(which he concedes), that they perform surplus labour whose nature is determined by capitalist relations of production – the wage-relationship in which expropriated workers are compelled to sell their labour-power; or even that the same compulsions of capital accumulation that operate in the organization of labour for the working class – its ‘rationalization’, fragmentation, discipline, etc. – operate in these cases too. Indeed, the same conditions – the compulsory sale of labour-power and an organization of work derived from the exploitative logic of capital accumulation – apply even to workers not directly exploited by capital but employed, say, by the state or by ‘nonprofit’ institutions. Whatever the complexities of class in contemporary capitalism – and they are many, as new formations arise and old ones change – it is difficult to see why exploitative social relations of production should now be regarded as secondary in the determination of class. Poulantzas’s use of the distinction between productive and unproductive labour to separate white-collar workers from the working class seems to be largely arbitrary and circular, with no clear implications for our understanding of how classes and class interests are actually constituted in the real world.
In fact, it soon turns out that this ‘specifically economic’ determination is not sufficient – or even necessary – to define the new petty bourgeoisie. It cannot account for all the groups that Poulantzas wants to include in this class. Not only, he suggests, can it not account for certain groups which are involved in the process of material production (e.g. engineers, technicians, and supervisory staff), it cannot explain the overriding unity which binds these heterogeneous elements into a single class set off from the working class. Now, political and ideological factors must be regarded as decisive. These factors are decisive even for those groups who are already marked off by the productive/unproductive labour distinction,19 and in some cases even override that division. In the final analysis, once these groups have been separated out from the bourgeoisie by the fact that they are exploited, the decisive unifying factor that separates them from the working class is ideological, in particular the distinction between mental and manual labour. This distinction cannot be defined in ‘technicist’ or ‘empiricist’ terms, argues Poulantzas – for example, by empirically distinguishing ‘dirty’ and ‘clean’ jobs, or those who work with their hands and those who work with their brains, or those who are in direct contact with machines and those who are not. It is essentially a ‘politico-ideological’ division. Although this division cannot be entirely clear-cut and contains complexities which create fractions within the new petty bourgeoisie itself, it is, according to Poulantzas, the one determinant that both distinguishes these groups from the working class and overrides the various differences within the class, including the division between productive and unproductive labour with which it does not coincide. In other words, this ideological division is the decisive factor in constituting the new petty bourgeoisie as a class at all.
It is far from clear to what reality Poulantzas’s ideological division corresponds, or why it should override the structural similarities among workers. What is true is that the organization of production in industrial capitalism establishes various divisions among workers within the labour process which are determined not by the technical demands of the labour-process itself but by its capitalist character. These divisions often constitute obstacles to the formation of a unified class – even in the case of workers who belong to the same class by virtue of their relation to capital and exploitation. But it is not clear why the divisions cited by Poulantzas should be more decisive than any others that divide workers in the labour-process or disunite them in the process of class organization. It is not clear why such divisions should be regarded not simply as obstacles to unity or roadblocks in the difficult process of class-organization – a process riddled with obstacles even for blue-collar workers – but rather as definitive class barriers dividing members from non-members of the working class.20 In fact, Poulantzas’s theory seems unable to accommodate any process in the development of classes at all. There seems to be only a string of static, sometimes overlapping, class situations (locations? boxes?). This is a view which in itself would seem to have significant political implications.
If the ideological division between mental and manual workers within the exploited wage-earning groups does not correspond to any objective barrier directly determined by the relations of production between capital and labour, neither does it correspond to a real and insurmountable division of interest between these workers. The class interests of both groups are determined by the fact that they are directly exploited through the sale of their labour-power; these interests have to do in the first instance with the terms and conditions of that sale, and in the last with the elimination of capitalist relations of production altogether, both the ‘formal’ and the ‘real’ subjection of labour to capital. The different functions of these workers in the labour-process may create divisions among them, based in some cases on differences in their responsibilities, education, income, and so on;21 but these differences cannot be regarded as class divisions by any standard having to do with relations of production and exploitation. The ideological divisions between them are constituted less from the point of view of their own class interests than from the point of view of capital, which has an interest in keeping them apart. The imposition of capitalist ideology can certainly operate to discourage unity within the working class and interfere with the processes of class organization, but it can hardly be accepted as an absolute class barrier between different kinds of workers.
Poulantzas has thus presented a class analysis in which relations of exploitation are no longer decisive. This is in keeping with the fundamental principles of his theory. The relations of production and exploitation, according to him, belong to the ‘economic’ sphere which, as we have seen, though it ‘determines in the last instance’ may not be dominant in any given mode of production or social formation. This notion is carried over into the analysis of class.22 It now becomes clear that there are cases in which political or ideological factors ‘reign supreme’ in determining class. Poulantzas is saying more than simply that the formation of classes is always a political, ideological, and cultural process as well as an economic one, or that relations between classes are not only economic but also political and ideological. Nor, again, is he simply pointing to the special role of the ‘political’ where relations of production are themselves ‘politically’ organized. He is suggesting that ideological and political relations may actually take precedence over the relations of exploitation in the ‘objective’ constitution of classes, and that political or ideological divisions may represent essential class barriers. Again the relations of exploitation have been displaced.23
What, then, are the practical consequences of Poulantzas’s views on class? Why is it a matter of such critical importance whether or not white-collar workers are theoretically included in the working class? Poulantzas himself, as we have seen, maintains that it is strategically important to separate out the ‘new petty bourgeoisie’ in order to protect the revolutionary integrity and hegemony of the working class. There is, however, another way of looking at it. We have seen that for Poulantzas the relations of production are not decisive in determining the class situation of white-collar workers. The ‘new petty bourgeoisie’ is distinguished as a class on the basis of ideological divisions defined from the point of view of capital. In other words, they constitute a class insofar as they are absorbed into the hegemonic ideology of capitalism; and that absorption seems to be definitive: the new petty bourgeoisie can be made to adopt certain working-class positions – that is, their political attitudes can ‘polarize toward’ the proletariat; but they cannot be made part of the working class. These propositions are very different from the observation that the inclinations of white-collar workers to accept capitalist ideology may be stronger than those of blue-collar workers; that these inclinations constitute a problem for class organization, for the development of class consciousness, and for the building of class unity; and that they must be taken into account by any socialist strategy. For Poulantzas, it would appear that these inclinations represent a decisive class boundary; and this has significant strategic implications.
Despite Poulantzas’s criticism of PCF theory and strategy, his theory of class belongs to the ‘attempt of the theoreticians of Eurocommunism
