PROMETHEANS OR TROGLODYTES? THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS AND THE DIALECTICS OF INCORPORATION

Development of a new British historiography, & esp in the recent work of E. P. Thompson, A. Briggs, R. Williams, E. Hobsbawm & R. Miliband is examined for its relevance to the sociol of class in industr'ization. The SP incorporation of the English We into the instit'al frame of a developing nat'l state is not to be seen in terms of a unitary 'citizenship' model as R. Bendix & T. Marshall have argued, nor in terms of overarching nat'l consciousness. Rather, it must be examined in terms of '2 nations' or cultures fused through specific instit'al nexi. Ideological & material inducement, & soc & pol'al co-optation are seen as ineffective in preventing the development of strong We identity in the 19th cent. Through the insulation of a separate value-pattern within class instit's, a secondary 'citizenship' develops in contradiction to the ruling definition. The growth of corporate class org, while sustaining alternate (democratic-collectivist) forms ultimately does not prevent instit'al accommodation with the larger society. But the growing potency of class instit's is only offset by incorporation of the cooperatives, unions & Labor Party firmly within the market system & parliamentary arena. The culture of the We is seen as sustaining egalitarian & communitarian alternatives to bourgeois cultural hegemony at the local level. This is seen as having sources prior to industr'ism, & articulated in contradistinction to individualism & utilitarianism, primarily in instit'al fashion. Nevertheless this is seen to survive the crucial incorporative moment, the parliamentary involvement of labor. AA.