Class and Labor in Iran: Did the Revolution Matter?(Book review)

Class and Labor in Iran: Did the Revolution Matter? by Farhad Nomani and Sohrab Behdad, Syracuse University Press, 2006. xiii + 214 pages. Tables. Bibl. to p. 234. Index to p. 268. $49.95.

To say that the publication of a book on Iran's social classes in 2006 is timely is simply to note that more than any other time this year, Iran is the focus of international attention. This book makes an important and timely contribution to our understanding of the internal dynamics of Iran's society. The question the authors pose, and the book's subtitle, is "Did the Revolution Matter?" Their short answer is that it did not, at least as far as the class structure is concerned. Their long answer, which takes the reader through much painstaking manipulation of census employment data, shows that the Revolution brought about deep changes in employment structure during its first (the "Khomeini") decade that were reversed during the subsequent period of "rejuvenation of capitalism."

The book's greatest merit lies in its empirical approach to the study of class and labor. The theoretical discussion is brief and to the point, confined to one chapter, where the authors explain their neo-Marxist approach modeled after Erik Wright. (1) This approach expands the traditional bipolar structure of capitalist versus working class based on the ownership of means of production to take into account the important role of human capital in modern capitalist production. A useful chart (p. 30) describes how the three concepts of ownership, authority, and skill are fused in this framework. Empirically, they describe the class structure in Iran by four main social classes: capitalists, the petty bourgeoisie, the middle class, and the working class. Each is then divided into sub-categories, such as modern and traditional, public and private sector, etc.

Mapping the census data on occupational categories into these four classes can only come at the cost of some heroic assumptions, which can stretch one's credulity. We read on page 88 that, "in 1976 there were 182,000 capitalists in Iran." Among these are all types of employers, including small employers, such as bicycle repair shop owners, who predominate, In 1976, for example, the average number of employees for 97% of establishments was less than two (p. 90). Unpaid family workers (about half of whom were moved from this category in 1976, to the category "unspecified" in 1986) count as petty bourgeois.

The empirical work is confined to census data from 1976, 1986, and 1996, which is unfortunate, as important changes have occurred since the last census. For example, the shares of wage and salary workers in the private and public sectors have reversed since early 1990s; in 2004, the private sector employed 50% more wage and salary workers compared to the public sector. There are plenty of employment survey data that could have been used to examine changes during the last ten years of economic growth (annual employment surveys since 1997 are available at www.amar.sci.ir). When, sometime in 2007, the results of the new census, taken in November 2006, are made available, the book's description of class structure in Iran would seem quite out of date.

The crux of the empirical analysis of this book is that economic crisis during the "Khomeini decade" led to what they call "involution," which is characterized, among other things, by a large shift during 1976-86, from 32% to 40%, in ...