This blog again draws on the excellent work of Erik Olin Wright, this time directly on concepts of social class. In his essay on ‘working class power, capitalist class interests’ in his Understanding Class, Wright acknowledges that class – together with related concepts like class structure, class struggle, class formation and class compromise – can… Read More »
In Notebook 10 I focused on ‘what next’. Among the options were further books on the fractured society and sport. In this follow-up note I reproduce two unsuccessful book proposals, one on each topic. They were ultimately ‘unsuccessful’ because I withdrew them both (from different publishers) in fits of pique. I withdrew them because I… Read More »
This second and no less contingent set of memories takes me through my years at university and their immediate sequelae. They are memories, it has to be said, of a very different era and set of student experiences. Nor is the difference merely material, dependent on the fact that we babyboomers were funded for our… Read More »
I can’t pretend that keeping a record of books read during any given year is a matter of much interest to others, but here we go with a commentary nonetheless. If there is a return it may perhaps be in terms of the odd recommendation. I find I have steadily increased the number of books… Read More »
I resolved from the start of this commitment to sociological and autobiographical fragments not to include/expose my (nuclear) family to public gaze; and this was obviously right. So in recalling once more ‘moments’ from my past I am omitting many vital, intimate and permanent memories. It is often and appropriately said that as you get… Read More »
Data on the obscene concentration of wealth globally and within the UK continue to be published. Two new documents from the Equality Trust (3 December 2019) and the High Pay Centre (6 January 2020) have not received as much attention as they might – and should – have done. The Equality Trust’s ‘Billionaire Britain’ shows… Read More »
This an early and doubtless from a sociological perspective seriously premature attempt to respond to the Conservative victory in the General Election of 12 December 2019. We have some basic data but as yet little by way of analysis. I am siting with my laptop so promptly precisely because I too held the common view… Read More »
On retiring, contentedly enough, in 2013, I began to think through my future in more detail. I’d never had any intention of stopping either lecturing or writing/publishing (though I didn’t for a moment presume a flow of invitations for the former or interest/acceptance in relation to the latter). The thing about retiring is that you… Read More »
It is always something of a challenge to try and capture the central ideas and contributions of social theorists in a short blog. This is especially the case with a thinker like Bruno Latour. I am indebted here to Steve Matthewman’s (see ref) summary account as much to my own reading and understanding, and he… Read More »
I retired on 1 October, 2013, a few days shy of 65, and a month short of being entered for the REF. Cunning eh? It brought to an end a solid baby-boomer career, one not without its tribulations, but tribulations carrying a lesser degree of threat than that faced by my successors. For Paul Higgs… Read More »