White Collar: The American Middle Classes

by C. Wright Mills, Russell Jacoby (With)

Overview

In print for fifty years, White Collar by C. Wright Mills is considered a standard on the subject of the new middle class in twentieth-century America. This landmark volume demonstrates how the conditions and styles of middle class life--originating from elements of both the newer lower and upper classes--represent modern society as a whole. By examining white-collar life, Mills aimed to learn something about what was becoming more typically "American" than the once-famous Western frontier character. He painted a picture instead of a society that had evolved into a business-based milieu, viewing America instead as a great salesroom, an enormous file, and a new universe of management. Russell Jacoby, author of The End of Utopia and The Last Intellectuals, contributes a new Afterword to this edition, in which he reflects on the impact White Collar had at its original publication and considers what it means to our society today. "A book that persons of every level of the white collar pyramid should read and ponder. It will alert them to their condition for their better salvation."-Horace M. Kaellen, The New York Times (on the first edition)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199756353
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/26/2002
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

The late C. Wright Mills, former Professor of Sociology at Columbia University, was a leading critic of modern American civilization. His other books include The Sociological Imagination and The Power Elite (both OUP). Russell Jacoby is Professor of History at UCLA and a contributing writer to The Nation, The New York Times, and Harper's.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	ix
1	Old Middle Classes
1.	The World of the Small Entrepreneur	3
1.	The Old Middle Classes	3
2.	Property, Freedom and Security	7
3.	The Self-Balancing Society	9
2.	The Transformation of Property	13
1.	The Rural Debacle	15
2.	Business Dynamics	20
3.	The Lumpen-Bourgeoisie	28
3.	The Rhetoric of Competition	34
1.	The Competitive Way of Life	35
2.	The Independent Farmer	40
3.	The Small Business Front	44
4.	Political Persistence	54
2	White Collar Worlds
4.	The New Middle Class: I	63
1.	Occupational Change	63
2.	Industrial Mechanics	65
3.	White-Collar Pyramids	70
5.	The Managerial Demiurge	77
1.	The Bureaucracies	78
2.	From the Top to the Bottom	81
3.	The Case of the Foreman	87
4.	The New Entrepreneur	91
5.	The Power of the Managers	100
6.	Three Trends	106
6.	Old Professions and New Skills	112
1.	The Professions and Bureaucracy	113
2.	The Medical World	115
3.	Lawyers	121
4.	The Professors	129
5.	Business and the Professions	136
7.	Brains, Inc.	142
1.	Four Phases	144
2.	The Bureaucratic Context	149
3.	The Ideological Demand	153
4.	The Rise of the Technician	156
8.	The Great Salesroom	161
1.	Types of Salesmen	161
2.	The Biggest Bazaar in the World	166
3.	Buyers and Floorwalkers	169
4.	The Salesgirls	172
5.	The Centralization of Salesmanship	178
6.	The Personality Market	182
9.	The Enormous File	189
1.	The Old Office	190
2.	Forces and Developments	192
3.	The White-Collar Girl	198
4.	The New Office	204
5.	The White-Collar Hierarchy	209
3	Styles of Life
10.	Work	215
1.	Meanings of Work	215
2.	The Ideal of Craftsmanship	220
3.	The Conditions of Modern Work	224
4.	Frames of Acceptance	229
5.	The Morale of the Cheerful Robots	233
6.	The Big Slipt	235
11.	The Status Panic	239
1.	White-Collar Prestige	240
2.	The Smaller City	250
3.	The Metropolis	251
4.	The Status Panic	254
12.	Success	259
1.	Patterns and Ideologies	259
2.	The Educational Elevator	265
3.	Origins and Mobilities	272
4.	Hard Times	278
5.	The Tarnished Image	282
4	Ways of Power
13.	The New Middle Class: II	289
1.	Theories and Difficulties	290
2.	Mentalities	294
3.	Organizations	298
14.	White-Collar Unionism	301
1.	The Extent Organized	302
2.	Acceptance and Rejection	304
3.	Individual Involvement	308
4.	The Shape of Unionism	314
5.	Unions and Politics	320
15.	The Politics of the Rearguard	324
1.	Models of Consciousness	324
2.	Political Indifference	327
3.	The Mass Media	332
4.	The Social Structure	340
5.	U.S. Politics	342
6.	The Rearguarders	350
	Acknowledgments and Sources	355
	Afterword	365
	Index	381

Editorial Reviews

"A book that persons of every level of the white collar pyramid should read and ponder. It will alert them to their condition for their better salvation."—Horace M. Kaellen, The New York Times (on the first edition)

From the Publisher