New class
Encyclopedia
The "New Class" model, as a theory of new social groups in post-industrial societies, gained ascendency during the 1970s as social and political scientists noted how "New Class" groups were shaped by post-material orientations in their pursuit of political and social goals (Bruce-Briggs, B. The New Class? New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. 1979). New Class themes "no longer have a direct relationship to the imperatives of economic security" (Inglehart, Ronald. 'The Silent Revolution in Europe: the intergenerational change in post-industrial society'. American Political Science Review. 65. 1971:991-1017).
The new class is also used as a polemic term by critics of countries that followed the Soviet type of communism to describe the privileged ruling class
of bureaucrat
s and Communist Party
functionaries which arose in these states. Generally, the group known in the Soviet Union
as the Nomenklatura
conforms to the theory of the new class. Earlier the term was applied to other emerging strata of the society.
The new class is itself a paradox
. As, theoretically, communism
is by the definition a "classless society
," the emergence of a new class automatically denies the fact that such a state is classless, and therefore communist. Consequently all "so called" communist states where the new class appeared actually cannot be considered as a communist state
according to standard Marxist doctrine.
Milovan Djilas' New Class theory was also used extensively by anti-communist commentators in the West, in their criticism of the Communist states during the Cold War.
, who participated with Tito in the Yugoslav People's Liberation War, but was later purge
d by him as Djilas began to advocate democratic
and egalitarian
ideals (which he believed were more in line with the way socialism
and communism
should look like). However, there were also personal antagonisms between the two men and Tito felt Djilas undermined his leadership. The theory of the new class is in contradiction to the claims of certain ruling Communists, such as Joseph Stalin
, who argued that their revolutions and/or social reforms had resulted in the extinction of any ruling class as such. It was Djilas' observation as a member of a Communist government that Party members stepped into the role of ruling class - a problem which he believed should be corrected through revolution. Djilas' completed his primary work on his new class theory in the mid 1950s.
Djilas claimed that the new class' specific relationship to the means of production
was one of collective political control, and that the new class' property form was political control. Thus for Djilas the new class not only seeks expanded material reproduction to politically justify its existence to the working class
, but it also seeks expanded reproduction of political control as a form of property in itself. This can be compared to the capitalist who seeks expanded value through increased sharemarket values, even though the sharemarket itself does not necessarily reflect an increase in the value of commodities produced. Djilas uses this argument about property forms to indicate why the new class sought parades, marches and spectacles despite this activity lowering the levels of material productivity.
Djilas proposed that the new class only slowly came to self-consciousness of itself as a class. On arriving at a full self-consciousness the initial project undertaken would be massive industrialisation
in order to cement the external security of the new class' rule against foreign or alternative ruling classes. In Djilas' schema this approximated the 1930s and 1940s in the Soviet Union. As the new class suborns all other interests to its own security during this period, it freely executes and purges its own members in order to achieve its major goal of security as a ruling class.
After security has been achieved, the new class pursues a policy of moderation towards its own members, effectively granting material rewards and freedom of thought and action within the new class so long as this freedom is not used to undermine the rule of the new class. Djilas identified this period as the period of Khrushchev
's government in the Soviet Union. Due to the emergence of conflicts of policy within the new class, the potential for palace coups, or populist revolutions is possible (as experienced in Poland and Hungary respectively).
Finally Djilas predicted a period of economic decline, as the political future of the new class was consolidated around a staid programme of corruption and self-interest at the expense of other social classes. This can be interpreted as a prediction of the Leonid Brezhnev
so-called era of stagnation by Djilas.
While Djilas claimed that the new class was a social class with a distinct relationship to the means of production
, he did not claim that this new class was associated with a self-sustaining mode of production
. This claim, within Marxist theory, argues that the Soviet-style societies must eventually either collapse backwards towards capitalism, or experience a social revolution towards real socialism
. This can be seen as a prediction of the downfall of the Soviet Union.
Robert Kaplan's
1993 book Balkan Ghosts: A Journey through history also contains a discussion with Djilas, who used his model to anticipate many of the events that subsequently came to pass in the former Yugoslavia.
had made this point in his International Workingmen's Association
debates with Marx in the mid to late 19th century. This idea was repeated after the Russian revolution by anarchists like Kropotkin
and Makhno, as well as some communists. In 1911 Robert Michels
first proposed the Iron law of oligarchy
, which described the development of bureaucratic hierarchies in supposedly egalitarian and democratic socialist parties. It was later repeated by a leader of the Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky
through his theory of degenerated workers state. Further on, Mao Zedong
also had his own version of this idea developed during the Socialist Education Movement
to criticize the Communist Party of China
under Liu Shaoqi
. Of course, this wide range of people over the decades had different perspectives on the matter, but there was also a degree of core agreement on this idea.
From the other side of the fence, the work of Friedrich Hayek
also anticipated many of Djilas' New Class criticisms, without placing them in a Marxist context (see esp. The Road to Serfdom
). American neoconservatives adapted New Class analysis in their theory of the managerial state
. Karl Popper's
criticisms of utopian social pursuits in The Open Society and Its Enemies
are markedly similar to Djilas' views, which were nonetheless developed independently.
also wrote about a similar phenomenon under Capitalism, the emergence of a technocratic layer in The New Industrial State
, and The Affluent Society
.
The new class is also used as a polemic term by critics of countries that followed the Soviet type of communism to describe the privileged ruling class
Ruling class
The term ruling class refers to the social class of a given society that decides upon and sets that society's political policy - assuming there is one such particular class in the given society....
of bureaucrat
Bureaucrat
A bureaucrat is a member of a bureaucracy and can comprise the administration of any organization of any size, though the term usually connotes someone within an institution of a government or corporation...
s and Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
functionaries which arose in these states. Generally, the group known in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
as the Nomenklatura
Nomenklatura
The nomenklatura were a category of people within the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in all spheres of those countries' activity: government, industry, agriculture, education, etc., whose positions were granted only with approval by the...
conforms to the theory of the new class. Earlier the term was applied to other emerging strata of the society.
The new class is itself a paradox
Paradox
Similar to Circular reasoning, A paradox is a seemingly true statement or group of statements that lead to a contradiction or a situation which seems to defy logic or intuition...
. As, theoretically, communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
is by the definition a "classless society
Classless society
Classless society refers to a society in which no one is born into a social class. Such distinctions of wealth, income, education, culture, or social network might arise and would only be determined by individual experience and achievement in such a society.Since these distinctions are difficult to...
," the emergence of a new class automatically denies the fact that such a state is classless, and therefore communist. Consequently all "so called" communist states where the new class appeared actually cannot be considered as a communist state
Communist state
A communist state is a state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule or dominant-party rule of a communist party and a professed allegiance to a Leninist or Marxist-Leninist communist ideology as the guiding principle of the state...
according to standard Marxist doctrine.
Milovan Djilas' New Class theory was also used extensively by anti-communist commentators in the West, in their criticism of the Communist states during the Cold War.
Djilas' New Class
A theory of the new class was developed by Milovan Djilas the Vice President of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia under Josip Broz TitoJosip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
, who participated with Tito in the Yugoslav People's Liberation War, but was later purge
Purge
In history, religion, and political science, a purge is the removal of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, from another organization, or from society as a whole. Purges can be peaceful or violent; many will end with the imprisonment or exile of those purged,...
d by him as Djilas began to advocate democratic
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
and egalitarian
Egalitarianism
Egalitarianism is a trend of thought that favors equality of some sort among moral agents, whether persons or animals. Emphasis is placed upon the fact that equality contains the idea of equity of quality...
ideals (which he believed were more in line with the way socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
and communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
should look like). However, there were also personal antagonisms between the two men and Tito felt Djilas undermined his leadership. The theory of the new class is in contradiction to the claims of certain ruling Communists, such as Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, who argued that their revolutions and/or social reforms had resulted in the extinction of any ruling class as such. It was Djilas' observation as a member of a Communist government that Party members stepped into the role of ruling class - a problem which he believed should be corrected through revolution. Djilas' completed his primary work on his new class theory in the mid 1950s.
Djilas claimed that the new class' specific relationship to the means of production
Means of production
Means of production refers to physical, non-human inputs used in production—the factories, machines, and tools used to produce wealth — along with both infrastructural capital and natural capital. This includes the classical factors of production minus financial capital and minus human capital...
was one of collective political control, and that the new class' property form was political control. Thus for Djilas the new class not only seeks expanded material reproduction to politically justify its existence to the working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
, but it also seeks expanded reproduction of political control as a form of property in itself. This can be compared to the capitalist who seeks expanded value through increased sharemarket values, even though the sharemarket itself does not necessarily reflect an increase in the value of commodities produced. Djilas uses this argument about property forms to indicate why the new class sought parades, marches and spectacles despite this activity lowering the levels of material productivity.
Djilas proposed that the new class only slowly came to self-consciousness of itself as a class. On arriving at a full self-consciousness the initial project undertaken would be massive industrialisation
Industrialisation
Industrialization is the process of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one...
in order to cement the external security of the new class' rule against foreign or alternative ruling classes. In Djilas' schema this approximated the 1930s and 1940s in the Soviet Union. As the new class suborns all other interests to its own security during this period, it freely executes and purges its own members in order to achieve its major goal of security as a ruling class.
After security has been achieved, the new class pursues a policy of moderation towards its own members, effectively granting material rewards and freedom of thought and action within the new class so long as this freedom is not used to undermine the rule of the new class. Djilas identified this period as the period of Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
's government in the Soviet Union. Due to the emergence of conflicts of policy within the new class, the potential for palace coups, or populist revolutions is possible (as experienced in Poland and Hungary respectively).
Finally Djilas predicted a period of economic decline, as the political future of the new class was consolidated around a staid programme of corruption and self-interest at the expense of other social classes. This can be interpreted as a prediction of the Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
so-called era of stagnation by Djilas.
While Djilas claimed that the new class was a social class with a distinct relationship to the means of production
Means of production
Means of production refers to physical, non-human inputs used in production—the factories, machines, and tools used to produce wealth — along with both infrastructural capital and natural capital. This includes the classical factors of production minus financial capital and minus human capital...
, he did not claim that this new class was associated with a self-sustaining mode of production
Mode of production
In the writings of Karl Marx and the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production is a specific combination of:...
. This claim, within Marxist theory, argues that the Soviet-style societies must eventually either collapse backwards towards capitalism, or experience a social revolution towards real socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. This can be seen as a prediction of the downfall of the Soviet Union.
Robert Kaplan's
Robert D. Kaplan
Robert David Kaplan is an American journalist, currently a National Correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly...
1993 book Balkan Ghosts: A Journey through history also contains a discussion with Djilas, who used his model to anticipate many of the events that subsequently came to pass in the former Yugoslavia.
Similarity to other analyses
Of course, the specific notions of Djilas are his own development, however the idea that bureaucrats in a typical Marxist-Leninist style state become a new class is not his original idea. Mikhail BakuninMikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin was a well-known Russian revolutionary and theorist of collectivist anarchism. He has also often been called the father of anarchist theory in general. Bakunin grew up near Moscow, where he moved to study philosophy and began to read the French Encyclopedists,...
had made this point in his International Workingmen's Association
International Workingmen's Association
The International Workingmen's Association , sometimes called the First International, was an international organization which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist political groups and trade union organizations that were based on the working class...
debates with Marx in the mid to late 19th century. This idea was repeated after the Russian revolution by anarchists like Kropotkin
Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin was a Russian prince and anarchist.Kropotkin may also refer to:*Pyotr Nikolayevich Kropotkin , Soviet/Russian geologist, tectonician, and geophysicist*Mount Kropotkin, a peak in Antarctica...
and Makhno, as well as some communists. In 1911 Robert Michels
Robert Michels
Robert Michels was a German sociologist who wrote on the political behavior of intellectual elites and contributed to elite theory...
first proposed the Iron law of oligarchy
Iron law of oligarchy
The iron law of oligarchy is a political theory, first developed by the German syndicalist sociologist Robert Michels in his 1911 book, Political Parties. It states that all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop into...
, which described the development of bureaucratic hierarchies in supposedly egalitarian and democratic socialist parties. It was later repeated by a leader of the Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
through his theory of degenerated workers state. Further on, Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
also had his own version of this idea developed during the Socialist Education Movement
Socialist Education Movement
The Socialist Education Movement , also known as the Four Cleanups Movement was a movement launched by Mao Zedong in 1963 in the People's Republic of China...
to criticize the Communist Party of China
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
under Liu Shaoqi
Liu Shaoqi
Liu Shaoqi was a Chinese revolutionary, statesman, and theorist. He was Chairman of the People's Republic of China, China's head of state, from 27 April 1959 to 31 October 1968, during which he implemented policies of economic reconstruction in China...
. Of course, this wide range of people over the decades had different perspectives on the matter, but there was also a degree of core agreement on this idea.
From the other side of the fence, the work of Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich August Hayek CH , born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich August von Hayek, was an economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought...
also anticipated many of Djilas' New Class criticisms, without placing them in a Marxist context (see esp. The Road to Serfdom
The Road to Serfdom
The Road to Serfdom is a book written by the Austrian-born economist and philosopher Friedrich von Hayek between 1940–1943, in which he "warned of the danger of tyranny that inevitably results from government control of economic decision-making through central planning," and in which he argues...
). American neoconservatives adapted New Class analysis in their theory of the managerial state
Managerial state
Managerial state is a paleoconservative concept used in critiquing modern social democracy in Western countries. The term takes a pejorative context as a manifestation of Western decline. Theorists Samuel T. Francis and Paul Gottfried say this is an ongoing regime that remains in power,...
. Karl Popper's
Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH FRS FBA was an Austro-British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics...
criticisms of utopian social pursuits in The Open Society and Its Enemies
The Open Society and Its Enemies
The Open Society and Its Enemies is an influential two-volume work by Karl Popper written during World War II. Failing to find a publisher in the United States, it was first printed in London by Routledge in 1945...
are markedly similar to Djilas' views, which were nonetheless developed independently.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Canadian-American liberal economist John Kenneth GalbraithJohn Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth "Ken" Galbraith , OC was a Canadian-American economist. He was a Keynesian and an institutionalist, a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism...
also wrote about a similar phenomenon under Capitalism, the emergence of a technocratic layer in The New Industrial State
The New Industrial State
The New Industrial State is a 1967 book by John Kenneth Galbraith. In it, Galbraith asserts that within the industrial sectors of modern capitalist societies, the traditional mechanism of supply and demand is supplanted by the planning of large corporations, using techniques such as advertising...
, and The Affluent Society
The Affluent Society
The Affluent Society is a 1958 book by Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith. The book sought to clearly outline the manner in which the post-World War II America was becoming wealthy in the private sector but remained poor in the public sector, lacking social and physical infrastructure, and...
.
See also
- Bureaucratic collectivismBureaucratic collectivismBureaucratic collectivism is a theory of class society. It is used by some Trotskyists to describe the nature of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, and other similar states in Central and Eastern Europe and elsewhere .- Theory :...
- Degenerated workers state
- Deformed workers state
- New Soviet manNew Soviet manThe New Soviet man or New Soviet person , as postulated by the ideologists of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was an archetype of a person with certain qualities that were said to be emerging as dominant among all citizens of the Soviet Union, irrespective of the country's cultural,...
- Public choice theoryPublic choice theoryIn economics, public choice theory is the use of modern economic tools to study problems that traditionally are in the province of political science...
- State capitalism
Further reading
. See also the NY Times Books feature with Chapter One online, and also the May 10, 1998 NY Times book review. Leon Trotsky's famous work considers the alleged betrayal and corruption of the Russian Revolution by Stalin and the new bureaucratic ruling caste.- A meta-list of relevant publications. Related to
Articles
- Registan (October 1/06) - The "New Class": The Rise and Fall of NGOs in Central Asia. Quotes extensively from a presentation by Laurence Jarvik to the Central Eurasian Studies Society, held the University of Michigan. Founding editor Nathan Hamm was a Peace Corps volunteer in Uzbekistan.
- Mutualist.org - Liberalism & Social Control: The New Class' Will to Power. Most New Class criticism comes explicitly from either the Left or the Right. Rarely does one seem to come from both at once.
- The New Criterion (October 1999) - Remembering Milovan Djilas
- The New York Review of Books (December 7/67) - Same Old New Class. A reply by Christopher Lasch
External links
- Collection of writings by and on Shachtman on the Workers' Liberty website
- Max Shachtman Internet Archive at Marxists.org