Beyond Social Movements?

Abstract

All of us employ the term `social movements’ in such different ways that our debates are often artificial. Even more clearly, historical analyses of the current situation of any given country and of factors favourable or unfavourable to the formation of social movements are almost meaningless. One must therefore replace this exceedingly vague expression by a precise representation of social dynamics. Without in any way attempting to impose one conception over against others, I wish to examine the historical context of that conception of social life that views it as simultaneously collective action, operation of society on itself, and organized around a central social conflict, opposing those who direct the self-production and transformation of society and those who are subjected to its effects. This conception cannot be identified with a particular current of thought. Rather, Marxist and post-Marxist thought has long been one of the most widespread expressions of this representation. One encounters this representation every time that the notion of social class is employed (at least as this notion is customarily used in Europe), but also every time that society is defined as industrial — that is, by a mode of production. This is the case even when these expressions are in no way associated with a Marxist form of thought.

Reprinted from Theory, Culture and Society, vol. 9 (1992), pp. 125–45.