What working class today? Theoretical debates and conceptual dilemmas

Abstract

Contrary to the forecasts that decreed the disappearance of the working class, the objective of this article is to address the problem posed by its conceptualization in current conditions. Throughout the first sections, we are then interested in theoretical approaches that, although they resist the thesis of the end of the proletariat, propose categories and analyzes aimed at explaining the mutations and reconfigurations that affect the proletariat in the current phase of capitalism. In this itinerary we systematize the proposals of a series of authors, grouping them into four main theses: the new global proletariat on all forms of work and submission; the precariat as a new social class; the expansion of the proletariat that incorporates forms of exploitation through dispossession and reproductive tasks; the expansion of the working class according to the criterion of the sale of labor power. In the last section we propose a balance, we identify some of the dead ends and theoretical dilemmas that these approaches imply and we highlight some lines of analysis that we consider essential to address the question of the definition of the working class, in its antagonistic relationship with capital, but also regarding its relationship with other popular classes.