Class and Consciousness

The Black Petty Bourgeoisie in South Africa, 1924 to 1950

Datos Bibliográficos

ID19930998
AutoresAlan Cobley (0000-0003-2693-6029, autor de correspondencia), Alan G Cobley
Año1990
Fecha de publicación1990-01-01
Open AccessNo
TipoBOOK
RevistaClass and Consciousness (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditorialPraeger (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5040/9798400627095
OpenAlexW4399965787
ISBN9798400627095
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas29

This is the first book to discuss the emergence and nature of the black bourgeoisie in South Africa in its historical context as a class in itself and for itself. It reveals how, by the 1920s, the black petty bourgeoisie was emerging in South Africa through the process of capitalist development, out of pre-existing elites and out of new elites based mainly in the new industrial centers. The book then discusses how the black petty bourgeoise deployed, in the 1930s, a wide range of class-specific social and cultural networks (using forms borrowed from the dominant classes) as a means of entrenching and reproducing its class position. The book details the significant differentiation within the black petty bourgeoisie--revealing it to be divided into a more economically secure upper stratum and a much larger lower stratum which was always vulnerable to proletarianisation. The book also shows that members of the petty black bourgeoisie virtually monopolized political leadership in black communities up to 1950 and beyond. This had very important consequences for the formulation and articulation of black political objectives at both the local and national levels and especially for the developing African nationalist movement

Class (philosophy) · Class consciousness · Consciousness · Epistemology · Political science · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social and Cultural Dynamics