Klasskamrater revisited

Om klass i ett diskursteoretiskt perspektiv

Abstract

My thesis Classmates was published 1987 and was a late contribution to a theory/political debate that was about to lose its place in the academy. When the Wall fell in 1989, and the neoliberal transformation of Eastern Europe gained momentum, the terms “class” and “class struggle” became obsolete in a world that celebrated the victory of the market economy. However, as many researchers have pointed out, class remains very much a reality. Class should therefore regain its place in critical analysis. New social critical isms; were formulated in the wake of neoliberalism’s global march forward, including a post Marxism. Prominent in this genre are the discourse theorists Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. In this article it is asserted that the concept of class in the contemporary social context must be used in line with both Laclau’s and Mouffe’s theoretical/political achievements. Principally, the possibility of using the concept of class within a discourse theoretical frame work will be discussed. As a test case, I shall use empirical data from Classmates. How are perspectives and analyses affected if Marxism is replaced with post Marxism? Among other things, it is noted that in the theoretical discourse perspective there exists no experience with direct access to reality. Knowledge about the world is always mediated by and through discourses. What, therefore, makes an experience interpretable as a class experience is Marxist discourse. Such an analytical discourse positions workers as “classmates”. For the post Marxist, however, there is no “working class” as an objective component in the capitalist system. The antagonism between labor and capital is thus not enrolled in the system of production. It is discourses that rather determine what meanings shall be ascribed to the “sellers of labor.”