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This paper examines the relationship between social class and social
mobilization through reviewing the case of new social movements. The
middle-class membership of new social movements is well documented but
poorly explained by current New Class, New Social Movement, and Cultural
Shift theories. These theories fail to recognize the interdependence between
interests, values, and expressed ideas. Class culture provides an alternative
framework for interpreting the complex relationships between class interests and
consciousness in these movements. Through a comparison of working- and
middle-class cultures, it is proposed that social class orders consciousness and
shapes the interpretation of interests. Class cultures produce distinct class forms
of political and organizational behavior while not defining any particular
content of movement issues or politics. In particular, the middle-class
membership of new social movements is explained by the cultural form of these
movements which is distinctly middle class.
KEY WORDS: new social movements; social movements; working class-politics;
class-politics; class culture.
middle
INTRODUCTION
What is the relationship between social class and social mobilization?
Marx and Engels proposed a simple and compelling but inadequate
'An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the American Sociological Association annual
meeting, New York, August 1996.
2Department of Urban and Environmental Policy, Tufts University, 97 Talbot, Medford, Massachusetts 02155.
3Address correspondence to Fred Rose, 3 McClelland Farm Rd., Deerfield, Massachusetts
01342.
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0884-8971/97/0900-0461$12.50/0 ? 1997 Plenum Publishing Corporation
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sponsive to these societywide changes. A third "Cultural Shift" theory, representative of theories about postindustrial society, proposes that new social
movements represent a change in values due to the growing wealth of society. The middle class is the most advanced sector of this societywide
change. The strengths and limitations of these theories are explored below.
New Class theory applies Marx's materialist interpretation of history
to the middle class, suggesting that new social movements advance class
interests.8 The new middle class consists of managers and professionals who
control organizational skills and knowledge through recently expanded institutions within the state, corporate, and non-profit sectors. Professional
and managerial occupations have grown from a minor segment of the workforce in the last century (9% in 1870) to among the largest today (27% in
1980; Gilbert and Kahl, 1982; Bruce-Briggs, 1979). While Marx described
how the capitalist class emerged as a new class within the feudal society
that it later replaced, this theory proposes that the new professional-managerial class could represent the new class that will supplant capitalism.9
Alvin Gouldner provides perhaps the most sophisticatedvariation on the
rise of the new class, emphasizingboth cultural struggle as well as the pursuit
of class interests.The professionalmiddle class bringswith it a new set of values
and goals, most significantlyits emphasis on rationalityand rejection of arbitrary authority.It creates new forms of hierarchybased on merit, educational
attainment, and rational regulation by experts. The interests of this new class
are bound within these new, rationallybased institutions.Thus the struggle between the rising professional middle-class and the old capitalist class has both
a cultural and material dimension. The middle class challenges capitalist profit
maximizationas a goal as well as the materialorganizationof privateenterprise.
In Gouldner's scheme, new class movements advance class interests in
their emerging struggle for power against the capitalist class. Gouldner proposes a general pattern of intellectuals and professionals rebelling against
established authorities as they find opportunities restricted and access to
political power blocked. Movements of the 1960s are seen as elements of
class struggle against the old dominant capitalist class. Students, blacks,
and women sought access to professional middle-class jobs and thus expansion of institutions that employ the new class. Gouldner argues that the
also used the conceptof a new class to attackliberalismas elitist startingin
8Conservatives
the 1970s(Ehrenreich,1989).
9It is worthnotingthat Marxwas inconsistentin his theoryaboutthe overthrowof capitalism,
particularlyregardingthe role of the workingclass. His generaltheoryof historyproposes
that a new class from outside the contemporaryeconomicsystemwill eventuallyoverthrow
the existingdominantclass. He then proposesthat the workingclass will be the agent of
change under capitalism,despite its positionwithin and not outside the existingeconomic
system(1848/1948).The formerinterpretationis the basisof "newclass"theories,while the
latterremainsthe main thrustof most Marxistthinking.
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student movement was also a struggle for new class interests as students
rebelled against conditions such as large classes with limited access to faculty and their low pay as teaching assistants (1979: 66-72).10 Consistent
with this interest analysis, Gouldner believes that the environmental movement represents "guerilla warfare" against the irrationality of corporate
polluters (1979:17). The Vietnam war was also opposed by intellectuals who
felt their access to power blocked (1979:63).
These attempts to interpret new social movements as aspects of class
conflict fail in several ways. First, they oversimplify the goals of these movements, which cannot be understood in the narrow framework of class interests. For example, the individual or class benefits from efforts to preserve
remote areas such as the arctic or obscure species such as snail darters are
insignificant. In many instances, regulations create substantial costs that industry passes on as higher prices, contrary to consumer interests. Often,
the middle-class is not an immediate beneficiary of new social movement
activism. Furthermore, class interest doesn't explain why the environmental
movement is a middle-class rather than lower-class movement. On the basis
of class interests alone, environmental protections could benefit lower class
members more than the middle class because pollution is disproportionately placed in lower income neighborhoods (Goldman, 1993).
A related weakness is that New Class theories do not distinguish the
qualitatively different nature of new social movement demands from classinterest movements. New social movements pursue universal goals that cut
across classes. Clean air or disarmament, for instance, have distributional
implications, but these depend on how these goals are enacted. Distributional impacts are often ignored by new social movements, which are notoriously ignorant of the economic and social implications of their
programs.1l Gouldner does recognize that the middle class can align with
different classes, but new social movements are more ambiguous than this.
Different segments of the same movement may ally with different classes
or may shift alliances depending on the issue.12 Thus class interests do not
'(While Gouldner is sympathetic to the rise of the new class, his arguments are similar to
those of critics who condemn new social movements for advancing narrow class interests.
See Tucker (1982) and Wildavsky (1979). Advocates for low-income and minority communities also criticize middle-class movements for advancing self-interests. See Bullard (1993).
While conservatives and radicals may agree that the middle-class movement is pursuing
narrow class interests, they strongly disagree about the implications of this observation.
"The environmental justice movement has been highly critical of the failure of the environmental movement to address distributional consequences of environmental policies (Bullard,
1993; Pulido, 1993). Steven Beuchler documents the bias against class and race inequalities
within the predominantly middle-class women's movement (1990: ch. 4).
12This was well illustrated during the 1993 debate about the North American Free Trade
Agreement during which environmental groups were divided in their allegiances with labor
or business interests. These alliances changed throughout the course of the negotiations
around NAFTA as well (Dowie, 1995:185-188).
467
explain what unifies these movements whose issues cut across class lines
with inconsistent distributional implications.
Finally, New Class theory fails to recognize that new social movements
challenge some basic tenets of middle-class society and are not simple extensions of middle-class power. Segments of these movements do seek to make
society more rational as Gouldner suggests. However many of the goals of
these middle-class movements run counter to the technocratic and bureaucratic interests of middle class professionals. New Social Movement theorists
rightly observe that these movements rebel against the over-rationalization
of society (Offe, 1985; Melucci, 1980). They promote participatory democracy over expertise, personalized lifestyles over institutionalization, and scepticism of technology over progress. The movements of the 1960s and their
heirs sought to find alternatives to the rationalized world of their parents and
challenged some key dimensions of established class-based interests. They
did not seek a more rational socialism, but a more decentralized democracy.13
In sum, New Class theories fail to understand the relationships between consciousness and action. They deny the significance of expressed
beliefs and interpret consciousness as a mask for underlying ideological and
material interests. They therefore cannot explain many dimensions of middle-class movements that do not advance well-defined class interests.
New Social Movement theorists address some of the weaknesses of New
Class theory. This European school interprets these movements as a defensive response to structural changes in the economic system. Rather than a
shift toward socialism, these theorists perceive a new stage of "disorganized"
capitalism (Offe, 1980; Lash and Urry, 1987). Applying Habermas's concept
of life-space, New Social Movement theorists argue that the production process has imposed new levels of control beyond the sphere of production into
consumption, services, and social relations. This encroachment is caused by
the growing needs of capitalism to control not only labor power but also complex organizational systems, information, processes of symbol formation, and
interpersonal relations. As Alberto Melucci explains (1980:219),
The new social movements are struggling, therefore, not only for the
reappropriation of the material structure of production, but also for collective
control over socio-economic development, i.e., for the reappropriation of time, of
space, and of relationships in the individual's daily existence.
Rather than class interests, these movements seek new forms of community
to replace the "formal, abstract and instrumental relationships characterizing state and society" (Breines, 1982).
3For example, the Port Huron statement says, "But today, for us, not even the liberal and
As a
socialist preachments of the past seem adequate to the forms of the present ....
"
social system we seek the establishment of a democracy of individual participation ....
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sponsible for conflicts between working- and middle-class movements over issues and politics. New Social Movement theories cannot explain why activists
in these movements remain so predominantlymiddle class.
Several additional limitations throw doubt upon the adequacy of New
Social Movement theories as well. First, these movements are not as new
as this school implies. Many of the themes that characterize the present
environmental movement have emerged repeatedly since the rise of industrialism and urbanization (Gottlieb, 1993). Middle-class movements from
the past share important characteristics of the so called new social movements. For example, John Gilkeson, Jr (1986) describes how middle-class
reform movements have long represented their ideas in terms of the general public interest as opposed to special interests. Middle-class movements
such as the temperance movement, Progressive Era reforms, and the
women's movement have historically been middle class and pursued broad
transformation of values. My point here is not that nothing distinguishes
these movements from so-called old social movements, as Sidney Tarrow
(1989) claims, but that middle-class movements have much in common
throughout American history. I will argue below that what distinguishes
these movements is not their newness but their middle-class origins.
Finally, the truth about New Left attitudes toward rationality and planning again lies between New Class and New Social Movement theories.
Peace, environmental, and feminist movements are divided between those
who seek to make society more rational through government intervention,
scientific management, and equal application of laws and those who see
these forms of bureaucratic, scientific, and legal rationalization as a major
cause of the problems they seek to change. On the side of greater rationality are world order and international government advocates in the peace
movement and science-based ecology and environmental organizations.
Each of these movements also has its spiritual wing that argues that science
cannot resolve problems already too steeped in rationality.16
New Social Movement theories, in sum, again fail to adequately conceptualize the relationships between interests, beliefs, and action. They take
expressed beliefs too literally and ignore unarticulated interests. Without a
theory of interests, their explanations for the class make up of movements
is underdetermined. Neither New Social Movement nor New Class theories
are able to explain the complexity within these movements.
Ronald Inglehart's Cultural Shift theory addresses some but not all of
these difficulties with the new social movement approach (1977, 1990).
Inglehart agrees with most of the observations made by New Social Move16For spiritual perspectives regarding the peace movement see Barbara Epstein (1990). For
a spiritual view from the environmental movement see Bill Devall and George Sessions
(1985).
471
ment analysts but proposes a very different explanation for these trends.
While New Social Movement theorists perceive these movements as a defensive reaction against the encroachment of invasive capitalism, Inglehart
proposes that they are a positive affirmation of new values resulting from
growing affluence. Capitalist development, therefore, is viewed as a positive
rather than negative process. Rather than protecting existing spheres of
life from new encroachments, Inglehart sees a new "postmaterialist" generation discovering new values given their freedom from material want. A
growing share of the population in industrialized countries is being liberated from preoccupation with economics and survival and shifting attention
toward the search for personal meaning and quality of life. To Inglehart,
the more affluent middle class is making this shift first, while those with
greater material needs are still struggling to survive.
The Cultural Shift approach has the advantage of suggesting why the
middle class is disproportionately represented in new social movements.
Indeed, Inglehart argues that the trends he is documenting will be influenced by economic conditions throughout society. He also suggests that
middle-class movements may have always taken similar forms because of
their relative affluence.
Inglehart's theory has four significant flaws. First it overstates the shift
away from material conflicts that have grown more severe in the past decade and remain a major concern for middle-class as well as working class
people. The 1990 census found 31 million Americans living below the poverty line. Wages dropped an average of 9% in the 1980s while people are
working more hours to compensate. These economic concerns have reached
into the middle class, where young people can expect to earn less than
their parents for the first time since the Depression. In these and many
more ways, this is not a postmaterialist society. This complication could be
consistent with Inglehart's theory if middle-class movements shift toward
more material goals, but it raises questions about his characterization of
contemporary society.
However, Inglehart's theory applies an ahistorical definition of material needs that ignores the continued demand for material goods in wealthy
nations. In his view, human nature defines a hierarchy of needs that are
first material and then, once these are met, cultural and social. But material
wants are far more elastic than this theory suggests. Greater material abundance has not brought the end of wants but rather an ever increasing demand for material goods. Needs, therefore, must be understood as socially
defined, and they change over time. There is no inevitability to the shift
away from materialism. Thus living in the nation with the highest level of
consumption in the world, Americans continue to seek new forms of ma-
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CLASS CULTURALTHEORY
My use of class culture draws on Pierre Bourdieu's understanding of
habitus as the "system of durable, transposable
dispositions"
(1977/1990:72), of which class habitus refers to dispositions that derive from
social position. Like class habitus, class cultures derive from position within
the production process. Practices for Bourdieu are the products of habitus
strategically applied in particular situations. Cultural forms, produced and
reproduced through practice, combine both conformity and resistance to
the structural demands of class. Class cultures, therefore, reflect evolving
strategies for living within class structures. An understanding of class cultures, then, requires an analysis of both the structures within which classes
function and particular strategies adopted by class members.
Class structures culture both through direct experiences within the production process and through institutions that socialize class members for
work. The influence of production processes derives from both the material
and cultural organization of work. Using similar capital resources, work
can be organized in many different ways depending on management techniques and the distribution of information-that is, depending on cultural
variables.18 Different classes confront distinct forms of authority relationships, work organization, and social regulation in the workplace that shape
different class cultures. Furthermore, values, beliefs, relationships, and ex171 use working class and middle class as ideal types in the following discussion. The gener-
alizations below describe the most characteristic cases, and the description of middle-class
culture provides a good approximation for new social movements whose members draw
disproportionately from the professional middle class.
Loss of competitiveness of the U.S. in the 1980s drew attention to the significance of cultural
variables for organizing work, particularly in Japan and Western Europe vs. the United
States. See Piore and Sabel (1984) and Hall (1986).
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ships, work organization, and social regulation differ between classes based
on the control of information and the system of management.
Professional occupations are characterized by mastery of a specialized
skill through extensive training and credentialing. Middle-class work entails
some degree of judgement, applying knowledge to unique situations. This
work cannot be reduced to mechanical tasks, and thus close managerial
supervision of professionals is ineffective. Professional success is not judged
by performance of individual tasks, but by the quality of results evaluated
over time. Management must, therefore, use inducements for success rather
than mechanical rewards and punishments to motivate the middle class to
accomplish. This system of incentives draws on the middle-class's internalized beliefs about accomplishment and success, leaving significant individual autonomy over how tasks are accomplished. Inducements to perform
may take the form of material rewards, but just as important to the middle
class is the quality of life. Management, therefore, seeks to keep its middle-class professionals happy through providing amenities such as flexibility,
autonomy, a desirable physical environment, or access to recreation or congenial communities (Markusen, 1986).
By contrast, working-classwork entails manual labor with limited autonomy in the work process. Machines and mechanical techniques enable managers to routinize production and assert control over the details of
working-classwork (Braverman, 1974; Shostak, 1969). This work is regulated
by direct rewards and punishments that create a culture based on compulsion. Tasks and expectations are defined by management, and time is generally regulated from the moment a worker punches the clock at the beginning
of a shift to the minutes allowed for breaks to the amount of output required
per day. Failure to meet these expectations is punished by loss of wages, privifuncleges, and ultimately one's job. Workers know the rules that they must
on
the
of
for
some
search
job takes
autonomy
tion within, and the
degree
culture
the
Thus
resistance
direct
or
the form of surreptitious
(Halle, 1984).
with
battle
the
authority.
of the work place is defined by
daily
For both the working and middle classes, there is a direct correspondence between the physical organization of the production process and the
cultural demands of the workplace. These material and cultural dimensions
are related through the secondary factors of production: knowledge and
managerial control.20 Working-class jobs generally involve manipulating
and
things, require conformity to rules, and are subject to standardization
that
in
work
class
of
the
Members
participate
working
external regulation.
201 borrow from and extend E. O. Wright's (1985) analysis here. While Wright perceives
conknowledge and managerial skills as secondary factors needed for production that are
trolled by the middle class, I propose that these are also elements of every work process.
The forms these take structure work as much as material determinants.
477
is routine and repetitive over which they have very little control. This working environment is culturally characterized by demands for conformity, deference to authority, physical skill, and stamina but limited intellectual
engagement, and accommodation to redundant tasks. Middle-class work
generally involves some intellectual tasks, is free from close supervision,
and requires self-direction and internal regulation.The professional middle
class is especially distinguished by higher education and broad flexibility in
the work process, while still lacking control over the products of labor. The
middle class is organized around a culture of autonomy, personal responsibility, intellectual engagement, variability, and change.
The cultural characteristics and interests of the middle class emerge
from the cultural and material organization of the work process. To achieve
the necessary level of expertise and internalized values of success, the middle class must devote enormous energies to education and accreditation.
Internal forms of regulation are taught from an early age (Kohn, 1969;
Gecas and Nye, 1974; Bronfenbrenner, 1972). Young people are rewarded
for developing their own interests and advancing their skills. Thus one's
life chances as a professional result from self-development-that is, developing a sense of self-confidence, initiative, autonomy, and expertise to excel
within a profession. Working-class culture and interests contrast with those
of the middle class in many respects. While middle-class education emphasizes internalized values, the working class teaches its young to survive by
knowing how to work within or around rules.21 Where the middle class
develops a sense of self-worth tied to meaningful work, this is less true for
the working class. Because work is often mechanical, tedious, and dictated
by others, the working class tends to invest more meaning in home life and
leisure activities (Halle, 1984; Gans, 1962). Work is something one does
because one must make a living.
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interests as well. All social groups are motivated by both interests and values, despite the cultural forms within which classes express themselves.
It is also important to note that the analysis here is one of causality
but not necessity. Movement organizing represents one of a diverse range
of strategies adopted within each class. The argument here is not that all
working- or middle-class people conform to the patterns described here.
The different strategies of activist vs. inactive segments of each class are
significant. Nor are the politics of these movements determined by class,
and movements may be progressive, conservative, or reactionary. However,
when class members do mobilize, their movements take forms that are distinctly class based.
The form of working-class organizing is a direct outgrowth of the external regulation of the working class. Workers experience opposition to
their wants and needs from the power of outside groups that control the
system of rewards and punishments (Gans, 1962; Rubin, 1976; Bernstein,
1971). (Interests are not restricted to material goods, but include such intangibles as fairness and respect.) In this power struggle, the working class
achieves its interests through winning against the interests of others.
The structure of working-class society reinforces this sense of interest
competition by defining a clear division between members and outsiders.
While members expect others within their peer group to take their interests
into account, making the relationship more important than object goals, they
learn that outsiders, be they bosses, teachers, police, or others, do not operate
by the same values. The common interests that apply within the group are
often violated by outsiders who place their own interests over personal relationships. Thus working-class members tend to distinguish their behavior toward members of their own group from attitudes and behavior toward
outsiders. They come to assume that outsiders act for their own advantage,
and government and business appear to be run by people motivated by personal gain (Gans, 1962; Parkin, 1968; Cohen and Hodges, 1963).
Consistent with their class experience of social regulation, workingclass movements interpret politics in terms of interest competition also. Individual and group interests are evident in a system of external authority.
Such interests as fair working conditions, job security, reasonable processes
for dispute settlement, improved benefits, wages and working hours, and
personal safety are representative of the goals of the labor movement and
the interests of working people against the interests of management.
The appeal to interests is appropriate among the working class whose
members generally join organizations to improve some immediate condition
or as an extension of peer group networks. This contrasts with the middleclass's motivations for joining organizations to advance personal or professional beliefs and development. The working class joins far fewer
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associations, and when its members join, it is generally for pragmatic reasons (Hyman and Wright, 1971; Gans, 1962).
The working-class appeal to interests does not discount the use of
moral language, and this is particularly true in religious-based movements.
Every social movement, like any successful political actor, must frame its
goals in moral terms that appeal to the wider community. However, these
moral arguments are generally extensions of interest claims. Social justice,
equality, and claims of rights justify these interests as legitimate, in contrast
with groups in power whose interests are illegitimate. This distinction between the interests of people who are oppressed and of those who are
exploiting, of those who lack and those who wield power can only be made
with reference to moral language. However, this is an appeal to legitimate
interests, which is very different from the value claims of middle-class
movements. The appeal to values by working-class movements is consistent
with the interest model of organizing described here.
Labor organizing and its counterpart community organizing illustrate
these characteristics of working-class organizing. These strategies are explicit in the training literature of community organizers. The Midwest Academy, training institute for the Citizen Action network, states that the three
principals of organizing are "to win real and immediate improvements in
people's lives . .., give people a sense of their own real power ..., [and]
alter the relations of power between people's organizations and their real
enemies" (1987:10). These principals define politics as a competition over
interests polarized between workers and bosses, haves and have-nots, oppressors and oppressed. The strategy of building powerful unions or community organizations is a response to deprivations imposed by controlling
groups in an externally regulated society.
By contrast, the professional middle class tends to experience the barriers to change not as opposing powerful groups, but as people's values,
norms, and understandings. This reflects the way that middle-class work
and social life are regulated, which is through internalized ideas and values.
In the framework of middle-class work, new values and ideas do translate
into tangible change; a teacher, lawyer, or other professional who develops
a new conception of goals or values would alter his or her practice accordingly. Thus this cultural, consciousness-driven conception of human action
is a direct outgrowth of the life experience of the professional middle class.
Middle-class interests are directly tied to both the form and substance
of personal ideas and social values. These interests take two forms. First,
the middle class has an interest in maintaining an orderly society with clear
Gouldprocedural rules and standards for accomplishment and reward, as
from
comes
that
the
success
for
is
ner notes. That order necessary
ensuring
middleand
skills
of
Many
the
knowledge.
accreditation and
acquisition
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theory assumes that wars are generally the result of misunderstandings, and
so honest discussion will cause a rapid change in consciousness favoring
peace. Educator theory similarly seeks to instruct about the facts regarding
the threats of war, but with an ongoing commitment to providing the most
current information to evaluate the best course of action. Intellectual theory emphasizes not only providing facts but formulating insights and frameworks for understanding as the basis for moving policymakers to change.
The other three approaches to change supplement educational approaches
with some form of other political action. Protesters seek to disrupt the normal flow of society in order to gain attention for the ideas that they espouse. Politician theory supports working through the legislative process to
persuade politicians of the rightness of a cause. Finally, prophet theory
emphasizes personal transformation rather than persuasive ideas, promoting personal acts of responsibility such as civil disobedience with the hope
of persuading others to follow this example. While there is significant variation in these approaches to change, all focus on changing ideas and/or
values as the basis for mobilizing people and achieving their goals.
Among the six theories listed above, politician theory comes closest
to an analysis of interest politics. Middle-class activists certainly do participate in traditional interest politics in order to promote legislative and electoral change. However, even pragmatic goals such as winning votes or
elections are often seen as aspects of a broader educational agenda. Votes
are viewed as a reflection of people's beliefs and convictions. As one peace
activist explained,
The important thing is not to see electoral work as some kind of a panacea, because
you can only do effective electoral work if you've built up a sizeable organization
and if you've heightened the public's consciousness on peace issues. If you've got
a public out there that thinks building bombs is just great, they're not going to
elect candidates who want to get rid of all the bombs. You've got to do the public
education and organization building in order to make change. And the public
education and organization building are valuable in and of themselves, but they're
also an essential precondition for doing effective electoral work. (Director of the
Maine Peace Campaign, interview by author, July 1991).
483
bers originate. Class shapes these movements not through some abstract
collective interests in wealth, resources, or opportunities, but through class
culture. New social movements reflect middle-class origins even though
they do not explicitly articulate their goals in class terms.
The actors, issues, values, and "modes of action" identified by New Social
Movement theorists can now be seen as direct expressions of middle-class culture. The middle class's political activityis an extension of personal conviction
and personal or career development, in contrast with the working class. It is
through work, either paid or voluntary,that the middle class develops its sense
of identity, purpose, and meaning. Movement activity is part of that work for
the middle class. This is clearest for the fraction of middle-class activists who
find careers in movement organizations.Yet even for others, political activity
extends chosen areas of interest through which individualsdefine themselves.
Issues of personal identity are therefore as central to new social movements as they are for the middle class in general. Middle-class movements
reflect the middle-class struggle to define oneself through one's work and
knowledge. Middle-class interests are directly related to this search for personal identity that decides one's work, occupational success, friendships,
and status. For those who reject the standard career-based identities that
are available to them, movements offer an alternative avenue for self-definition. These movements seek to establish new forms of identity as legitimate options in society. This movement goal extends middle-class
developmental processes which require individuals to choose an identity
through that they define their work and positions in society.
The search to define oneself through social action and beliefs distinguishes middle-class from working-classmovements more than any particular
set of issues. Working-classorganizations do address issues such as the environment, peace, or women's rights, but working-class segments of these
movements do not fit the New Social Movement model. This is graphically
illustrated by the emergence of the anti-toxics movement that has mobilized
working-class and low-income communities around environmental issues, although with a very different conception of the environment than the middleclass movement. Anti-toxics advocates argue that concern for environmental
issues is widespread among their constituents, despite the fact that they have
generally not joined mainstream organizations. The anti-toxics movement fits
many characteristics of "old" social movements in that it addresses issues of
immediate need, challenges the distribution of benefits in society, and is
based in a class of people in society acting for its own needs and benefits.
Social movements based in non middle-class communities can clearly be very
different from middle-class movements despite addressing common issues.
The forms of new social movement organizations also emerge directly
from middle-class culture. Middle-class movements must be flexible and
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egalitarian to accommodate many individuals searching for their own identities and seeking a sense of purpose tied to their knowledge and actions.
The emphasis on equality is an acknowledgment of the value placed on
the individual quest to define one's own direction. Since most people join
these organizations as volunteers based on internalized purposes, these organizations rely on individual initiative to succeed. This also leads organizations to emphasize egalitarian roles with few means to compel members
to participate. Rather, these movement organizations provide avenues for
individuals to act based on their own sense of purpose.
Class-Culturaltheory resolves the ambiguities and contradictions found
in New Social Movement, New Class, and Cultural Shift explanations. It provides a more inclusive understanding of new social movements by acknowledging that interests, values, and consciousness play important roles in
motivating behavior. New Class theory fails to take the explicit goals of middle-class movements seriouslywhile New Social Movement and Cultural Shift
theories take them too literally and fail to perceive unstated class interests.
Middle-class culture, however, teaches the middle class sincere devotion to
ideas, but this devotion also serves important interests in defining one's position in society. This interrelationshipderives from the nature of professional
life in which one's expertise shapes one's career and life chances.
Class-Cultural theory provides a more consistent understanding of the
new social movement emphasis on values than previous approaches. Where
New Social Movement theorists see a response to a new form of capitalism,
and Cultural Shift theorists see a post materialist world, Class-Cultural
analysis suggests continuity with the past. Middle-class movements have always framed their issues in moral terms, and working-class movements will
continue to frame their issues in terms of interests. Middle-class movements
express their issues in terms of values as a reflection of the cultural background of those who join these movements. Thus new social movements
reflect a continuity with society rather than some dramatic schism.
It is also clear from this analysis why new social movements draw their
members from the middle class. Since these movements take middle-class
forms, they fail to address the concerns of other classes and pursue politics
in ways that are alien to them. This explains the ongoing tensions between
middle-class and other-class movements, again as evident by the environmental justice movement. People of color and low-income people consistently express their sense of alienation from middle-class movement
organizations. This reflects the cultural and material gap between their lives
and the forms that middle-class movements take.25
25For charges of racism in the environmental movement see letters sent to the "big ten" environmental organizations by several environmental justice groups, reprinted by Friends of
the Earth (1990).
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CONCLUSIONS
This paper proposes that social class shapes social movements through
the medium of class culture. Class cultures encompass a range of historically evolving strategies that adapt to the structural conditions that confront
each class. Movements represent one form of strategy that reproduces and
reflects class culture while adapting its resources for collective action directed at class-relevant forms of change. Therefore, distinct class cultures
produce characteristic forms of movements and kinds of change. In general,
working-class culture teaches pursuit of personal interests in the struggle
against others who would advance their interests at one's expense. Working-class movements are often a direct outgrowth of this struggle, centered
around the pursuit of immediate interests through building sufficient political power to oppose those allied against one's group. By contrast, middle-class culture teaches development of personal skills and commitments
in order to excel in a system judged by the quality of one's work. Middleclass movements tend to pursue universal goals through education about
values and beliefs as a direct outgrowth of their class-based experiences.
Interests remain central to this understanding of class, but interests
must be interpreted within the distinct contexts defined by different classes.
Middle-class advancement, for instance, is tied to developing expertise and
an internalized sense of accomplishment within a particular discipline. The
resulting interest in asserting the value of this professional or personal
knowledge and purpose cannot be understood simply on the level of direct
material gain. The values expressed by members of the middle-class are
real motivators of behavior on their own terms, as they are for middle-class
movements. Furthermore, the search for identity, which is an important
dimension of middle-class life and movements, represents a critical interest
that is again expressed at the cultural level. Class interests and values intertwine in movement politics.
The study of class forms of social movements contributes to an understanding of class cultures. Comparing movements across classes isolates
similar strategies of collective action applied within different class contexts.
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This controls an important variable among the diverse strategies that coexist within each class culture. A comparison of working vs. middle-class
movements highlights the values, interests, organizational forms, and ideas
that characterize each class culture.
Class, therefore, delineates the form that movements take rather than
any particular political content. New social movements include organizations that exhibit a wide spectrum of politics that may be aligned with working- or owning-class groups. What unites these movements is their
class-based memberships, focus on universal issues, emphasis on middleclass values, and their use of education and value approaches to social
change. This analysis suggests that the particular content of movement politics is determined by specific experiences and circumstances interpreted
through the lens of class-culture. Thus the content of politics cannot be
read from class position, but the form of politics can to a large degree.
A class-cultural framework resolves many of the contradictions and
ambiguities in other theories about the role of values, interests, and expressed ideas in shaping movement behavior; about the role that class plays
in movement politics; about the reasons for the class makeup of movements. New Class theories that interpret new social movements as self-interested class actors ignore the role of beliefs in motivating middle-class
behavior. They are also unable to explain the tensions between these movements and the mainstream of the middle class. New Social Movement
Theories appreciate the cultural struggles of these movements but ignore
the interests that these movements serve. By taking movement goals at face
value alone, they overlook the continuity between these movements and
the class from which they emerge. Cultural Shift theory also suffers from
ignoring the interests disguised by the language of values. Middle-class interests can only be understood in the comprehensive framework of middle-class life as they are integrated with beliefs and values. Class-cultural
theory provides a framework that links culture and interests as they emerge
within the work process, which is where class is defined.
From a class-cultural perspective, new social movements can be understood as contemporary examples of middle-class movements. They address moral issues as an extension of middle-class forms of internalized
social regulation. Change is pursued through raising consciousness and affecting lifestyles because the middle class defines its own activities by its
ideas and beliefs. Organizations are informal because middle-class participation is voluntary and based on personal motivations. These and many
other qualities of new social movements reflect middle-class cultural practices and interests.
Class cultural theory has important implications for movement micromobilization, consciousness and identity formation, strategies and politics.
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