“Good” and “Bad” Workers and the Collapse of the Expected Life Course: The Postwar Working Class in Detroit (USA) and Łódź (Poland), 1940s–1980s

2020 ◽  
pp. 088832541989120
Author(s):  
Agata Zysiak
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Life Course ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Late Capitalism ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
Industrial Structures ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mode Of Production

Two former industrial giants on opposite sides of the globe—the well-known and extensively studied city of Detroit (USA) and the lesser-known but regionally important city of Łódź (Poland)—developed in historically differing economic and political circumstances but have much in common. In both cases, postwar prosperity brought the working class to the center of the social imaginary, resulting in the emergence of a corporate welfare state on one side of the Atlantic Ocean and a socialist one on the other. Thus, two “workers’ El Dorados” were based on almost opposite lifestyles, values and models of society, and each lasted for no more than one generation. Changes in industrial structures and locations, the inflexibility of the mono-industrial giants, and a general shift to late capitalism and the post-Fordist mode of production affected both cities. Workers’ biographies were experienced through the primacy of work as a means of individual, social, and state reproduction. Factory work offered a device for the allocation of social worth and welfare benefits across time in both contexts. The latter is examined by the construct of a “good worker” and the creation of an imagined, expected life course in the postwar welfare projects, as well as the generational division of workers.

Social Quality in a Transitive Society

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valeriy Heyets
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Quality ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
Quality Approach ◽  
The Welfare State

Nearly 30 years of transformation of the sociopolitical and legal, socioeconomical and financial, sociocultural and welfare, and socioenvironmental dimensions in both Central and Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, has led to a change of the social quality of daily circumstances. On the one hand, the interconnection and reciprocity of these four relevant dimensions of societal life is the underlying cause of such changes, and on the other, the state as main actor of the sociopolitical and legal dimension is the initiator of those changes. Applying the social quality approach, I will reflect in this article on the consequences of these changes, especially in Ukraine. In comparison, the dominant Western interpretation of the “welfare state” will also be discussed.

The Scandinavian Origins of the Social Interpretation of the Welfare State

1989 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Baldwin
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Initial Development ◽  
Sufficient Power ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Welfare State

If a question can be mal posée, surely an interpretation can be mal étendue. This has been the fate of the social interpretation of the welfare state. The cousin of social theories of bourgeois revolution, the social interpretation of the welfare state is part of a broader conception of the course of modern European history that until recently has laid claim to the status of a standard. The social interpretation sees the welfare states of certain countries as a victory for the working class and confirmation of the ability of its political representatives on the Left to use universalist, egalitarian, solidaristic measures of social policy on behalf of the least advantaged. Because the poor and the working class were groups that overlapped during the initial development of the welfare state, social policy was linked with the worker's needs. Faced with the ever-present probability of immiseration, the proletariat championed the cause of all needy and developed more pronounced sentiments of solidarity than other classes. Where it achieved sufficient power, the privileged classes were forced to consent to measures that apportioned the cost of risks among all, helping those buffeted by fate and social injustice at the expense of those docked in safe berths.

Worker and the Welfare State in Imperial Germany

1991 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 18-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Steinmetz
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Imperial Germany ◽  
The Social ◽  
Insurance Funds ◽  
The Welfare State

A complex relationship existed between working-class formation and the development of the welfare state in Imperial Germany between 1871 and 1914. In the 1880s, the Social Democratic party voted against the three major national social insurance law's, and many workers seemed to spurn the incipient welfare state. But by 1914, socialists were active in social policy-making and workers were participating in the operations of the welfare state. Tens of thousands of workers and social democrats held positions in the social insurance funds and offices, the labor courts and labor exchanges, and other institutions of the official welfare state. Hundreds of workers had even become “friendly visitors” in the traditional middle-class domain of municipal poor relief. This shift is interesting not only from the standpoint of working-class orientations; it also challenges the received image of the German working class as excluded from the state —an interpretation based on an overly narrow focus on national parliamentary politics.

scholarly journals Extreme Rechte in der Krise – Kämpfe ums Subjekt

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (157) ◽  
pp. 577-588 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Kaindl
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
The State ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
The Social ◽  
Bail Out ◽  
Mode Of Production ◽  
The Welfare State

The success of right wing parties in Europe is closely linked to the lack of representation that went along with the neoliberal shift of the social democrats. Feelings of injustice going along with altering the trans-national mode of production, concepts of the welfare state and labour politics were taken into account by rightwing “critics” that fight globalization in fighting immigrants. The crisis and bail-out-politics enforced feelings of injustice but at the same time brought the state – and the unions – ‘back in’ e.g. in creating a ‘clash-for-clunkers’ project. That seems to have weakened right-wing parties in Germany and France presenting themselves as an authoritarian fordistic option, but at the same time strengthened racist campaigns in other countries.

scholarly journals Life Course Practices in Bronze Age Landscapes of East Central Sweden: Beyond Divine Chiefs and Neodiffusionism

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-118
Author(s):  
Susanne Thedéen
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
The Other ◽  
East Central ◽  
The Social ◽  
Knife Blade

This paper treats the ritual traditions and practices connected with burials in Bronze Age cairns and stone-settings in the province of Södermanland in east central Sweden. The author discusses how the social and ritual roles of the individuals buried in cairns can be intertwined with the characteristics ofthe landscape contexts where caims have been placed. Particular attention is given to the meaning ofa special combination of artefacts —a razor, a pair of tweezers, a double-stud and a knife blade —found in Bronze Age burial contexts. The author suggests that the razor and the other ritual equipment may have been used in connection with life course rituals.

Ageism, Existential and Ontological: Reviewing Approaches toward the Abject with the Help of Millett, Hodgman, Lessing, and Roth

2021 ◽  
Vol 90 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-126
Author(s):  
Susan Pickard
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Recent Article ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Institutional Practices ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
The Social ◽  
Literary Memoir ◽  
The Life Course

In an important and provocative recent article, Paul Higgs and Chris Gilleard have linked ageism not only to structural and institutional practices but to deep-seated existential and ontological fears and horrors regarding deep old age, as crystallized in the social imaginary of the fourth age. This concept suggests the need to combat not just the more modifiable structures of ageism but also the murkier and therefore more obdurate cultural aspects, especially the association of deep old age with the abject. In this article, I suggest the writings of George Bataille may help reimagine the frailties, “uglinesses,” and filth associated with deep old age. Exploring literary memoir and fiction by a range of writers through the prism of Bataille’s work, I consider how this new approach to abjection can undermine ageism and also serve as a gateway to a more meaningful vision of both old age and the life course itself.

A game of mirrors: Western/Eastern European crime series and the struggle for recognition

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caius Dobrescu ◽  
Roxana Eichel ◽  
Dorottya Molnár-Kovács ◽  
Sándor Kálai ◽  
Anna Keszeg
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
The West ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Struggle For Recognition ◽  
Correct Image

Our article focuses on a corpus of crime television series reflecting upon differences between western and eastern Europe – a phenomenon that we will address as the ‘West–East slope’. The series figure as instances of the struggle for recognition at the level of the social imaginary, between western and eastern Europe. Addressing the double logic of the western narrative on eastern Europe and the eastern narrative of western Europe, one of our main findings is that the recognition aesthetics of eastern Europe produced a multi-layered representation of the West varying from country to country. On the other hand in western productions, there is still a bias towards a more politically correct image of easternness, a state of affairs that is questioned by eastern European attempts to produce their original contents.

Social Factors and Neurosis in a Working-Class Population

1963 ◽  
Vol 109 (462) ◽  
pp. 587-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. A. Pond ◽  
A. Ryle ◽  
Madge Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
School Age ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
The Social ◽  
Medical Index ◽  
Medical Histories ◽  
Primary School Age

In the course of a study of families containing children of primary school age, we have collected detailed social and medical histories of the parents. In earlier papers (Ryle and Hamilton, 1962; Hamilton et al., 1962) based upon part of the population studied here, we have confirmed the reliability of the Cornell Medical Index (C.M.I.) as an indicator of neurosis. The aim of the present paper is to investigate whether social factors within a relatively homogeneous, largely working-class population, are related to neuroticism. While differences in the rate of neurosis between the social classes have often been described, interpretations of these differences are difficult because they may be due not only to variations in the rate of illness but also to differences in the mode of presentation, in symptomatology or in attitudes to medical treatment or to research enquiry. On the other hand, in studying a population such as ours, with small social class differences, the range of social factors available for measurement is reduced.

scholarly journals Public policy-making and risk profiles: Scandinavian centre-right governments after the turn of the millennium

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 495-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Arndt
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Risk Profile ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
High Support

Recent theoretical advances in the welfare state literature have outlined the differences between labour market- and life course-related schemes as centre-right parties have difficulties in enacting retrenchment on life course-related schemes because these concern every voter. In contrast, the textbook risk profile of centre-right parties’ electorates allows them to cutback on labour market-related schemes as these parties get negligible support from workers and low-income voters. Conducting a comparative case study of recent Danish and Swedish centre-right governments, this article analyses the stylized assumptions on the party level by comparing two similar centre-right governments, which differed in their voter coalitions’ risk profile. I first argue that centre-right governments are generally constrained by the popular entrenchment of the universal welfare state when it comes to life course-related welfare schemes. Second, I argue that the leeway on labour market-related schemes is contingent on the actual risk profile of the centre-right’s electorate, and thereby move beyond the stylized assumptions from recent literature. In this respect, the Danish centre-right did, in contrast to its Swedish counterpart, gain power with an unusual high support among working-class voters which constrained its latitude on labour market-related schemes. I find that the Danish centre-right governments after 2001 acted with bound hands thanks to its high working-class backing, and refrained from outright cutbacks on both labour market- and life course-related schemes until 2010 except for labour market outsiders. In contrast, the Swedish centre-right had a much lower working-class backing and therefore engaged in some outright cutbacks of labour market-related schemes such as unemployment benefits directly after taking office 2006. The centre-right’s actual voter coalition’s risk profile is thus an important determinant for its public policies and its leeway for policy-seeking.

scholarly journals Krytyczna analiza naukowej ciszy, czyli dlaczego Romowie migrują (z naszego pola widzenia)

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-67
Author(s):  
Kamila Fiałkowska ◽  
Michał P. Garapich ◽  
Elżbieta Mirga-Wójtowicz
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Migration Studies ◽  
It Impacts ◽  
Migration Research ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject

This article discusses the phenomenon of academic silence in regard to Romani migration from Poland — both in Polish Romani studies and in migration studies. The absence of the subject of Romani migration in migration research in Poland is contrasted with the absence of the subject of migration in Romani studies. Paradoxically, the group most associated in the social imaginary with mobility is absent from migration studies in Poland. On the other hand, in studies of the Romani people in Poland, the group turns out to be surprisingly static and immobilized. The aim of the paper is to explore this particular type of discursive silence, to consider the underlying theoretical and conceptual reasons for it, and finally, to reflect on how it impacts migration and Romani studies.

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