SOCIOLOGY 621 CLASS, STATE AND IDEOLOGY: AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL SCIENCE IN THE MARXIST TRADITION Fall Semester, 2005 Professor Erik Olin Wright Department of Sociology University of Wisconsin, Madison Office: 8112D Social Science Office hours: 8:30-10:00 a.m., MW, Catacombs Coffeehouse email: [email protected] ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Basic objectives......................................................................................................................................................... v A note on the scope of the course.............................................................................................................................vi Requirements........................................................................................................................................................... vii Lecture Schedule ...................................................................................................................................................... xi COURSE TOPICS PART I. INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS MARXISM? WHY STUDY IT?......................................................... 1 1. Setting the agenda: The Goals of Emancipatory Social Theory................................................................... 1 2. The overall structure of Marxist theory........................................................................................................ 2 3. The overall structure of Marxist theory, continued ...................................................................................... 2 PART II. THE THEORY OF HISTORY.............................................................................................................. 4 4. The Classical Marxist Theory of History ..................................................................................................... 4 5. The Classical Marxist theory of History, continued..................................................................................... 4 6. Critiques and reconstructions ....................................................................................................................... 6 7. Critiques and reconstructions ....................................................................................................................... 6 8. Capitalist Dynamics: a sketch of a theory of capitalist trajectory................................................................. 7 PART III. CLASS STRUCTURE ......................................................................................................................... 9 9. What is Class? .............................................................................................................................................. 9 10. The Concept of Exploitation...................................................................................................................... 10 11. Rethinking the Class Structure of Capitalism............................................................................................ 12 12. Class and Gender I: Marxism and feminism ............................................................................................. 13 13. Class and Gender II: the interaction of class and gender........................................................................... 14 14. Class and Race........................................................................................................................................... 15 IV. CLASS FORMATION.................................................................................................................................... 17 15. Basic Concepts of class formation............................................................................................................. 17 16. Rationality, solidarity and class struggle................................................................................................... 17 17. Dilemmas of Working Class Collective Action ........................................................................................ 18 18. Class Compromise..................................................................................................................................... 18 PART V. THE THEORY OF THE STATE AND POLITICS .......................................................................... 20 19. What is “Politics”? What is “the state”?.................................................................................................... 20 20. What, if anything, makes the capitalist state a capitalist state? Is the state a patriarchal state?............... 21 21. The State & Accumulation: functionality and contradiction..................................................................... 22 22. The State and the Working Class: The democratic capitalist state and social Stability............................. 24 PART VI. IDEOLOGY AND CONSCIOUSNESS............................................................................................ 26 23. What is Ideology?...................................................................................................................................... 26 24. Mystification: ideology as false consciousness ......................................................................................... 27 25. Ideological Hegemony and Legitimation ................................................................................................. 29 26. Ideology and Exploitation: the problem of consent................................................................................... 30 27. Explaining Ideology: Micro-foundations for the theory........................................................................... 31 PART VII. SOCIALISM AND EMANCIPATION............................................................................................ 32 28. The Classical Theory of Socialism............................................................................................................ 32 29. New Models of emancipatory futures........................................................................................................ 33Introduction iii SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS ON THE THEORY OF HISTORY (i). An Historical Example: The Origins of Capitalism .................................................................................... 35
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