Understanding Social Inequality: Intersections of Class, Age, Gender, Ethnicity and Race in Canada (review)

This is a very good book, an interesting one, and perhaps an intellectually significant one.

Apparently intended mainly as a textbook , it goes far beyond its original mandate to present an account of Canadian social inequality which successfully integrates the multiple dimensions of gender, age, class, ethnicity and race. It then applies the framework to the interpretation of concrete situations: unpaid labour, paid labour, education, health and the state. It also features an interesting discussion of structure and agency and little vignettes which give a sense of what it all means to real lives. It does the work of a standard text well and can be recommended for course use. It deserves a look from serious scholars.

Any criticism of the book would be of the kind that can be applied to Canadian Sociology in this area generally. The innumerable genuflections at the altar of Karl Marx eventually become pathetic. The apparent ignorance of other intellectual traditions, even social democratic ones, is a serious intellectual flaw. The otherwise excellent survey of the Canadian literature is very much that of an ingrown establishment. The recommendation of "radical social change" near the end of the book is irresponsible in the extreme when all our historical knowledge indicates that every known attempt at radical levelling has had catastrophic outcomes. (Read Sorokin.)

More recently, the removal of capitalism cost a hundred million lives in genocides alone, did little to reduce inequalites, and was otherwise very largely a a failure. As Genovese noted in his famous 1994 paper in Dissent, some serious re-thinking is necessary before academics once again recommend "radical social change."

However, none of this should be allowed to detract from the very promising original work in this book. Julie McMullin is apparently a relatively young female employed at the University of Western Ontario. Consequently her work, like Canadian work generally, is likely to be ignored by the international community unless some effort to disseminate her ideas in a broader and more academic context is made. Here's hoping that she makes the attempt, is generously supported by her colleagues, and that her ideas receive the serious attention they deserve.