete social problems from around the world, including issues of democratic participation, poverty and unemployment, student involvement in microlending, disaster miitigation, the organization and leadership of social movements, homelessness, activism around HIV/AIDS and service spring breaks, Service Sociology and Academic Engagement in Social Problems explores the utility of public teaching, participatory action research, and service learning in the classroom as a contribution to the community.

First published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In When Did We All Become Middle Class?, Martin Nunlee discusses how a lack of class identity gives people a false sense of their relationship to power, which has made the US population accept the myth that they live in a meritocracy. This book examines social class within the framework of psychological tendencies, everyday interactions, institutions and pervasive cultural ideas to show how Americans have shifted from general concerns of social and economic equality to fragmented interests groups. Written in a conversational style, this book is a useful tool for undergraduate courses covering social class, such as inequality, stratification, poverty, and social problems.

An introductory account of the concept of class stratification, of contemporary approaches to the study of class, and of current debates about its role in the study of society. Definitions and an analysis of different theoretical approaches to class are accompanied by empirical material which compares the class structures of a range of countries and examines social mobility in cross-national perspective.

The public culture of the Victorian middle class looks at the creation of a distinctive "high" culture in the industrial cities of Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester in the mid-nineteenth century and its incipient decline from the 1880s.

The history of urban bourgeois culture has been relatively unexplored and under-theorized compared to popular culture. This volume therefore represents a significant contribution both to the study of middle-class cultural forms and to an understanding of the relationship between culture and power. In particular, it argues for the importance of ritualized modes of social behavior in understanding the construction of authority in the nineteenth-century city. As well as many original arguments, the book provides a clear and useful overview of the public cultures of Victorian "respectability."The book will be of interest to scholars and students in the areas of social history, cultural history, urban history, cultural studies, urban studies and the sociology of culture.

There is hardly any discussion of class that does not in some way relate to the theories of Marx and Weber. So profound was the impact of their ideas, that their writings are often perceived as the only original and most reliable interpretations of class society. But Marx and Weber were neither the first, nor last, to talk about class and they did so based on the specific conditions prevalent in their own communities. 'Class' explains this complex field using cultural, sociological and feminist perspectives. It deepens our understanding of the problems of class and uses illuminating examples from media, popular culture and literature that explain current class analysis. 'Class' is an 'elegant, lucid comprehensive introduction' that broadens our understanding of the concept and the immense power that it exerts by way of in- and exclusions.

The Meritocracy Myth challenges the widely held American belief in meritocracy-that people get out of the system what they put into it based on individual merit. The book examines talent, attitude, work ethic, and character as elements of merit and evaluates the effect of nonmerit factors such as family background, social connections, luck, market conditions, unequal educational opportunities, and discrimination. The fourth edition has been revised and streamlined throughout. It features new material on the current economic and political climate; the reasons behind the increasing levels of inequality in the United States and globally; how economic, social, and cultural factors shaped Donald Trump's rise to political prominence, and more. The fourth edition includes a new chapter on marriage and mobility that examines how patterns in marriage tend to increase the concentration of wealth and pass on nonmerit advantages to children, furthering trends toward social inequality. A compelling book on an often-overlooked topic, The Meritocracy Myth is ideal for introducing students to this provocative topic while sparking discussion and reflection.

There is much in Vasant Moon's extraordinary story of his vasti, his childhood neighbourhood in India, that would probably be true of any urban ghetto anywhere in the world. But there is much that is peculiarly and vividly Indian. In this first autobiography of a so-called Untouchable, we learn about the inescapable hierarchy imposed by caste, based on ancient principles of heriditary pollution. We see the unmatched importance of the heroic Dr. B. R. Ambedkar for India's awakened and newly ambitious Dalits. We feel, viscerally, Nagpur's heat and the joy brought by the monsoon. Vasant Moon's Vasti, the first Dalit autobiography to be published in English, is a moving and eloquent testament to a uniquely Indian life as well as to the universal human spirit.

Integrating a focus on gender with Marx's surplus-based notion of class, this book offers a one-of-a-kind analysis of family farms in the United States. The analysis shows how gender and class struggles developed during important moments in the history of these family farms shaped the trajectory of U.S. agricultural development. It also generates surprising insights about the family farm we thought we knew, as well as the food and agricultural system today. Elizabeth A. Ramey theorizes the family farm as a complex hybrid of mostly feudal and ancient class structures. This class-based definition of the family farm yields unique insights into three broad aspects of U.S. agricultural history. First, the analysis highlights the crucial, yet under-recognized role of farm women and children's unpaid labor in subsidizing the family farm. Second, it allows for a new, class-based perspective on the roots of the twentieth century "miracle of productivity" in U.S. agriculture, and finally, the book demonstrates how the unique set of contradictions and circumstances facing family farmers during the early twentieth century, including class exploitation, was connected to concern for their ability to serve the needs of U.S. industrial capitalist development. The argument presented here highlights the significant costs associated with the intensification of exploitation in the transition to industrial agriculture in the U.S. When viewed through the lens of class, the hallowed family farm becomes an example of one of the most exploitative institutions in the U.S. economy. This book is suitable for students who study economic history, agricultural studies, and labor economics.

China's agriculture and rural society has undergone rapid changes in recent years. Many poorer farmers and younger people have moved to cities, and yet China has an immense challenge to feed a growing and more affluent population. This book provides a 'bottom-up view' of China's agriculture, showing how the many millions of Chinese peasants make a living. It presents a vivid description of the mechanisms used by rural households to defend and sustain their livelihoods, increase their agricultural production and improve the quality of their lives. The authors examine the newly emerging trajectories of entrepreneurial and capitalist farming and assess whether such alternatives will be able to meet the enormous social, economic and environmental challenges that China faces. The book also explores the paradigm that has underpinned the organisation and development of China's agriculture from ancient times to the present day. This shows the importance of balancing in the Chinese model as compared to the one-sided imposition of continual modernization in the western model. It is argued that such balancing is at the core of the current Sannong policy, referring to the three ruralities of food sovereignty, wellbeing for peasant households and an attractive countryside.

A person of rare talent and broad appeal, Dhan Gopal Mukerji (1890-1936) holds the distinction of being the first South Asian immigrant to have a successful career in the United States as a man of letters. As the author of two dozen published volumes of poetry, drama, fiction, social commentary, philosophy, translations, and children's stories, Mukerji was a pivotal figure in the transmission and interpretation of Indian traditions to Americans in the first several decades of the twentieth century. This reissue of his classic autobiography "Caste and Outcast," with a new Introduction and Afterword, seeks to revitalize interest in Mukerji and his work and to contribute to the exploration of the South Asian experience in America.
Originally published in 1923, this book is an exercise in both cultural translation and cultural critique. In the first half of the book, Mukerji draws upon his early experiences as a Bengali Brahmin in India, hoping to convey to readers "an intimate impression of eastern life"; the second half describes Mukerji's coming to America and his experiences as a student, worker, and activist in California.
Mukerji's text, written in an engaging personal style, is the kind of ethnographic writing that seeks to render intelligible and familiar the unfamiliar and the exotic. Gordon H. Chang's substantial Introduction locates the story of "Caste and Outcast" within the larger context of Mukerji's life, tracing the author's personal history and his connections to such major figures as Jawaharlal Nehru, M. N. Roy, Van Wyck Brooks, Roger Baldwin, and Will Durant. The Afterword, by Purnima Mankekar and Akhil Gupta, examines the ways in which Mukerji stretches the limits of the autobiographical genre and provides a counternarrative to the dominant nationalist account of American society.

This book explores components of national identity in Victorian Britain by analyzing travel literature. It draws on published and unpublished travel journals by middle-class men and women from England, Scotland, and Wales. The main aim is to illustrate both the contexts that inspired the various collective identities of Britishness, Englishness, Scotsness, and Welshness, as well as the qualities Victorian men and women had in mind when they used such terms to identify and imagine themselves collectively.

This book is abut the place of space in the study of class formation. It consists of a set of papers that fix on different aspects of the human geography of class formation at different points in the history of Britain and the United States over the course of the last 200 years. The book shows that the geography of class formation is a valuable and cross-disciplinary tool in the study of modern societies, integrating the work of human geographers with that of social historians, sociologists, social anthropologists and other social scientists in an enterprise which emphasises the essential unity of social science.

The site of industrial struggle is shifting. Across the Global South, peasant communities are forced off the land to live and work in harsh and impoverished conditions. Inevitably, new methods of combating the spread of industrial capitalism are evolving in ambitious, militant and creative ways. This is the first book to theorise and examine the present and future shape of global class struggles. Immanuel Ness looks at three key countries: China, India and South Africa. In each case he considers the broader historical forces at play - the effects of imperialism, the decline of the trade union movement, the class struggle and the effects of the growing reserve army of labour. For each case study, he narrows his focus to reveal the specifics of each grassroots insurgency: export promotion and the rise of worker insurgency in China, the new labour organisations in India, and the militancy of the miners in South Africa. This is a study about the nature of the new industrial worker in the Global South; about people living a terrifying, precarious existence - but also one of experimentation, solidarity and struggle.

In 2002 widespread communal violence tore apart towns and villages in rural parts of Gujarat, India. In the aftermath, many Muslims living in Hindu-majority villages sought safety in the small town of Anand. Following such dramatic displacement, the town emerged as a site of opportunity and hope. For its residents and transnational visitors, Anand's Muslim area is not just a site of marginalization; it has become an important focal point and regional center from which they can participate in the wider community of Gujarat and reimagine society in more inclusive terms. This compelling ethnography shows how in Anand the experience of residential segregation led not to estrangement or closure but to distinctive forms of mobility and exchange that embed Muslim residents in a variety of social networks. New Lives in Anand moves beyond established notions of ghettoization to foreground the places, practices, and narratives that are significant to the people of Anand. New Lives in Anand is available in an open access edition through the Sustainable History Monograph Pilot, thanks to the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Open access edition: DOI 10.6069/9780295749655

The book's central focus explores several "myths" associated with American entrepreneurship: the idea that small business owners are "job creators"; that entrepreneurs are the "backbone" or "engine" of the economy; that entrepreneurship provides a path of economic mobility for immigrants, ethnic and racial minorities, and women; that the Horatio Algiers "rags to riches" story is possible for anyone willing to work hard. Instead, I provide a critical perspective that challenges these myths of American enterprise, arguing that successful entrepreneurship requires access to social and economic capital resources and support that are often distributed along the lines of race, class, and gender in the highly stratified American economy and society.

Business leaders exert extraordinary influence on institution building in market economies but they think and act within institutional settings. This book combines both an elite approach with a varieties-of-capitalism approach. Comparing Poland, Hungary and East and West Germany, we perceive the transformations in East Central Europe and in Germany after 1989 as being intertwined. Based on a joint survey, this book seeks to measure the level of the convergence of ideas among European business leaders, assuming it to be more extensive than the institutional convergence expected under the dominance of neoliberal discourse. Analyzing the institutional framework, organizational features like size, ownership and labour relations, and subjective characteristics like age, social origin, career patterns and attitudes of the recent business elites, we found significant differences between countries and the types of organization. The growing importance of economic degrees and internationalization shows astonishingly little explanatory power on the views of business leaders. The idea of a coordinated market economy is still relatively widespread among Germans, while their Hungarian and Polish counterparts are more likely to display a minimalist view of corporate responsibility to society and adverse attitudes towards employee representation. However, their attitudes frequently tend to be inconsistent, which mirrors the mixed type of capitalism in East Central Europe.

Criminal Capital explores the relationship between neoliberalism, criminality and the reshaping of class in modern India. It discusses how the political vocabularies of urban industrial workers reflect the processes by which power is distributed across the region. Based upon field research among a 'casualised' workforce in the industrial city of Jamshedpur, the book examines the links between the decline of employment security, and criminality in trade unions, corporations and the state. The volume compares popular discourses of corruption against the ethnography of local labour politics, business enterprise and debt collection, and shows how corruption and criminality consolidate class power in industrial environments. Using an interdisciplinary ethnographic approach, this study interrogates the relationship between capitalism, corruption, violence and labour politics in contemporary Indian society. An important intervention in the study of Indian political economy, this work will be of interest to scholars and researchers of Indian politics, social anthropology, economics, labour relations and criminology.

The Power of Good Deeds allows us to see behind the media image of upper-class women and to observe how these women use their social power not only to benefit other, less-fortunate people, but also to benefit themselves and their families. Kendall's ethnographic research yields the personal narratives of elite women as they describe their views on philanthropy, the need for exclusivity in their by-invitation-only volunteer organizations (such as the Junior League and The Links), their childhood experiences and college years in prestigious schools and sororities, and the debutante presentations and other upper-class rituals in which they participate. By participating in meetings and social functions with elite women in several Texas cities, and conducting systematic interviews, the author gained unprecedented access to elite women across racial and ethnic categories. The Power of Good Deeds provides new insights and greater depth to our knowledge about the upper classes and how the charitable activities of privileged women contribute to the process of legitimization, maintaining an ideology of class-based and race-based segregation in the United States.