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Does class determine economic options, or is class in our heads--a matter of interpreting symbols and meanings? Cultural theorists have made the second claim, sidelining materialism. Now, amid deepening inequality, Vivek Chibber defends materialist analysis of class power, while arguing that we still have something to learn from cultural frameworks.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- A Note on Terminology -- Introduction -- 1. Class Structure -- 2. Class Formation -- 3. Consent, Coercion, and Resignation -- 4. Agency, Contingency, and All That -- 5. How Capitalism Endures -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index

Why were some countries able to build "developmental states" in the decades after World War II while others were not? Through a richly detailed examination of India's experience, Locked in Place argues that the critical factor was the reaction of domestic capitalists to the state-building project. During the 1950s and 1960s, India launched an extremely ambitious and highly regarded program of state-led development. But it soon became clear that the Indian state lacked the institutional capacity to carry out rapid industrialization. Drawing on newly available archival sources, Vivek Chibber mo

Review Symposium Commentary

AbstractDuring the 1980s and 1990s, the debate on the Marxist theory of history centred largely around the work of Robert Brenner's property-relations-centred construal of it, and G.A. Cohen's attempt to revive the classical, determinist argument. This article examines two influential arguments by Erik Wright and his colleagues, and by Alan Carling, which acknowledge important weaknesses in Cohen's work, but which also try to construct a more plausible version of his theory. I show that the attempts to rescue Cohen are largely unsuccessful. And, to the extent that they render the argument plausible, they do so at the cost of turning it, willy-nilly, into a kind of class-struggle theory. I conclude that this spells the demise of the classical version of historical materialism, but also observe that this does not leave us with a voluntaristic understanding of history, as some of its defenders fear.

The decline of class analysis has been pervasive across the intellectual landscape in recent years. But South Asian studies stands out in the severity with which it has been hit by this phenomenon. It also is the field where the influence of post-structuralism has been most pronounced in the wake of Marxism's decline. This essay offers an explanation for both the decline of class analysis and the ascendance of post-structuralism in South Asian studies as practiced in the United States. I suggest that the decline of class theorizing was a predictable and natural result of the decline of working-class politics in the United States. But the severity of its decline in South Asian studies in particular was a symptom of its never having made much of a dent on the field in the first place. This left unchallenged the traditional, Indological approach, which was heavily oriented toward culturalism. This in turn made the field a hospitable ground for the entrance of post-structuralism, which, like mainstream Indology, not only eschews materialist analysis, but is largely hostile to class. South Asian studies is thus one of the few fields in which traditional scholars and younger ones are both able to agree on their hostility to class analysis. Finally, I argue that the decline of class is now visible in Indian universities too, and this is largely caused by the overwhelming influence that U.S. universities have come to exercise over Indian elite academic culture. (Crit Asian Stud/GIGA)

Investigates the weaknesses of organized labor in India & explains why the labor movement has not gained a significant level of political power. The evolution of labor relations from the creation of the first Indian National Congress through the development of early unions & the 1947 Industrial Truce Conference is traced, followed by an analysis of factors that contributed to the demobilization of labor, attempts at "class compromise," & the final arrangements under which labor's distributive & participatory interests were accommodated -- rather than fully maximized. In addition, the success of the working class in Kerala state in achieving organizational power, far beyond that of the national labor movement, is explored. K. Hyatt Stewart