"class Struggle Without Class"?

To what extent can social relations in eighteenth-century England be explained as "class struggle without class"?

The work of E.P Thompson, particularly his 1963 seminal work The Making of the English Working Class, was to be a central historiographical turning point. Followed by Customs in Common, Thompson`s scholarship brought the lives of the English working poor to the fore of academic discussion, as well as introducing questions of working class consciousness into the realm of social history. This essay explores the question first posited by Thompson in his 1978 article `Eighteenth-Century English Society: Class Struggle without Class?` and assesses the extent to which eighteenth century social relations can be described as such. There shall be a focus on the foundational work of Thompson, the more traditional social history of Harold Perkin, as well as more recent revisionist scholarship by the likes of Roy Porter, Craig Calhoun and John Bohstedt. This paper shall outline Thompson`s economic and antagonistic conception of class, followed by Perkin`s conception of class as latent, and exhibiting more consensual relations than Thompson`s conception. It will then argue that Calhoun and Bohstedt`s conception of a community struggle is more convincing than Thompson`s conception of "class struggle without class" as Calhoun, Bohstedt, as well as Porter offer an interpretation of eighteenth century social relations that go beyond the parameters of Thompson`s Marxist humanism. Therefore eighteenth century social relations cannot be described as class struggle without class.

For Thompson, Perkin, and Porter, the 1790s is a crucial decade in the emergence of a clear English working class with a distinct awareness of itself, or to use a Marxist term, a "class consciousness." As Porter asserts, "Thompson is right in seeing the 1790s as critical for the formation of English working class." All three scholars also agree that before the 1790s, there was no distinctly clear class structure that would come to characterise modern nineteenth -century England. This begs the question of what came before the modern class structure, and whether there was a class struggle before, or without, class. For Thompson, class is primarily defined as an economic relationship of the worker to the means of production, though Thompson`s humanist Marxism would lead him to add that working class experience and consciousness were also crucial. What Thompson adds to previous Marxist analysis, therefore, is the centrality of experience and culture in the formation of class consciousness. Despite viewing society through the guise of class struggle, or at the very least economic opposition, Thompson does not ascribe such potentially anachronistic terms such as "class" explicitly to the eighteenth century. For Thompson, though he uses the term `class` to describe eighteenth century social relations, it is not `class` in the nineteenth century sense. Indeed, he urges caution "against any tendency to read back subsequent notations of class." Thompson therefore defends his use of `class` due to there being "no alternative category to analyse a manifest and universal historical process." Given Thompson`s adherence to Marxist structural analysis, class plays a central role in his view of history, and as a result he does not see other alternative categories as being tenable. Such a view of `no alternative` category being available is less convincing and therefore, by diverging from a Marxist conception of history, and adopting a more revisionist approach, other `alternative categories`, as discussed later, are available and more convincing. Crucially however, for Thompson, class consciousness and class struggle are inseparable, thus begging his central question of how to analyse class struggle before class consciousness. Class is a historical category for Thompson, and is neither static nor independent of agency. Given that Thompson views the working poor as not being aware of themselves collectively as a class in the eighteenth century, and would not have identified themselves as such, it follows for Thompson that there was no class consciousness. This makes Thompson question how historians of social history write about socio-economic relationships in the eighteenth century. For Thompson therefore, the answer is to use the heuristic of class, despite its potential problems of anachronism. This is because `class` and class consciousness are the last and not the first stage in the historical process. The class struggle is the first stage, the "prior as well as more universal concept", and it is due to their manifest struggling that classes exist. As Thompson views `class` as the last stage of the historical process, and their manifest struggling occurring prior to `class consciousness,` he views eighteenth century social relations as `class struggle without class`. The adoption of a more revisionist approach may be more fruitful in establishing `alternative categories` which Thompson rejects as being unavailable. Craig Calhoun as a historical sociologist working in the late 1970s was part of a later generation who came to criticise historians of the `New Left` such as Thompson. Calhoun offers an alternative category to Thompson`s notion of `class` and finds the eighteenth century being characterised less by class struggle than `community struggle.` He asserts, the "community was the crucial social bond unifying workers for collective action.to interpret the actions of British workers before the 1830s as class actions is to use the concept so broadly that it loses all distinctive meaning." Furthermore Calhoun is critical of the centrality of class for Thompson: "class struggle becomes, not a phenomena for which one finds evidence, but an overarching framework in which one explains everything." Calhoun, and Perkin before him do not share Thomson`s conception of class, both instead offering a social perspective. As Perkin finds class as `latent` in the eighteenth century, its existence is without nineteenth century connotations. Therefore, he considers "the term interchangeable with concepts such as `ranks` and `orders.`" Perkin`s view of class as latent seems more tenable than Thompson`s, as `class` for Perkin is noted without subscribing to a Marxist conception of history. However, Perkin`s notion of a one-class society appears too rigid and does not allow the potential for more fluid social relations. Unlike Thompson`s more economic conception of `class,` Perkin views the relationship between gentry and plebs more as a social relationship. Perkin considers the old society as fairly rigid and deferential, and finds this structure best characterised in the form of a pyramid. Though for Perkin, "class was latent in politics, industrial relations, and the religion of the old society", he feels "powerful bonds and loyalties` inhibited its overt expression" until the nineteenth century. For Perkin, class is as much related to the holding of land, status and titles as it is to the erosion of systems of deference and patronage. So central is property to the structure of eighteenth century society for Perkin, he not only views it as the factor by which society renewed itself in each generation, but "in a sense was the architect of the social structure." As economic distribution was disproportional, where a small minority received a large part of the national wealth, and given that landowners for Perkin are the only cohesive and important class, it follows for Perkin that eighteenth century society can be characterised as a `one-class society.` Perkin`s assertion is indicated by Gregory King`s estimate that "approximately 1.2% of families in 1688 received 14.1% of the national income." England for Perkin can furthermore be represented as a `one class society` where other interest groups are fragmented, divided and deferential as, "the great house [lies at] the apex of all lines of communication." As Perkin views consensual relations in the eighteenth century between plebs and gentry, as well as a "one class society" with majority of land being held by a few, it follows for Perkin that there was no "class struggle without class" in the eighteenth century. Thompson would object to Perkin`s analysis since this removes any potential for either reciprocity or antagonism between the strata of society and disempowers the plebs, crowd or mob. The rejection of a Marxist conception of history would result in finding Perkin`s consensual conception of class as more convincing as relations are not inherently antagonistic, and therefore there would be no "class struggle without class."

Thompson disagrees with Perkin`s analysis of eighteenth century society as paternal, as well as with the concept of a `one class society` which he asserts is central to Perkin. Thompson`s view of eighteenth century society is more characterised by gentry-crowd reciprocity, of a "`paternalism-deference equilibrium` where both parties were to some degree prisoners of each other." In contrast to Perkin, Thompson outlines a more oppositional social structure with antagonisms and mutual reliance between the plebs and gentry. Thompson supports his argument for inherent class antagonisms by noting three insurrectionary tools of the eighteenth century mob, or plebs. Firstly, Thompson notes labouring men, "writing letters from the security of anonymity, were quite capable of shattering any illusion of deference or regarding their rulers in a wholly unsentimental and filial way." Secondly, Thompson examines the use of `Counter-theatre` as a reaction to "rulers asserting their hegemony through a `studied theatrical style.`" The plebs in turn "asserted their presence by a theatre of threat and sedition." `Swift, direct action` was a third characteristic for Thompson, where unlike more articulate resistance of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, "eighteenth century resistance was specific, direct, and turbulent." Thompson cites an example from Coventry in 1772 where nearly 1,000 people gathered in protest against reduced wages, and resorted to "throwing stones and breaking windows." Thompson asserts that despite evidence of antagonism, during most of the eighteenth century this change "is contained in the older structures of power." That is to say that the antagonism does not yet pose a direct risk to the gentry`s hegemony, and in that respect is not yet revolutionary. Thompson is further critical of localising the labouring poor strictly to fraternal loyalties and a `vertical` consciousness as this inhibits wider socio-economic solidarities and `horizontal` consciousness of class. Thompson`s examination of food riots amongst clothing workers, tinners etc led to a conclusion of "a shared common consciousness in ideology and objectives" - a consciousness despite not being `class consciousness` as such. Such a conclusion for Thompson is based on an example where in the 1750s Princess Amelia attempts to close Richmond New Park, and was opposed by a `vigorous horizontal consciousness.` Despite the evidence Thompson presents of eighteenth century latent class antagonism, this paper instead finds the arguments of revisionist historians of community struggle more persuasive. The revisionist historian John Bohstedt`s study of Manchester riots in the early eighteenth century concurs with Thompson`s view of `swift, direct action`. Though, importantly, Bohstedt does not go as far as saying that antagonism is inherent in class but rather that "direct political and physical confrontation in riots also contributed to class." In contrast to Thompson`s conception of class struggle, Bohstedt seems closer to Calhoun`s assertion of eighteenth century social relations as more indicative of community struggle rather than class struggle. Rather than political movements being characterised by class associations, Bohstedt purports community associations are a more apt deduction of eighteenth century social relations as he asserts, "riots were community politics."

There is however a further alternative to `class` consciousness, or even community consciousness, as John Rule has noted of Iorwerth Prothero`s notion of `trade-union consciousness.` This is where "a new trade union consciousness link[ed] wages to organisational power. This consciousness was evident in the forging of links both between trade societies in the same craft. and with other trades." However although such conceptions of links between trades offers an alternative to Thompson`s conception of class, such an alternative does not seem as apt as Bohstedt and Calhoun`s notion of a community struggle. Rather than class struggle as a descri ption of eighteenth century social relations, as John Rule asserts, "here was a union of artisans acting in much the same manner as it had done before 1800."

In contrast to Thompson, Porter views relationships of the eighteenth century society as somewhat `vertical`, as he elucidates, "an eighteenth century Englishman acquired his sense of public identity in relation to his birth, property, his occupation and his social rank." For Porter, prior to the class structure, the old structure, rather than being shaped in solely structural changes, society was structured in a gentler gradient. Unlike Marxist historians, Porter does not view society as "turning upon class struggle between three distinct classes, defined essentially in relation to ownership and deployment of capital." Being a post-Marxist, revisionist historian Porter views the old society as a complex fabric. He does not see latent classes of the eighteenth century becoming `clear-cut` at the turn of the nineteenth century, where "class armies glowered at each other across industrial battlefields." Instead he describes the `complex fabric of society` where he views many factors being present namely family, clientage, privilege, inheritance, status, occupation, and regional, political and religious connections. Though both being non-Marxist historians, Porter`s eighteenth century society is not as rigidly hierarchical as Perkin`s. The rejection of a Marxist interpretation of history would nullify Thompson`s assertion of "class struggle without class," Harold Perkin`s traditionalist interpretation of eighteenth century social relations appears too "top-down," a middle ground of Porter`s fluid relations and Calhoun and Bohstedt`s conception of a community struggle seems more of an apt explanation of eighteenth century social relations, on the acceptance of such a middle ground eighteenth century social relations cannot be described as "class struggle without class." Word count: 2,198

Bibliography Bohstedt. John. Riots and Community Politics in England and Wales 1790-1810. (Harvard University Press: Massachusetts, 1983). Calhoun. Craig. The Question of Class Struggle. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982). Perkin. Harold. The Origins of Modern English Society 1780-1880. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969). Porter. Roy. English Society in the Eighteenth Century. (Penguin Group: London, 1990). Rule. John. The Labouring Classes in Early Industrial England 1750-1850. (Longman Group: Essex, 1986). Thompson. E.P. "Eighteenth Century Society: Class Struggle Without Class?" Social History 3 (1978). Thompson. E.P. Customs in Common. (Merlin Press: Pontypool, 2010).