ABSTRACT
Ironically for a tradition that traces its heritage back to Marx and Vygotsky, sociocultural psychology does not often engage directly with class issues. In fact, most researchers in this field demonstrate a remarkable talent for skewing politics and the class struggle altogether. Carolyne P. Panofsky’s contribution about the relationship between learning and social class represents a rare exception. Another critical psychologist who never ignores the political dimension of psychology is Dennis Fox. Humanistic psychology is desperate to demarcate itself from psychoanalysis and behaviourism. Maslow began as a behaviourist and retained a deep-seated respect for both behaviourism’s scientific credentials and its social engineering agenda. Both Maslow and Rogers instinctively understood that the worker of the ‘formal’ phase of domination was being replaced by a new worker who belonged to the ‘real’ phase of capital’s domination. Humanistic psychology had to understand and heal a more complex subjectivity, shaped by the demands of post-Fordism and post-Taylorism.
