Against Inequality

Alejandro I. Canales, Ph.D. (1995), El Colegio de México, is Professor at the University of Guadalajara and Member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences. His recent books include Migration, Reproduction, and Society (Brill, 2019) and El malestar con las migraciones (Anthropos, 2021). Dídimo Castillo Fernández, Ph.D. (2008), El Colegio de México, is Professor at the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México and Member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences. His recent books include Precariedad y desaliento laboral de los jóvenes en México (Siglo XXI, 2019), and Capitalismo Digital después de la Pandemia (Siglo XXI, 2024).

• ForewordPrefaceList of FiguresIntroduction1 New Perspectives and Imperatives in the Face of Inequality1 Imperatives of an Emancipation Strategy in the Face of Global Inequality1.1 An Ethical Imperative1.2 An Existential Imperative1.3 A Political Imperative2 Preliminary Reflections2 Underlying Metadiscourses within Scientific Discourses on Inequality1 A Critique of Methodological Nationalism2 Methodological Androcentrism and Its Feminist Critique3 Development and Progress as Metadiscourses of Modernity4 The Discourse against Inequality as a Critique of Progress and Development in the Social Sciences5 Summary3 Social Inequality: A Totality Approach1 Social Inequality: A Total Social Fact2 Critique of Individualistic Approaches3 Multidimensional Perspectives of Inequality4 Inequality and Society: Analysis Model from Its Totality4 Debates on Inequality throughout History1 Inequality in Ancient Greece2 Inequality in the Christian Era and Feudal Society3 The English Poor Laws and the Transition to Capitalism4 Political Economy’s Critique of the Poor Laws and the Formation of the Capitalist Labor Market5 Social Inequality under Capitalism: Rousseau and Marx5 The Debate on Social Inequality in the 20th Century1 Functionalist Sociology2 Neoclassical Economics3 Gunnar Myrdal and the Principle of Circular and Cumulative Causation6 The Death of Class and the Historical Resilience of a Social Category1 The Death of Class2 Argument 1. From Class Structure to Social Stratification3 Argument 2. From the End of Class to the End of Marxism4 Argument 3. The Historical Obsolescence of Class5 Class Is Dead, Long Live Class!6 The Death of Class: Ideology or Theory?7 Critique of the Alleged Obsolescence of Class Analysis8 Against Determinism9 Class: Critical Function of a Concept7 The Return of Class1 Giddens and Class Structuration in Contemporary Capitalism2 Erik Olin Wright: Marxism and Social Classes Revisited2.1 Discussion Points on Erik Olin Wright’s Approach3 Charles Tilly and Categorical Inequality4 Reproduction and Social Inequality in the Thought of Pierre Bourdieu8 Social Classes and Inequality in Global Capitalism1 On Globalization and Class Inequality2 Neoliberalism and Globalization: Ideological Foundations in the Reconstitution of the Ruling Classes3 The Reconstitution of the Ruling Classes in Global Capitalism4 The Constitution of the Working Class in Global Capitalism5 Class Structure and Social Antagonism in Global Capitalism9 Final Reflections: For a Project of Social EmancipationReferencesIndex