Serge Mallet

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Serge Mallet (born December 20, 1927 in Bordeaux , † July 16, 1973 in Saint-Maximin (Gard) ) was a French sociologist and politician who is internationally known for his studies of Sociologie du Travail ( sociology of work ).

Mallet came from a family of craftsmen from Gironde , participated in the Resistance and was a supporter of the PCF . In 1956 he separated from the party and helped found the PSU , to whose first national executive he was elected in 1965.

He was a contributor to the Nouvel Observateur and the Revue Arguments ; He has also published articles in Esprit , Les Temps Modernes and other left-wing magazines.

The new working class

Alongside André Gorz , Mallet is considered a leading theoretician of the "new working class". Above all against the background of the ongoing Marxist debate about the determination of the political subject of future social transformation.

1958 was already a turning point for Alain Touraine , from the economic expansion phase 1950–1958 to the transition of France to “organized capitalism” ( Herbert Marcuse ) through the rise of Gaullism . The May 1968 was then the first socialist response to this development.

In several company sociological studies, Mallet establishes connections between the technological level of development of the production method used and the mentality of the employees. In addition to the conventional difference between blouse bleu and blouse blanche , in technically developed companies he finds a young technical intelligence who is enthusiastic about technical rationality and therefore calls for co-determination in the workplace. Mallet therefore analyzes and justifies the different levels of readiness for action and protest of the individual layers of the working class.

According to Anthony Giddens , the events of May 1968 had raised hopes that the working class would bring about the end of capitalism through revolutionary action . The reality, however, turned out to be much more prosaic: there are specific factors that distinguish France, like Italy, in social development from those of other capitalist societies. It was therefore hardly surprising that France and Italy had produced a number of stimulating Marxist theorists; Nor was it surprising, however, that their theories would be less plausible when applied, for example, to the situation in the United States.

Fonts

  • Paysans contre le Passé. Éditions du Seuil, Paris 1962.
  • La nouvelle classe ouvrière. Éditions du Seuil, Paris 1963, (4th edition 1969; German: Die neue Arbeiterklasse (= Luchterhand Collection . 59). Translated by Thomas Hartmann. Luchterhand, Neuwied et al. 1972; English: The New Working Class (= European Socialist Thought Series . 4). Translated by Andrée and Bob Shepherd. Spokesman Books, Nottingham 1975).
  • Le Gaullisme et la Gauche. Éditions du Seuil, Paris 1965.
  • Le pouvoir ouvrier. Éditions Anthropos, Paris 1971.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Jay: Marxism and Totality . University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles 1984. ISBN 0-520-05096-7 . P. 167, note 70
  2. ^ Anthony Giddens: The Class Structure of the Advanced Societies. 1st edition. Hutchison University Library, London 1973, ISBN 0-09-116881-3 , pp. 20f.
personal data
SURNAME Mallet, Serge
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French sociologist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Bordeaux
DATE OF DEATH July 16, 1973
Place of death Saint-Maximin (Gard)