Page 50 - Cultural Studies Dictionary

CODE

argument of Weber and his subsequent followers. Here, though class is considered
to be founded on divisions associated with ownership of the means of production,
it also includes lifestyle differences based on income, occupation, status, education,
qualifications and so forth that cluster together to form class. 27
In particular, class relations today include the much-expanded middle classes
who, while they are not owners of the means of production, are nevertheless
distanced from the manual working class by income and lifestyle. This has been the
consequence of both a sectoral redistribution of labour from the primary and
secondary sectors to the service sector and a shift in the make-up of labour towards
white-collar work. Indeed, the working class has itself become highly stratified by
transformations in the occupational structures of industrial capitalism and the
increased though differential consumption that an ever-expanding capitalism has
enabled. To a considerable extent these transformations are implicated in the
displacement of industrial manufacturing by service industries centred on
information technology and by a more general alteration of emphasis from
production to consumption.
The increased productivity of capitalism has meant that the majority of the
populations of Western societies have sufficient housing, transportation and income
to be in a post-scarcity situation. This has contributed to an increased consumption-
centredness amongst the working class that has led to its fragmentation as their
differential incomes and consumption capabilities are expressed in the market.
Further, as its relative prosperity has risen so the employed working class has
become dislocated from the unemployed urban underclass. In this context, it has
been argued by the theorists of ‘New Times’ that (at least in the heartlands of
Western capitalism) we are witnessing the emergence of a two-thirds: one-third
society. That is, two-thirds of the population are relatively well off while one-third
are either engaged in de-skilled part-time work or form a new underclass of the
unemployed and unemployable.
With this re-construction of class relations has come a new uncertainty regarding
the relationship between class position and political behaviour. Thus there has been
a steady decline in allegiance between occupational class categories and the major
political parties. More generally, we have witnessed the demise of a revolutionary
working class politics that could realize an alternative social order. Nevertheless,
class does retain a powerful and important place in social life that cannot be
ignored. There are still inequalities in educational access and outcome that are
underpinned by social class and there are still differences in cultural tastes and
practices that mark out class boundaries.

Links Capitalism, Marxism, New Times, political economy, post-industrial society, post-
Marxism

Code The customary usage of the term code refers to a set of signs that stand in for
another set of signs and their meanings. Thus a code involves translation and
concealment. Within cultural studies a code is understood to be a system of
representation by which signs and their meanings are arranged by cultural