Do classes still exist? Is the notion of class still central to analysing inequalities in industrial society today? In this forceful study, Westergaard's answer to both questions is a firm `yes'. Written from an undogmatic Marxist perspective, the book claims that class analysis remains basic for the understanding of economic conditions and opportunities. The author argues against views - both neo-Marxist and more conventional - that class analysis should focus on questions of `who does what?' rather than `who gets what?' He also examines the reasons for the fall of corporatism and the rise of 'free market' ideas. This discussion is then connected to a critical consideration of the changing nature of welfare provision and its limits, from the 1940s to the 1990s. The final part of the book is an extended critique of once-again fashionable contentions that class division is a thing of the past. Class inequalities have in fact hardened; and though popular political reactions defy prophecy, they do not fit a vision of `classless' politics for the future.

Who Gets What?: The Hardening of Class Inequality in the Late Twentieth Century

Politics & Social Sciences

WESTergaard, John

Social Sciences

Blackwell Pub.

Modern British Society: A Bibliography

Weyman, Anne & Wiles, Paul

Frances Pinter Publishers Ltd

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Books by WESTergaard, John