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The ‘New Working Class’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

David Lockwood
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Extract

The problem of the ‘new working class’ is located in the events of recent political history, specifically in the three successive electoral defeats of the Labour Party. In attempting to explain the failure of the traditional working class party to increase, or even retain, its support among the wage-earning population, a good many generalizations about the causes and consequences of secular changes in the class structure have been advanced and disputed. The salient thesis is that which seeks to account for the conservative drift of the working class in terms of their growing prosperity and their gradual assimilation to the middle class in an economy of full employment and rising expectations of material welfare. As one writer puts it: “The whole working class finds itself on the move, moving towards new middle class values and middle class existence” (1).

Type
A La Recherche Des Classes Perdues
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , November 1960 , pp. 248 - 259
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1960

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References

(1) Zweig, F., The New Factory Worker, Twentieth Century, 05 1960.Google Scholar

(2) I fill in this necessary, but, for obvious reasons, frequently omitted assumption of ‘the new working class’ thesis.

(3) Clark Kerr and Abraham Siegel, The Interindustry Propensity to Strike—An International Comparison, in Kornhauser, A., Dubin, R., Ross, A. M., Industrial Conflict (New York, 1954), ch. xiv.Google Scholar

(4) Abrams, M., Why Labour Has Lost Elections, Socialist Commentary, 05 and 08 1960Google Scholar; Id., New Roots of Working Class Conservatism, Encounter, 05 1960.Google Scholar

(5) See, for example, Kornhauser, Arthur, Sheppard, Harold L. and Mayer, Albert J., When Labor Votes: A Study of Auto Workers (New York, 1956)Google Scholar. One of the main findings of this work is that working people can attain comfortable and respectable middle class planes of living and yet persist in their loyalty to organized labour and labour's political aims.

(6) According to Abrams' recent survey data, 47 per cent of non-Labour voters in the skilled working class claimed working class status; and 37 per cent of those who were Labour claimed middle class status. Between the skilled and non-skilled non-Labour supporters, there was practically no difference in the proportion claiming to be middle class (Socialist Commentary, 05 1960)Google Scholar. Birch, A. H. in his Small Town Politics (Oxford, 1959), p. 110Google Scholar, found only a very slight connection between middle-class identification and Conservatism.

(7) The number of ‘deferential’ Tory voters in the working class is unknown. Samuel, Ralph, The Deference Voter, New Left Review, 01–02 1960Google Scholar, believes it to be a relatively large proportion.

(8) Butler and Rose are of the opinion that “A significant number of skilled workers may be called class hybrids-working class in terms of occupation, education, speech, and cultural norms, while becoming middle class in terms of income and material comforts” and conclude that these workers are likely to be “cross-pressured” as a result. But this depends on their reference groups; “status striving” is an intra as well as an inter-class phenomenon. The distinction between the ‘rough’ and ‘respectable’ working class runs through much recent research. Butler, D. E. and Rose, R., The British General Election of 1959 (Macmillan, 1960), p. 15.Google Scholar

(9) Abrams, M., The Home-Centred Society, The Listener, 11 26, 1959Google Scholar; Zweig, , op, cit.Google Scholar

(10) See, for example, Floud, J. E., Halsey, A. H. and Martin, F. M., Social Class and Educational Opportunity (London, 1957).Google Scholar

(11) Stacey, M., Tradition and Change, A Study of Banbury (Oxford, 1960), p. 115Google Scholar. See also, for example, Willmott, P. and Young, M., Family and Class in a London Suburb (London, 1960), ch. x.Google Scholar

(12) See, for example, the articles by Thomas Bottomore, Social Stratification in Voluntary Organizations, and Rosalind C. Chambers, A Study of Three Voluntary Associations, in Glass, D. V., Social Mobility in Britain (London, 1954).Google Scholar