Class, Politics, and Early Industrial Capitalism: A Study of Mid-Nineteenth Century Toulouse, France

Ronald Aminzade provides an original analysis of how the development of early industrial capitalism transformed the political landscape in mid-nineteenth-century France and gave rise to the revolutionary political upheavals of 1848 and 1871. In a detailed local case study of the city of Toulouse, the author carefully documents how the developing solidarities and antagonisms of social class were reflected in the changing character of working-class associations, cultural institutions, collective actions, and political ideologies.

Aminzade employs a coherent and sophisticated Marxist class analysis to systematically explore a wide variety of important issues, ranging from the changing organization of the industrial workplace to the decline of patronage politics and the central role of artisans in revolutionary working-class politics. His study of the role of the Republican party in forging the changing political class alliances of the period and his analysis of the contradictory character of working-class political incorporation and repression are provocative and incisive.

The book concludes with a theoretical interpretation of the concept of hegemony, exploring the role of ideologies, political parties, and the state in the development of hegemonic forms of class domination.