Labour Markets Identities Controversies

Debates about labour markets and the identity of those who, in an economic sense, circulate within them, together with the controversies such issues generate, have in the past been confined by development studies to the Third World. Now these same concerns have shifted, as the study of development has turned its attention to how these same phenomena affect metropolitan capitalist nations. For this reason, the book does not restrict the analysis of issues such as the free/unfree labour distinction and non-class identity to Third World contexts. The reviews, review essays and essays collected here also examine similar issues now evident in metropolitan capitalism, together with their political and ideological effects and implications.

As a product of its time, the call centre utilises new developments in telecommunications and information technology to offer cost-efficient delivery systems for customer care. Efficiency, productivity and flexibility are all embodiments of neoliberal market capitalism and are all personified in the call centre operation, as well as the structure of the labour market in general. Thus the individual and the workplace are embedded in a variety of global processes. In order to frame the context in which call centre operations exist today and their employees (mainly young men and women) negotiate the increasingly risky and individualised task of developing an identity or sense of belonging in the world, Labour Markets and Identity on the Post-Industrial Assembly Line sets out the economic, social and political changes over the last three decades that have restructured the labour market, altered the balance between labour, management and the state, and unleashed global market capitalism upon previously sheltered areas of the economy and social life in both Britain and elsewhere. This ground-breaking book offers one of the first real qualitative sociological investigations of a relatively new form of employment, to see what life is like on the 'post-industrial assembly line', whilst also taking a close look at the nature of class, identity and subjectivity in relation to young people coming of age in a world dramatically altered over the last three decades.

The book constitutes an attempt by Marxist political economy to extricate itself from mistaken attempts to conflate it with the cultural turn, identity politics, bourgeois economics, or varieties of populism and nationalism, together with the danger of not doing so.

In Marx Matters noted scholars explore the way a Marxian political economy addresses contemporary social problems, demonstrating the relevance of Marx today and outlining how his work can frame progressive programs for social change.

Examined here is political discourse about the pattern and desirability of economic development, extending from historical and contemporary views about race, culture, and labour regimes, to how the same themes inform travel writing.

Support for a radical politics and its form of political mobilization exists, but in the absence of a revolutionary leftist project, this support has in the past, and is currently, been transferred to the counter-revolutionary politics on offer from the other end of the ideological spectrum.

Controversial Issues in a Disabling Society has been written specifically to raise questions and stimulate debate. It has been designed for use with students in group discussion, and to support in-depth study on a variety of professional courses. It covers a wide range of specific, substantive issues within Disability Studies in a series of succinct chapters. Each chapter sets a question for debate, places the key issues in context and presents a particular argument. This is an accessible and engaging book which challenges dominant positions and ideologies from a social model viewpoint of disability.

This volume forms part of a series on contemporary sociologists. The work of each scholar chosen is internationally recognized and relates to the core of sociology in the 1990s. This text covers the main themes of John Goldthorpe's work, and includes his replies to criticisms of his ideas.