printSocial Structure Transformation of Late Capitalism:
from Proletariat and Bourgeoisie Towards Precariat and Creative Class?
Buzgalin A.V.
Dr. Sci. (Econ.), Professor of the Faculty of Economics, Director of the Centre for Contemporary Marxist Studies, Faculty of Philosophy, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow buzgalin@mail.ru
Kolganov A.I.
Dr. Sci. (Econ.), Prof., Head of the Laboratory on Comparative Studies of Socio-Economic Systems at the Faculty of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University; Chief Researcher, Institute of Economy, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia onaglo@mail.ru
Buzgalin A.V., Kolganov A.I. Social Structure Transformation of Late Capitalism: from Proletariat and Bourgeoisie Towards Precariat and Creative Class?. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2019. No 1. P. 18-28
This text presents results of research on the social and class structure of modern society from the positions of the post-Soviet school of Critical Marxism. It is shown that the social stratification of the society of late capitalism is characterized by the diffusion of classes and the active formation of inter- and intra-class layers. A Marxist interpretation of the transformations in the sphere of productive forces and production relations that caused significant changes in the social structure of the countries of the ‘center’ and certain semi-periphery countries (in particular, Russia) is given. Contradictions of the creative class resulting from these transformations are revealed, and its heterogeneity is shown. Classification of the layers composing the creative class was carried out according to two criteria: its place in social production and its place in the system of production relations. So, according to the criterion of place in social production, the creative class is divided into persons engaged in the creatosphere and creating the phenomena of culture and creative qualities of a person, and those engaged in the perversed (useless) sector and ‘creatively’ creating useless goods. According to the criterion of place in the system of production relations, the ‘creative class’ is divided into individuals engaged in the public sector of the creatosphere (the authors call this layer ‘the core of the socialiat’) and individuals engaged in the commercial sector of the creatosphere. The authors introduced scientific concept of ‘socialiat’ to describe the public sector employees who make up the protoclass within the creative class. The characteristics of the core and the periphery of the socialiat as a protoclass are given. The analysis of the precariat as an alter ego of the socialiat available in modern literature is developed in the article. The characteristics of these protoclasses as products of the contradictions of the beginning creative revolution are revealed. A characteristic of the dynamics of the development of the middle class is given in the context of the transformation of the universal law of capitalist accumulation in the conditions of late capitalism.
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