Working-Class Images of Society (Routledge Revivals)

Martin Bulmer

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138908239
• eBook ISBN: 9781317267058
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Customs & Traditions
• Index: Social Sciences

First published in 1975. How do men come to perceive and evaluate a world in which marked inequalities of class and status exist? This book considers the nature of class images and their underlying work and community structures. Beginning with the argument that the perception of society varies according to type of work and community milieux, it first considers the social imagery of working-class professions and their sources of variation, and then examines some of the methodological problems of the study of class imagery. The nature of proletarian traditionalism and radicalism in then contemporary Britain is discussed in conclusion. This title will be of interest to students of sociology.

Part one

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Martin Bulmer

The word ‘class’, to be sure, only appears relatively rarely in the responses on a variety of subjects. The illusion of certain intellectuals, that everyone talks, or should talk, in terms of a theory of society, must be abandoned. But nevertheless the replies on diverse themes - success, wealth, inequalities, etc. -show quite unambiguously that people do refer (using everyday language) to ‘society’ and to stratification.

Willener, 1957, p.214

At least since Marx distinguished between ‘Klasse an sich’ and ‘Klasse für sich’, the nature of men’s perceptions of society, social inequality, social stratification and social class have been of central philosophical, political and (more recently) sociological concern. In a stratified industrial society, how do members of different social strata come to form, to develop and to hold, images or mental representations of that structure? How do men come to perceive and evaluate a world in which marked objective inequalities of class and status exist? What is the relationship between such objective differences as exist in terms of income, wealth, life chances, labour market situation, work situation or education, and subjective perceptions of the system of social stratification in industrial society? What is the nature of industrial man’s ‘Weltanschauung’? Such questions are of course of interest not only to academic sociologists. They relate in a direct sense to social, political and philosophical questions about the nature of the most desirable, equitable and just form or forms of social organisation. The studies of sources of variation in working-class images of society which follow connect with these broad concerns, but are primarily social scientific in their conception and execution. That is to say, the primary purpose of the research reported here has been to enlarge our knowledge and understanding of the system of stratification in contemporary Britain, not to provide the basis for philosophical or political prescriptions or refutations. (1)

A second theme underlying this research, of a more specifically sociological nature, is the problem of the relationship between the objective social situation of individuals and groups, and their own subjective perception of that situation. Given the possibility of constructing sociological accounts of the social world from both an objective and subjective standpoint, what is the relationship between the objective and the subjective? (2) The tension between social structures and social meanings has been present in sociological work ever since Durkheim enjoined us to ‘consider social facts as things’ and Max Weber directed our attention to the ‘subjectively meaningful’ nature of social action. As a recent restatement of some of the central theoretical problems of sociology emphasises, this dualism is complementary. ‘Society does indeed possess objective facticity. And society is indeed built up by activity that expresses subjective meaning. It is precisely the dual character of society in terms of objective facticity and subjective meaning that makes its reality sui generis …’ (Berger and Luckmann, 1966, p.30). The theoretical importance of work on class imagery lies in its embodiment of this complementarity in the approach, and indeed in the reciprocity which Lockwood sought to establish between particular features of social structure and particular distinctive patterns of class imagery.

Yet arguably the synthesis of complementary elements, and to some extent the demonstration of a necessary connection of a reciprocal kind between structure and meaning, remains problematic. It is probably no accident that Lockwood chose to develop his argument in 1966 by the use of ideal types, for the study of class imagery is fraught with difficult methodological problems. The papers in this volume illustrate the extreme complexity of the inter-relationships between objective class situation and perceptions of that situation. The clarity provided by an approach via ideal types is all the more welcome because many current social issues of industrial relations, wages policy, and the organisation of workplace and workpeople turn on how workers interpret and act upon their objective social situation. (3)

These theoretical and methodological issues were one of the principal sources for the idea of holding a conference based upon Lockwood’s article. To secure as cohesive and integrated a programme as possible, contributors were asked in advance to pay particular attention to the relationship between the empirical evidence about particular occupational groups and the theoretical formulation of the sociological ideal types of ‘proletarian traditional worker’ and ‘deferential traditional worker’ and their underlying work and community structures. The value of the 1966 article lies not least in drawing together strands from both theoretical and empirical sources to provide a new theoretical perspective on working-class social imagery, in turn stimulating further empirical research.

Apart from these theoretical issues, one of the main stimuli to research on class imagery has undoubtedly been a normative one, the desire to understand the nature and progress of working-class industrial and political action, particularly of a radical kind. Too direct a political significance should not, however, be read into the research reported here. Indeed it should be made clear that this symposium is not a commentary upon the conservative or radical political potential of the English working class. This is not to deny wider philosophical, ethical and social significance to the papers here. To read, however, direct political significance into the Lockwood article of 1966 and the research which it stimulated is probably unwarranted.

A distinction should be maintained, moreover, between the study of images of society and of stratification, and the study of political and industrial class consciousness. The two are not unrelated, but it would be a mistake to equate them with each other. The importance of this distinction between social imagery and class consciousness may be seen by considering the main characteristics of the latter. Class consciousness may be said to exist when (following Goldthorpe (1970a, pp.327–8), three characteristics are present:

1 A sharp awareness of being in a similar situation to other workers and hence of having interests in common.

2 The sharing of a definition of these interests as basically in conflict with the interests of another class.

3 The perception of class conflicts as pervading all social relationships and containing within them the germs of a future social order.

As both the opening quotation by Willener and several of the papers in this volume suggest, there is an apparent absence on the part of some manual workers of direct reference to social class when questioned in an interview situation. In some cases, too, when a model of the stratification system is elicited by questioning, this is not found to correspond to the antagonistic conflict model implicit in the above definition of class consciousness. Yet people who have difficulty in using the concept of class, or who deny its validity altogether, may nevertheless have the clearest conception of social inequality in a more general sense; a focus upon class consciousness may lead to this being overlooked. The postulation of, or search for, class consciousness (either manifest or latent) presupposes its articulation in a coherent ideological form. Yet an important feature of images is that they may be fragmentary, ambiguous or uncertain. How far they cohere to form unitary images is open to question. So is the extent to which they are underlain by a unitary ideology of a coherent kind which could be written down.

Moreover, the articulation of sentiments of class antagonism and the sharing of a definition of common interests as basically in conflict with the interests of another class both require the development of an organisational context for their effective expression. The collective political and industrial organisation and articulation of class sentiment is a main feature of class consciousness (cf. Banks,1970, Chapter 8).

To study … class consciousness … is to study the factors affecting … sense of identification with, or alienation from, the working class. More precisely, such a study should aim at an understanding of the relationship of the … worker to the trade union movement, the main vehicle of working-class consciousness. (Lockwood, 1958, p.13).

By its very nature, the study of social imagery focuses upon the unorganised and often diffuse representations of social structure held by members of particular occupational groups. The relationship between unorganised images and organised consciousness is complex and ramified, and the one should not be assimilated to the other, any more than varieties of religious belief on the one hand, and church doctrine on the other, should be treated as identical. Moreover, to insist upon the overriding political significance of the work upon social imagery is surely an oversimplification, for classes and status groups may be regarded as manifestations of what Durkheim called a society’s ‘moral classification of men and things’, which is ultimately a ‘religious’ phenomenon (Lockwood, 1971, p.71).

In short, the relationship between social imagery and class consciousness is problematic. Although the existence of certain images of society may be regarded as underlying collective class action, there is no automatic connection between men’s views of the stratification system and of the social hierarchy, and the consequences of those views for voting behaviour, strike action, or other manifestations of collective solidarity of a class-based kind. In the papers which follow, different views are taken of the possible relationship between social imagery and class consciousness. This is highlighted in the concluding part, where Lockwood and Westergaard disagree as to whether a viable distinction may be maintained between them. Caution, therefore, is advisable before identifying the one with the other. On the other hand, they are not unconnected.

The study of images of society and images of stratification thus stands somewhat apart from classical studies of class consciousness, and it may be useful to sketch the intellectual antecedents and milieu of the Lockwood article and the subsequent research stemming from it. Any such sketch is exceedingly tentative given the difficulties of writing intellectual history, and the influences identified do not necessarily provide an exhuastive account. The intellectual antecedents of the research reported here can be traced to three main sources: certain general developments in sociological theory, a series of empirical studies of subjective aspects of social class, and continuing debate among sociologists interested in theories of stratification.

The general theoretical importance of the work on stratification of Karl Marx and Max Weber is self-evident, apparent in all the papers which follow, and needs no recapitulation. More recently, the importance of theories of purposive social action (or action frames of reference) in influencing research into the structural correlates of class im...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Contributors
• Part one Introduction
• Part two Empirical Research
• Part Three Theory and Methodology
• Part Four Conclusion
• Bibliography