Labour market, class structure and regional formations in Italy.

Contemporary capitalism has great structural complexity, whose form cannot simply be derived from abstract features of the mode of production. Only inquiries into the nature of single social formations can uncover the variety and continuously changing nature of the social structure. In this way studies of single aspects or processes of economic development can furnish reliable maps of the class structure. Accordingly this article starts from an analysis of the labor market and goes on to suggest some hypotheses about the regional complexity of social and class structures in Italy. The analysis is founded on structural and general trends of contemporary capitalism. The relatively separate organization of these trends is the peculiarity which sociologist have brought into focus. The author has briefly outlined a direction for research and some hypotheses for future work. The heart of the matter is that regional differentiation is an important organizational feature of modern capitalism so without the theoretical concept of regional formation, the analysis will omit something, which is essential.