Serialized classes coalesce into groups only through a common external enemy.

Evidence

Thus the status of a class is already given in the structure of the practico-inert (factory system, machinery, salaries, mode of distribution, rate of industrial development) at any given moment. But this inert, impotent seriality is, as we have seen already, first galvanized into group-formation by the presence of external danger, by the threat of a common enemy, who is, of course, in this context none other than the middle class itself, the property owner. That danger is real, for the middle classes fear the mass of workers and react preventively to what is felt to be a working-class threat: not only economically, in the lowering of salaries to assure profits, in the closing down of factories during periods of overproduction and in the fostering of useful forms of unemployment, but overtly and politically as well. The first example of this political preventive warfare is still the classic one: the deliberate repression and massacre of the workers in June 1848 after the success of the middle-class revolution had been assured and the working-class agitation for guaranteed employment had become an impediment to the development of business. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 559

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason — the practico-inert and group-in-fusion here clearly mirror Sartre’s seriality and fusion; this is Jameson channeling Sartre onto class formation. — connects to: Groups first form against an external threat, then transfer their unity onto an object — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 506; Smallholders form a class through mere numerical aggregation, not collective organization; Social class fuses both serial and group structures simultaneously — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 558 (+7 more)
• DEFINE: Defines ‘practico-inert’ concretely through examples (factory system, machinery, salaries) and shows its limits versus group-formation.

Broader Connections

• Social class fuses both serial and group structures simultaneously #qualifies (0.85) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 558
• Subordinate classes gain self-awareness only by negation of the enemy #corroborates (0.85) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1012
• Smallholders form a class through mere numerical aggregation, not collective organization #contradicts (0.80)
• Enemy and friend categories are mutually constructed within identity #corroborates (0.80) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 709
• External enemies can briefly unite groups that have been murdering each other. #corroborates (0.75) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 691
• Aggressive retribution spreads to all group members only when group is entitative #expands (0.75) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 275
• The enemy must be plural and actively separated into distinct spheres #expands (0.75)
• Outsiders misconstrue tightly organized social groups as secret conspiracies. #responds-to (0.70)