University of Tasmania, Australia

The afterlife of class: Social inequality and conflict today

presented by

Prof. Jan Pakulski

School of Sociology and Social Work, UTAS

Bob White's research and writing focused on new social divisions that form in contemporary Australia. He also contributed to the 'Death/Life of Class' debate. The paper celebrates his contributions by analysing the two social divisions in advanced societies, like Australia: between the small 'new oligarchy' (the '1%') and 'the rest' ('99%'), and between house owners and non-owners. Both divisions deepen, generate social antagonisms, and trigger widespread social concerns, even embryonic protest movements. Do they constitute the contemporary 'reincarnations' of industrial class divisions? Are they likely to provoke social conflicts and stimulate social change?

Jan Pakulski, MA (Warsaw), PhD (ANU), is Professor of Sociology at the University of Tasmania, Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and Fellow of the Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University. Migrated to Australia in 1975. His publications include Social Movements (Longman Cheshire, 1991), Postmodernization (Sage, 1992; with S. Crook and M. Waters), The Death of Class (Sage, 1996; with M. Waters), Postcommunist Elites and Democracy in Eastern Europe (Macmillan, edited in 1998 with J. Higley and W. Wesolowski), Globalizing Inequalities (Allen and Unwin, 2004) and Toward Leader Democracy (with Andras Körösényi, Anthem 2012). His current research interests focus on elites, democratization and social inequality.