Contenu du sommaire : Crise du monde ouvrier et nouveaux mouvements sociaux

Alain Bihr, The Fragmentation of the Proletariat Clear status distinctions have emerged within the proletariats of the western countries : workers in the full sense of the term, temporary or occasional workers, and the chronically unemployed. These distinctions are proper to the new productive order, that of the diffused, fluid and flexible factory which has profoundly transformed the technical and political composition of the proletariat. It is this recomposition of the labor force which has weakened the working-class movement.

Jean-Claude Delaunay, The Contemporary Mutation of the Service Sector and the Working-Class Movement The processes of de-industrialization and tertiarization of western economies certainly represent a new way of consuming and perhaps of producing in an increasingly complex social universe. Calling into question the central role of the producers, the shift of attention to consumers and users, and the expansion of female employment in the service sector have profoundly shaken the working-class movement and have given a new configuration to the social movement of salaried workers.

Pierre Cours-Salies, Situating Unions Particular discussions of the crisis of labor organization tend to transform its reality and the analysis of it. Effective analysis necessitates close study of membership, representation, comparison of different labor organizations, different national experiences and changes over time. All of this involves a careful classification of statistical data. Such a method is appropriate to the discussion of questions such as whether the nature of the French labor movement is in a period of « mutation »or« historic decline », unionism as a mechanism of political stability in contemporary democratic systems, relations between workers and unions, and projects which can motivate or solidify activists.

Duc-Quercy, The French Socialist Party Does Not Exist Today, in the French Socialist Party there is a contradiction between the different levels of organization. The Party is completely dominated by a group logic which, centered around a leader with presidential ambitions, is totally preoccupied with the task of securing his electoral victory. Functionning in osmosis with the highest state administration, the Socialist Party is progressively losing its character as a populist, left-wing party.

Denis Berger, The Working-Class Movement : the End of an Era Everywhere in Europe political and union organizations focused upon the working class are in a state of crisis. This crisis is not only a product of a particular combination of circumstances, it is also due to the model (the « social democratic model ») which inspired the organization of contemporary labor movements. This model, based upon a mythical conception of the role of the working class, has resulted in an extreme centralization, a particularly narrow understanding of the problems of power, and an absence of interest in other struggles against oppression (in particular that of women). The lack of coordination between the labor movement and the social movements, so important at the present time, is the overall consequence of this development.

Michèle Riot-Sarcey, Re-thinking the Working-Class Party The « working-class parties » were created with the objective of transforming social relations. In practice, they have been integrated into the established political system and have adopted the political practices proper to the very relations they wished to change. At the same time, they have reproduced the exclusion of women from political life. The « working-class party » is not and cannot be a vehicle of political expression or action for women, and this fact calls into question the universality taken to be the very vocation of such a party.

René Gallissot, Was May 1968 a Social Movement ? Beyond the Working-Class Movement Up until 1968 little distinction was made between working-class and social movements. The dominant conception was that of social class. In fact, the working-class movement represents a rather unique type of movement produced by the segregation and discrimination directed towards the working classes and the proletariat. It is because of the processes of social and national integration that the force of the working-class movement declined. A social movement springs from a minority condition within a particular society, as the women's movement reveals today. 1968 in France involved more than just student demonstrations ; it was an anti-authoritarian, a-nationalistic and, in part, counter-cultural movement. The phenomena of social mobilizations must be situated in a long historical chain of movements that may be variously characterized as communitarian, egalitarian, populist, national, and concerned with minority and civil rights.

Gérard Raulet, Hermeneutics and the Practical Philosophy of History : the Question of its Application Inseparable from the constitution of sense, the moment of application poses the question of the contribution of hermeneutics to a practical philosophy of history. Critical theory has tried to clarify the articulation of knowledge and practical interests, thus making the historical dimension of this application the real vehicle of synthesis and of objectivity. This socialization of hermeneutics implies, however, its materialization. The transcendental affinity resides in the already historical figures of the man-nature dialectic. The importance of this « objective-real » hermeneutics is revealed when the hermeneutics of social interests fails to produce a consistently normative orientation. In this « post-modern » context of the decomposition of sense, the objective-real hermeneutics offers a way out : confronted with a history which becomes once again a « natural history », it continues to see allegories of sense and redirects the practical philosophy of history on a philosophical foundation of symbolic forms.