Publisher's Synopsis
How do societies cohere? This question has long concerned those with an interest in the nature of social life and still informs modern social science. Coherence seems especially problematic in societies with a capitalist form of economic organization. Capitalism requires the co-operation of capital and labour as factors of production, both benefit from this relationship, yet in the same moment they face each other as competing interests that pull in different directions.;The papers collected here are intended to advance the analysis of ideology in a comparative and historical perspective. It is hoped to illuminate the range of experience in other societies, the extent to which there is a common pattern, and how far Britain is typical. The contributors were asked to consider four issues, so as to maintain a thematic unity to the volume as a whole. First, what is the dominant ideology? Second, what effect does this have on the dominant class? Third, what effect does it have on subordinate classes? Fourth, what is the apparatus of its transmission?;The volume covers a range of different capitalist societies, including familiar cases and others which are discussed less often.
