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Melucci - New Soc Moves
Melucci - New Soc Moves
Melucci - New Soc Moves
Theorie et methodes
Alberto Melucci
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Melucci, 1976,
1977). One may speak of conflict-based organizational action or
conflict-based political action when a conflict occurs within the
limits of a given organization or political system. One may not,
however, speak of a ’class’ conflict-based action (in the sense given
here to the term ’conflict-based action’), because, by definition, ac-
tion undertaken by a class goes beyond the institutional limits of
the system and challenges its fundamental relationships. Since it at-
tacks the foundations of the mode of production, action under-
taken by a class always lies, as it were, beyond the norms of the
social organization and the rules of the political game.
As far as social movements are concerned, it is necessary first of
all to consider organizational movements. The types of collective
behaviour found in this case are situated at the level of a given
social organization and are directed against the power governing a
system of norms and roles. The action aims at a different division
of resources, a functional adaptation of the organization, and a
redistribution of roles. But, at the same time, it tends to transgress
the institutional limits of the organization and to go beyond its nor-
mative framework. The conflict leaves the organization and moves
toward the political system. Political movements are collective ac-
tions which tend to enlarge political participation, and to improve
the relative position of the actor in the society’s decision processes.
But political movements do not act strictly within the existing
political system; they seek to surpass the system by opening new
channels for the expression of political demands and by pushing
participation beyond the limits foreseen for it.
The fundamental theoretical problem, however, is that of class
movements. Analytically, I define as ’collective’ actions which aim at
204
FIGURE 1
Dimensions of collective action
206
(d) It is only at this point that one should consider the way in which
the actors define their action, particularly how they define
themselves as a group and how they identify the adversary and the
stakes involved in the conflict. A class movement tends to describe
the situation, in the language of its cultural system, as a struggle
between he who produces the social resources and he who ap-
propriates them for himself. The stakes in this struggle will always
be, whether directly or indirectly, the control and the distribution
of these resources, that is to say, of the society’s mode of produc-
tion.
One can make the same observations from a different perspective
by analyzing the variations in the dimensions of the conflict
(Oberschall, 1973) as one moves from organizational movements
to political movements, and then on to class movements (see Figure
2). First of all, with respect to the stakes involved in a conflict, one
may assume the existence of an increasing symbolic content and a
decreasing divisibility of the stakes. A class movement fights for
stakes which always directly concern the identity of the actors. Here
it is not simply a matter of material resources or immediate advan-
tages, but also of an orientation of the social production, of a
determination to institute a distribution of the social resources dif-
ferent from the particular one effected by the dominant class. For
this same reason, the more an action turns into a class movement,
the less the stakes are divisible or negotiable. Conflicts within an
organization or within the political system more easily allow the
adoption of partial strategies and partial negotiations. Another
characteristic that should be considered in this connection is the
decreasing reversibility of the conflicts as one moves from
organizational movements to class movements. The resolution of
conflicts becomes all the more difficult as the stakes grow in impor-
tance for the groups concerned. Another result is that the
calculability of the situation is diminished. The relationship bet-
ween costs and benefits is clearer and the calculation of the conse-
knowledge of the various forms that the breakdown takes can come
only from historical analysis and from the comparative an-
thropology of human societies. One may suggest, by way of exam-
ple, a possible account of the historical formation of class relations
without thereby denying that societies display a large variety of
evolutionary paths. An increase in the division of labour arises
from a change in the relations with the environment, such as the ex-
pansion of exchanges, the transformation of the natural conditions
of production, the exhaustion or discovery of resources, etc. This
change implies a delegation of responsibility in the direction of
those activities pertaining to the relations of production; which is to
say that it implies the control by one particular group over the
orientation of the resources produced. This delegation of authority
presupposes reciprocal recognition, between the two groups which
thereby emerge. As long as one of them maintains control over the
specific delegated function, the fourfold relationship comprising
production, recognition, appropriation, and orientation is per-
212
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The new social movements are struggling, therefore, not only for
the reappropriation of the material structure of production, but
also for collective control over socio-economic development, i.e.,
for the reappropriation of time, of space, and of relationships in
the individual’s daily existence. The new forms of class domination
are identified less and less with real social groups and are starting to
share the impersonal character of the various institutions. The new
conflicts and the new movements are not manifested in the action
of a single class, in the sense of a social group identified by a par-
ticular culture and way of life. In mass society, in which cultural
models and ways of life tend to become homogenous, conflicts
mobilize the categories and groups which are most directly affected
by the manipulation of socio-economic development. The absence
of a leading actor, however, does not mean that these conflicts have
lost the character of class struggle.
A certain number of characteristics shared by the recent forms of
collective action (Touraine, 1974, 1975; Pizzorno, 1975) seem to
confirm this hypothesis, which sees in the appropriation of identity
the key to understanding the new movements. There is, first of all,
the end of the separation between public and private spheres. Those
areas which were formerly zones of private exchanges and rewards
desire).
Sociology is marked by this same ambivalence. On the one hand,
it creates a conscious awareness of the way a society produces itself
and maintains, against the heritage of metaphysics and of the
philosophies of history, that social action produces social systems.
But, on the other hand, when it is not a mere apology for the ex-
isting order, it takes the side of movements for change. It translates
their languages and problems, and it is often engaged in their strug-
gles. I do not intend to enter here upon the debate about the role of
sociology. I shall simply point out two important tasks for
sociological reflection.
A sociology of class relations and of social movements must, in
the first place, seek to develop an understanding of changes in the
mode of production in advanced capitalist societies with a view to
better defining the novelty of the issues raised by these movements.
But it is even more necessary for it to pursue theoretical research on
classes and the conflicts between them. The problem brought up at
the start of the present essay is, I believe, of fundamental impor-
tance. If class relations are original features of society, if there ex-
ists no analytic space which precedes them, then the theoretical
possibility of raising the question of change in these relations is
eliminated. And in this case, the question of the possibility of a
224
to his inner-
most being, his needs, his unconscious. Sociology ought to in-
tegrate in its analysis (and adapt its methods to) problems which
have traditionally been thought to lie in the domain of psychology
and psychoanalysis. The problems of the individual and of the un-
conscious have become collective problems because they are linked
either with the manipulation of power or with the cultural form
that the new movements are assuming. Sociology should take these
new dimensions of analysis into account and develop appropriate
methods for handling them, within the framework of its own
language and categories. The situation is admittedly a difficult one,
because the dominant class is already carrying out a converse
ideological manoeuver. There is an increasing trend toward non-
differentiation and the reduction of problems to the level of the in-
dividual. In other words, the dominant class is attempting to
’psychologize’ and ’medicalize’ the social realm in order to drain all
potential for conflict and collective action stemming from pro-
blems of identity. It is necessary, therefore, to counteract this
tendency by ’sociologizing’ the individual, by giving to the pro-
blems of daily life, of relations, and of the unconscious the dimen-
225
References
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226
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in
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