Christine on Seguin

The Review ‘Producing Middle classlessness’ by Amy L. Blair on Seguin’s article, at http://www.jstor.org/stable/30041934?seq=6  notes Seguin’s contended notion of ‘class as lifestyle’. Seguin finds the idea of middle-classlessness problematic in what he sees as a “symptomatic, unproductive, peculiarly ‘postmodern’ preoccupation with the consumerist element of class.” Blair expresses that middle classlessness is different to ‘classlessness’ as “it is not just a desire to weaken class structures but a utopian wish for the ‘felt elimination of these - a freedom from class altogether’”. Seguin thus proposes that once ‘class’ becomes synonymous with ‘lifestyle’ then anyone can conform towards a class society and therefore Seguin suggests in theory that the U.S becomes a ‘classless society’.

However, as noted by Blair Seguin’s most important interest is to emphasize that “class has not been treated with the kind of analytic power it deserves, and those who would downplay the material underpinnings of class risk adding to the suppression of the potential for class consciousness in American society”.
Dreiser’s extract of Toil of the Labourer contradicts Seguin’s notion of a classless society. In Dreiser’s view and experience he expresses how the labourer is constrained to his role as a manual worker. Usually worked hard, beyond his ability, Dreiser states “There is no provision made for the future of those who will be as tattered remnants when the things they laboured for have been accomplished”. With this negative opinion on the future of the working American, it contrasts Seguin’s optimistic look upon the collapse of class divide.