The Undeclared War: Class Conflict in the Age of Cyber Capitalism

Franзois Boudreau is a professor of sociology at Laurentian University
in Sudbury.

In this book, different dimensions of the class struggle are
investigated. The 11 chapters deal with the planetary field of the new
social order; the shortcomings of official statistics; the widening wage
gap; the development of a class of super rich; the new banking system
and the bond traders; the profound transformation of work and of the
working and middle classes; the cultures of the different classes; the
prospect for wage labor; the hardships facing poor and single-parent
families; the disappearance of a true middle class and a true social
middle ground; and American hegemony.

This interesting, accessible, and well-researched book provides a clear
picture of the emerging crisis of social polarization. Unfortunately, it
fails to reflect the complexity of the new social dynamic. The
explanations are sometimes too mechanistic, based on anecdotes or buried
in the data (some tables would have eased the reading). There are some
important theoretical mistakes, especially concerning the principal
agent of social change (identified here as the working class), the
nature of the new system (neoconservatism), and the nature of fascism
(the project of the small shop owner). Finally, the text is not always
well organized. Despite these shortcomings, The Class Struggle can be
recommended to students of social sciences on the grounds that it raises
the right questions.