Class formation and capitalism. A second look at a classic

Abstract

Studies of class-formation have long been dominated by anespitemology of absensethe study of theabsenceof Marx's predicted revolutionary class consciousness among the Western working class. Katznelson's and Zolberg's pathbreakingWorking-Class Formation: Ninetenth-century Patterns in Western Europe and the United States(1986) posed a major challenge to this tradition. Instead of being seen as deviant or exceptional, moreover, the individual cases of class formation are analysed asvariationsthat can only be explained by each nation's pattern of historicalprimarily politicalformation. An instant classic,Working-Class Formationhas not to date been surpassed by subsequent studies. This essay reviews the strenghts and the weaknesses of this classic volume, suggesting in the final analysis that it does not quite realize the full extent of its radical implications.