文化之政治經濟學、組織政治與身分群體--Collins論文憑社會及與韋伯理論之關係

The Political Economy of Culture, Organizational Politics and Status Groups- Collins on Credential Society and Its Connection with Weber's Theory

本文以Collins的文憑社會論述，作為探討教育及相關的社會資源是否不均分配之理論。Collins主張從事「政治的勞動」的支配階級將以「文化市場」作為穩定其「職位財產」之關鍵。以前透過教會，如今則透過學校，讓某些人擁有與菁英們類同的「生活風格」、談吐與禮儀。教育於是成為「文化通貨」，亦即用以獲致菁英職位的共通交換媒介。但教育也會發生種種通貨膨脹現象。Collins的上述理論與韋伯的身分群體之概念頗有牽連，雖包括Collins在內有不少學者也都提到他受韋伯影響，但亦有人認為他受馬克思影響。經本文探討，發現他確是一小幅修正後的韋伯主義者，且他是以韋伯論述為主軸而吸納馬克思、涂爾幹等理論傳統。但本文亦指出，依Collins的詮釋與分類，韋伯其實也可算是延續著馬克思主義傳統，其身分群體只是補充、修正馬克思階級觀。由以上討論，本文推論出Collins可算是以一修正後的馬思主義者而提出文憑社會論。這論述對理解台灣的教育及相關的社會資源之不均分配，有一定之助益。

The 410 Movement for educational reform which occurred in Taiwan in 1994， set up a claim for widely establishing senior high schools and universities. It deserves analyses concerning whether the claim can actually improve social justice or push the equalitarian distribution of social resources. This would connect with the topic of credentialism. Through analyzing viewpoints of Collins’ credential society， this paper points out that， by using his modified concept of ‘status group’ from Max Weber， Collins claims the ‘dominant class’ will make the ‘cultural market’ a key to the maintenance of its ‘positions’. Thus the credential becomes ‘cultural currency’， and， under the condition of inflation of ‘cultural currency’， organizations of many governments and private enterprises increase ‘sinecures’ to contain those who have high-order credentials.After discussions， we discover Collins’ Weberian perspective can still be understood in the framework of Marxian thoughts of class， though he uses Weber’s theory as an axis to absorb the traditions of Marx， Durkheim and so on. This discourse benefits to some extent the understanding of the education and the unequal distribution of social resources in Taiwan.