ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an outline of the earlier work from the writers from the New social democratic Left. Alain Touraine began to formulate his ideas in the wake of the defeat of the student led uprisings in France that culminated in the events in Paris. Touraine's analysis rendered the idea of a labour movement anachronistic and suggested that labour organizations would become opponents rather than supporters of progressive social change. The dominant paradigm of the sociology of social movements came to prominence in this period of retreat and defeat in the face of restructuring. The working class was said to be disappearing at the same time as unemployment was soaring due to the rationalization and relocation of production. The failure of organized labour to lead a generalized opposition to restructuring and the fragmentation of resistance appeared to confirm the assertion that the social democratic project no longer had a credible class basis.
