Britain" in the _Spectator_, put it this way: "One word sums up the New
Estate: the word 'security.' It is security in working-class terms,
maintained and enforced by working-class methods. The traditional
values of the middle and professional classes form no part of it; among
wage-earners these values are meaningless.
"To the middle-class citizen, economic security is a goal to be reached
primarily by personal effort. It is a matter of thrift, self-help,
self-improvement, competitive striving. But the manual worker sees
it differently. To him, any betterment in his conditions of life is
essentially a collective process--something to be achieved not by
himself as an individual but in company with his fellows. He will
organize for it, vote for it, strike for it, always with them. It is
'Us' not 'I.' Eugene Debs, the American Socialist leader, put this
attitude into one sentence when he said, 'I don't want to rise from the
ranks; I want to rise with them.'"
In this psychological situation it is ludicrous to appeal for New
Elizabethans among the men and women of the new class. For they have
no great admiration for individual enterprise, for risk or sacrifice.
Among the many men I have talked to in the New Towns, I never met
one who was interested in saving enough money to buy his own small
business, to strike out for himself. The ideal seemed to be a community
of equals protected from economic dangers by full employment and high
wages, politically lethargic, unstirred by Socialist or Tory. Everyone
earned about the same amount of money, spent it on the same things, and
appeared to think and talk alike.
Yet theirs is a nation that desperately needs the imaginative,
inventive mind if it is to overcome its economic difficulties.
The paramount emphasis on security found among manual workers may
be regrettable. But in view of Britain's past it is natural and
understandable. These, after all, are the descendants of farm laborers
who worked twelve hours a day and lived in hovels. The grandfathers and
grandmothers of the young people in the New Towns knew the dank, dirty
poverty of the slums of London and Liverpool. There must be among the
miners at Peterlee men and women whose female ancestors dragged coal
carts through mine tunnels on their hands and knees.
The new class begins with a strong bias in favor of the Labor Party.
It is never allowed to forget the inhumanities of the past or the long
struggle of the unions against entrenched capital. It is reminded at
every election that all it has today is a result of the efforts of
the Labor Party. This is not true, but we are talking about politics.
Finally, in every new housing development or New Town there must be an
aging group who remember with fierce-eyed resentment the long periods
of unemployment and the marginal existence that were the lot of many
working-class families a quarter of a century ago.
The Welsh, in particular, have never forgotten. And hundreds of
thousands of bitter, talkative, excitable Welsh workers have left South
Wales in the last twenty years to work in other parts of Britain,
carrying with them their hatred of the Tories and their zeal for "the
movement." When Aneurin Bevan, that most Welsh of Welshmen, describes
the Tories as lower than vermin or genially compares them with the
Gadarene swine, he is expressing a sentiment strongly held by a
considerable percentage of his fellow countrymen.
The geographical redistribution of the working class altered the
political map of Britain. Housing estates and New Towns introduced
solid blocs of Labor votes into traditionally Tory constituencies. This
was a factor in the Socialist victory of 1945 and it is still a factor
today. The constituency of Melton, for instance, was long considered a
safe Liberal seat. Then it became equally safe for the Conservatives.
But the advent of a housing development and several thousand new votes
made this rural constituency insecure. The influx of a new type of
voter is one of the main reasons why this must now be considered a
marginal constituency by the Tories.
But the effect of the geographical redistribution is being matched and
balanced in many constituencies by the effect of their new economic
status upon the voters of the working class. They now have something
to conserve: jobs, good wages, pleasant homes. This does not mean an
immediate conversion to Conservatism. Among many, particularly the
older age groups, the memories of the past are still strong. But the
achievement of a new economic status has resulted in a lessening of the
fervor and energy for the Socialist cause. A class that puts security
above everything else is not likely to be won by a Labor platform that
endorses more nationalization and the ensuing upheaval in the British
economy. Its younger members, many of whom have never been jobless, are
unimpressed by dire prophecies of the return of the bad old days under
Tory rule because they themselves have never experienced such a period.
Nor should we forget that in each general election the Conservative
Party wins a substantial share of the working-class vote. Even in
the catastrophe of 1945 the Conservatives estimate they won between
4,000,000 and 4,500,000 votes among manual workers. In 1951 about
6,000,000 electors of this group voted Tory. Of course the vote for
Labor rose too: it is estimated that in the general election of that
year 52 per cent of the working class voted for Labor. But Labor was
defeated by the coalition of middle-class and working-class votes for
the Tories.
Nonetheless, the Tories continue to gain in the areas where the new
working class has reached a new economic status. In 1945 the Labor
Party won Chislehurst in Kent, normally a safe Conservative seat. The
influx of working-class voters was the principal cause. Ten years later
Chislehurst was safely back on the Conservative side.
The Conservative Party is thus faced with a difficult question. Like
all major parties, it is a coalition of various economic and social
interests. In the last decade a new interest, that of the working
class, has become vital to the party. But the Conservative government's
efforts to meet the wishes of that group, particularly its insistence
on the continuation of the Welfare State, clashes directly with the
interests of the old middle class, which has suffered a loss of social
prestige, economic standing, and political influence at the hands of
the working class.
The rebellion among Conservative voters of the middle class against
the government's policies, reflected in their refusal to vote in
by-elections, cannot go unchecked without damaging the Conservatives.
That this is fully realized by the party leaders was shown by the
warnings they gave the Tories against seduction by political groups of
the extreme right.
What kind of people are the new working class? You will not find them
portrayed in the novels of Angela Thirkell or, indeed, any other
English novelist popular in America. But veterans of World War II may
recognize them as the slightly older brothers of the British soldier
they knew in Africa, Italy, and France.
They are not at all reserved; reserve is the province of the
upper-middle-class Briton. They are friendly, incurious, and polite.
For the first time in history they are satisfied with themselves and
with their lot.
I mention this as a curiosity. When I first went to England to work
before the war I was struck by the powerful interest shown in the
United States. An American in a working-class pub was bombarded by
queries about the organization of the unions, John L. Lewis, the
absence of a labor party in the United States politics, the techniques
of mass production in industry. The young men were eager to know and
anxious to improve.
Today one encounters the same politeness but less interest. After the
preliminary and obligatory question about the "Yank corporal" named
Jackson who lives in Chicago and do you know him, the talk is likely to
trail off into inconsequentials. The English, as opposed to the Scots,
Welsh, and Irish, are a people notably difficult to arouse and, equally
important, difficult to quiet once they are aroused. But in recent
years the pubs have been quiet. The new working class has what it and
its predecessors wanted. It is not excited either by the prospect of
Tory rule or by the infiltration of the British Communists into the
union structure.
It would be aroused, however, by any policy that appeared to endanger
its new position. That is certain. And consequently both major parties
will be circumspect in their approach to the new class.
Socially, the new class is modern. Increasingly it is making use of
new techniques in living which were out of the economic range of its
fathers and mothers. The old family life built around the kitchen and
the pot of tea on the stove has been replaced by one built around the
television set.
For the first time in their lives the young people of the New Towns
and the housing estates have enough room in their homes to plan and
build. The three-piece bedroom suite is as important as the television
set as an indication of economic status. The "do it yourself" craze
that swept the United States did not "catch on" among the working class
in Britain for the simple reason that its members had always done it
themselves. A great deal of the painting and decoration and some of the
furniture-making is done by the man of the house in his spare time.
The class is not notably religious. The Catholics and the Methodists
support their churches, but the response to other faiths is not
ardent. The British are not "a pagan people," as some critics have
charged, but there certainly is little enthusiasm for conventional
religious forms.
The working class is a definable class. Thus it takes its place in the
graduated ranks of British society. Within the class, however, there
is very little snobbery. I have mentioned one instance: the resentment
of the dwellers in the New Towns when they are classed with the people
of the housing estates. But in a community in which all the men work
in the same or similar factories and in which everyone knows almost to
the penny what everyone else makes, pretense of economic superiority is
difficult.
Here is the new British workingman. He moved to a New Town or a housing
estate from a slum or near-slum. If he is in his late thirties or
forties, he fought in the war and his wife knows more about the effect
of high explosives, flying bombs, and rockets than most generals. He
is living in what is to him comparative luxury: a living room, a clean
and, by British standards, modern kitchen, a bedroom for the children,
a modern bath and toilet. He can walk or cycle to his work, and if the
weather is fine, he comes home for lunch. In the evening there is "the
telly" or the football-pool form to be filled out or the new desk he
is making for the children's room. Some two or three times a week he
drops in at the "local," the neighborhood pub or bar, for a few drinks
with friends from the factory. Even here his habits are changing.
The actually potent "mild and bitter" or "old and mild" that was his
father's tipple has been replaced by light ale--"nasty gassy stuff" the
old-fashioned barmaids report.
It is a quiet life but to our subject a satisfactory one. He reads the
_Daily Mirror_ rather than the _Daily Herald_, which was his father's
Bible, but he is only occasionally aroused by international problems.
He did get excited about the idea of arming "those bloody Germans," but
when the leaders of both the Conservative and Labor parties accepted
the necessity he went along with German rearmament. But he was never
particularly happy about it. In general, however, he is not interested
in world affairs. There are one or two fellows at "the works," he
will tell you, who get excited about China or Suez or Cyprus. Here it
should be noted that he is more nationalist than internationalist. He
doesn't like it when British soldiers are killed by the bombs of Greek
Cypriotes, chiefly because the Army is no longer a professional force
but one composed largely of conscripts of National Service. Young Tom
from down the street, a nice lad, has gone out there with the Green
Howards.
There he is: content, complete, complacent. His contacts with the rest
of the world, British or foreign, are limited, and this is especially
true of his contacts with the old middle class.
The old middle class itself is intensely interested in this new kind
of working class. Partly this is true because the new class is blamed
for many of the reverses that have fallen upon the middle class. Partly
it is because of political spite. Partly it is jealousy. Whatever the
dominant reason, the feeling is there, and the middle class, harking
back to the first Socialist boasts in 1945 about remaking bourgeois
Britain, will tell you: "They started it."
This class (here we are talking about the professional men, civil
servants, Army, Navy, and Air Force officers, the higher but not the
highest ranks of business and industry, the clergy of the Church of
England, and the retired pensioners of these groups) fights hard to
resist the uniformity that the last fifteen years have imposed upon it.
It finds itself unable to organize to win higher salaries, and it knows
that the taxation of the last decade has closed the gap between it and
the new class of industrial workers. Finally, its more intelligent
members are aware that it too is being challenged from within--that
there is arising in its ranks a new group which from the economic
standpoint can claim to be middle class but which has very little in
common now, socially or politically, with the old middle class. Yet,
as both groups claim a certain superiority over the class of manual
workers, it is safe to predict that the two groups will unite and
make common cause in defense of their standards. Interestingly, this
is already happening in the field of education, where the sons of the
physicists, engineers, and scientists who are among the leaders of the
new middle class are going to the public schools that were one of the
solid foundations of the old middle class.
Such schools, incidentally, are one of the bones of contention between
the political leaders of the Labor Party, which represents the majority
of the working class, and the old middle class. This class has pressed
the Exchequer for a tax allowance for public schools--i.e., private
education. The Socialists replied that such an allowance would be a
private subsidy to a system that spreads inequality. To this the Tories
of the old middle class retorted that part of the British freedom was
the right of the parent to decide how and where his child was to be
educated. They added a reminder that if the new working class were to
save a bit on installment payments for television sets and the football
pools, it too could send its sons to public schools. The answer, of
course, is that the new working class cares little for schools, public
or national.
The change in the composition of the middle class brought about
by the introduction of new members reflects a change in Britain's
industrial life and, to some extent, her position in the world. The
administrators, managers, and technicians of the new industries such
as plastics and electronics, the leaders in the newspaper, television,
radio, and movie industries are becoming as important as the lawyers,
judges, general officers, retired pro-consuls who once led the class.
Just below these leaders is a steadily increasing group of newcomers
to the class who have worked their way out of the working class since
the war. Industrial designers and chemists, buyers, advertising men,
production engineers--all these have come to the top.
This group reflects modern Britain and her problems. The colonial
governor is less important to it than the expert on foreign markets.
The scientist is infinitely more necessary to the country's progress
than the soldier.
There is an important difference in income between the new entries into
the middle class and the professional men who formed its backbone in
the past. On the whole, the incomes of the new group are a good deal
higher. It is engaged, for the most part, in industries, businesses, or
quasi-public organizations that are expanding. Moreover, many of its
members augment their incomes with expense accounts.
But these differences in types of activity and in income are only the
beginning of the differences between the two segments of the middle
class.
Many members of the new group have just arrived, pushed to the top by
the necessities of war or of Britain's long economic struggle. The
percentage of public-school graduates is lower than in the established
middle class. Attention to that class's recognized totems is much
less. The new group is less concerned with the Church of England, the
Army and the Navy--the Air Force and the production of new weapons
are, however, its special province--the Foreign Office and active
politics. These it has left largely to the established middle class,
and frequently the interests of the two groups clash. For example, the
conflict within government between the traditionalist view of the Navy
as vital to Britain's defense and the view that all that matters is the
big bomber today and the intercontinental ballistic missile tomorrow is
essentially a clash between two groups in the same class.
The new group is not primarily managerial, although managers make up a
considerable percentage of its total. It includes a great many creative
workers, architects, scientists and engineers, and a surprisingly high
percentage of men who have risen without the aid of the Old School Tie.
The group has had less education and less leisure than the old middle
class, and, consequently, its approach to culture is different. Its
interest in the arts is limited, its taste in literature tends toward
Nevil Shute rather than Thackeray. But it has a furious curiosity about
Britain and the world: it devours magazine articles and books. Like
the new working class, it has reached income levels that seemed out of
sight fifteen years ago, but, unlike the new working class, it is not
content to rest in its present position. For it knows enough of the
world and the country to doubt that the present security is enough.
The middle class in Britain over the centuries has developed a
marvelous capacity for altering while maintaining roughly the same
façade. This process is going on now. The sons of the new group within
the middle class are going off to public schools and Oxford and
Cambridge rather than to state schools and the red brick provincial
universities that trained their fathers. But because this group has an
abiding interest in technical education, its members are anxious for
the spread of such education in the old classical schools.
It should be noted that the trend toward the public schools and the
great universities is not due entirely to snobbery. As an industrial
engineer told me, "That's still the best education in the country,
and my son's going to have it." He himself was the product of a state
school and a provincial university. Obviously he enjoyed talking about
his boy's public school.
Consequently, the two groups within the middle class are mixing slowly.
But the old middle class is on the defensive; its standards are not
those of the new group, and with the continued rise of the new group
this defensiveness probably will remain. As Britain's world political
and military responsibilities decline, the men and women charged
with overseeing her new position as an exporting nation--in which
salesmanship and industrial techniques are paramount--will find their
importance increasing.
Once again we find a new group that, like the new kind of working
class, has very little to do with Merrie England. Its roots are less
deep. It is not intimately concerned with the institutions that the old
middle class served. In its outlook toward the world it is much more
realistic and modern. Yet it is gradually assuming the forms of the old
middle class--the schools, the regiments, the clubs. These institutions
inevitably will change as a result of the admission of the new group.
However, if the outward form remains unchanged, the British will be
content.
Politically the new group within the middle class began its adult
life well to the left of center. In the ten years since the war it
has gradually shifted to the right. Young Conservative ministers like
Iain Macleod and Reginald Maudling represent the ideas of the group,
although they themselves are not of it. In general, the group admires
tidy planning and crisp execution in government. Its shift away from
Socialism probably began when many of its members realized that the
execution of Labor's economic plans left a good deal to be desired and
that some of the party's radicals were cheerfully advocating other
plans--the further extension of nationalization, for instance--that
might wreck an already delicately balanced economy. But the new
group's support of the Conservative Party is far removed from the
bred-in-the-bone, true-blue Conservatism of the old middle class. It
is on the right at the moment because the Tories offer the greatest
opportunity to the activities it represents.
The old middle class, based mainly on the professions and government
service, is thus under pressure from the new middle class and from the
new working class. Its importance in British society is diminishing
because the former has a closer connection with what is immediately
important to Britain's survival and because the latter will no longer
accept leadership by the old middle class. It is important to note,
however, that the ties between the new middle class and the new
working class are more substantial. Many of the new middle class have
risen from the urban working class in a generation. In regard to the
technical aspects of industry, the two groups speak the same language.
The influence retained by the old middle class should not be
underestimated, however. Especially in the countryside the lawyer,
the vicar, the retired officer who is the local Justice of the
Peace continue to wield considerable authority. And in clinging to
traditional forms through two wars and the long night of austerity, the
middle class has demonstrated its essential toughness.
The old middle class still reads _The Times_ of London, that great
newspaper, although you are liable to be informed in country
drawing-rooms that _The Times_ is "a bit Bolshie nowadays."
The forms and felicities of British life are encouraged and supported
by the old middle class. The Church of England, the local Conservative
Party fete, the gymkhana, the voluntary social services, the Old
Comrades Associations of regiments owe their continued life to
unstinting aid from the men and women of this class. It has had its
periods of blindness (Munich was one), but it has never doubted where
duty lay. When the war began in 1939--or, as its members would say,
"when the balloon went up"--it sent away its sons and daughters and
settled down to man the Home Guard and the civil-defense services. It
suffered bombing and austerity, but it made certain that when the boys
and girls came home there was a dance at the yacht club--some Polish
sailors lived there during the war, and everyone pitched in to put it
back in shape--and all the food the rationing would allow.