Languages of Class: Studies in English Working Class History 1832–1982

by Gareth Stedman Jones

This collection of essays by Gareth Stedman Jones proposes a different way of seeing both historians' analytical conceptions of 'class', and the actual manifestation of class in the history of English politics and English culture since the 1830s. As the progenitor of the first generally acknowledged working-class movement, the English working class provided the initial empirical basis for not only the original Marxist theory of modern industry and proletarian revolution, but also subsequent historians' reactions against, or adaptations of, the Marxist theory of class. In Languages of Class Gareth Stedman Jones draws a distinction between two conceptions of class: the everyday and commonplace perception of its pervasiveness in England, and the Marxist idea of its revolutionary significance. He proceeds to challenge the predominant conceptions of the meaning and development of 'class consciousness' by stressing the political and discursive conditions in which particular languages appeared and receded. Among the themes of individual essays in the book are a rethinking of 'the making of the English working class' and the phenomenon of Chartism, a novel exploration of the formation and components of 'working-class culture', and, in the light of these, a new approach to understanding the history of the Labour Party.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Sociology, Labor, British Literature

268 pages, Hardcover

First published January 12, 1984

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the introduction, Gareth Stedman Jones recounts his intellectual development and explains how and why he has come to see the limits of social explanation, particularly as applied to politics. Based primarily on his work on Chartism, the author believes that politics produce consciousness, not vice versa. Specifically, Stedman Jones argues that Chartism — the movement in support of the People’s Charter of 1838, which advocated manhood suffrage (among other things) — is best understood as a result of politics, not economics or social theory. 

Focusing on the language used by the Chartists (104), Stedman Jones shows continuity with earlier Radicalism and explains how the movement emerged in response to perceived political abuses, notably the Whig measures of the 1830s (175). Chartism failed, according to the author, for several reasons. First, it was never able to secure the middle class support it needed to become a broader movement; in that, the granting of suffrage to the middle class in the Reform Act of 1832 short-circuited the Chartist push. A secondary reason for Chartism’s failure was that it was a multi-issue platform and was not nimble enough to respond to single-issue initiatives. This point, coupled with the fact that the state itself — the manifestation of the political entity that the Chartists were fighting against — changed tack and adopted less objectionable policies in the 1840s and 1850s, sealed Chartism’s decline. (177-178) Chartism remained believable only as long as economic problems could be “convincingly assigned political causes.” (106)

The author goes to great lengths to rescue the history of Chartism from the clutches of social theorists. He does this primarily by focusing on the language used by the Chartists themselves, showing that it was not something fundamentally new as the Engles/Marx crowd asserted, but instead a continuation of the Radicalism, slightly adapted, of Tom Paine. (171) Chartism, according to Stedman Jones, became a movement of workers because, after 1832, the workers were the ones still disenfranchised: “In radical discourse, the dividing line between classes was not that between employer and employed, but that between the represented and the unrepresented.” (106)

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stedman Jones set out to examine the specific discourses produced by 19th century radicals, and discovered that their words and calls to arms were not framed as artisan labourers, early proletarians, but instead were political. The Chartists spoke of themselves as part of a longer-term British radical movement, and, for Stedman Jones, this self-identification through language became what they were. As discontents joined the Chartist and radical movements, their world views were formulated during joint participation in this discourse. Politics became consciousness, rather than the other way round.

[مهسا · Rating 4 out of 5]

طبقه عیناً همان آگاهی از طبقه است و آگاهی از طبقه تنها می‌تواند از طریق زبان ابراز شود، زیرا هیچ واقعیت اجتماعی‌ای خارج از زبان یا مقدم بر زبان نیست

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an extremely wordy book, but if you can get past that, it's well worth reading.