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State, Society and Work
Lecture note 1
Introduction: Why Historical Sociology?
1 Focus of Module
1.1 Analysing the development of modern society
Major arenas of activity/ institutions
State
development of liberal democracy
formation of welfare state
Society
organisation of households and families
patterns of consumption and lifestyles
Work
the social organisation of work processes
changing employment relations
1.2 Key concerns
The making and remaking of these institutions
Processes of change over time
Interplay/ interlocking changes
Recasting of gender and class relations
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2 The approach of historical sociology
2.1 Both Mills and Abrams argue ‘good sociology is necessarily
historical’
Locate origins of sociology in trying to understand turbulent historical
change/ political and economic ‘revolutions’
sense of new ways of being human
sense of new ways of organising social life
BUT
Mills and Abrams critical of use of historical material as mere
‘background’
Critical of static contrasts between past and present
e.g. tradition versus modernity
Insist on studying processes of change, sequences and transitions
2.2 But what might that involve?
Abrams makes case for interplay of existing constraints and
active remaking
we have to cope with but also help construct institutions
(both ‘creatures’ and ‘creators’)
criticises structural determinism/
search for evolutionary laws of development
Example of debates about welfare state
not just enlightened thinkers and spirit of the age
not just structural pressures of industrialisation/ warfare/
unrest
contention and compromise between competing groups
some more powerful than others
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4. Some complications: developing the ‘sociological imagination’
4.1 For Mills and Abrams historical sociology links biography and
history
institutions shape biographies/ biographies shape institutions
life histories epitomise specific historical settings and structures
our very personalities are socially and historically formed
‘We have come to know that every individual lives, from one generation
to the next, in some society; that he lives out a biography and that he
lives it out within some historical sequence. By the fact of his living he
contributes, however minutely, to the shaping of society and to the
course of its history, even as he is made by society and by its historical
push and shove’
C. Wright Mills The Sociological Imagination London: OUP 1967 p 6.
appreciation of this is central to the ‘sociological imagination’
place biographies in specific milieux and wider structures
enables translation of private troubles into public issues
from individualised and parochial to shared and contextualised
(e.g. unemployment, domestic violence)
Mills himself a maverick critic of sociology of his time
4.2 For Mills ‘remaking’ can take quite varied forms
leverage of powerful elites
drift resulting from aggregate of individual actions
contention among active publics
4.3 As sociologists we are implicated in these processes. Potentially we
may
service the powerful as technical experts
help transform drift into reflexivity
contribute to informed public debates
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5 Example and starting point: the historical sociology of work
5.1 Patterns of work in eighteenth century England (Malcolmson)
Multiple ways of making a living for household and household members
Subsistence activities
working small-holdings
use of common rights
Wage labour
seasonal hirings
work as servant
Self employment
cottage industry
haulage etc.
5.2 Provides basis for contrast between traditional and modern forms of
work
In traditional societies
Everyone worked, high degree
of underemployment but little
‘childhood’, ‘unemployment’
or ‘retirement’
Multiple means of getting a
living, resistance to becoming
dependent on one job
Work and recreation not
differentiated
Work often done around
household by family group
Production and ‘reproduction’
intertwined and done by all
In modern societies
‘Labour force’ only a minority.
Large proportion ‘economically
inactive’ (children, retired) or
‘unemployed’
Those in labour force highly
dependent on job. Marked contrast
between those in job and not
Clear distinction between job and
recreation
Jobs held by individuals working
away from household
Strongly gendered distinction
between paid ‘productive activity’
and domestic work
This helps us to
recognise the historical specificity of the present
notice features that are marginalised by current orthodoxies
(see Pahl on unpaid work and household survival strategies)
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5.3 BUT this contrast
glosses over a complex process of change (Pahl)
incomplete and uneven dominance of paid employment
revival of informal survival strategies in late 20 th century
need a wide view of ‘household work strategies’
leaves unexplored major questions about the processes of
transformation
intersecting roles of state, employers, male unions, women
(Bradley)
dynamics of capitalism
dynamics of patriarchy
interlocking of paid and unpaid work in ‘total social
organisation of labour’ (Glucksmann)
So we can ask:
what was relationship between paid and unpaid work
for households/ more generally?
what gains and for whom, what losses and for whom?
what interests and power relations were in play?
Analytical narratives can address these issues
BUT
plenty of scope for arguments over evidence and
theoretical interpretations
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6 Conclusions
6.1 The sociological imagination builds on a sense of historical process
interplay between actors and changing social structures
connections between biography and history
social processes that involve persistence and transformation
6.2 Focus on the making and remaking of
biographies
milieux
institutions
wider social structures
6.3 Starting with the making and remaking of work relations
the rise of the factory system
employers and wage labourers
changing forms of household labour
men and women
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