The Class Structure of Modern Societies

This course examines the class structure of societies as a historical process. That is, it attempts to highlight the factors that determine the class structure and contribute to changes in the social stratification of modern societies. The focus of the course will be theories that attempt to interpret in an exemplary manner the dynamics of social collectivities (social classes, social strata, socio-cultural environments, etc.) that have been caused by the restructuring of production, the transformations of wage labor and the transformations of society. At the first level of analysis of the course, the Marxist (and neo-Marxist) interpretations of class structure and class relations and the Weberian (and neo-Weberian) approaches to social stratification are examined with the corresponding methodological tools of analysis. At a second level of analysis of the course, an attempt is made to combine theoretical models (Paradigms) with historical reality, so that the diachronic (historical) and synchronic examination of social formations that under certain conditions evolve into "collective actors of action" is possible. Therefore, theorizing the class structure of traditional societies in contrast to the corresponding one of modern societies will highlight the historicity and the dynamics of class structure systems.