Respectability and working-class radicalism in Victorian London: 1850-1890 : a contribution to the debate

Abstract

The most repulsive thing here is the bourgeois 'respectability' bred into the bones of the workers. The social division of society into innumerable gradations, each recognised without question, each with its own pride but also its inborn respect for its 'betters' and 'superiors', is so old and firmly established that the bourgeois still find it pretty easy to get their bait accepted . Throughout his acquaintance with Britain Engels was worried by the growth of respectability in the working classes. His concern provided the starting point of the debate over the meaning and significance of respectability in working-class life and politics. From such perceptions Marxist thinkers developed the theory of the Labour Aristocracy - a theory which still underwrites much Marxist and non-Marxist historical, inquiry. The values encapsulated in the notion of respectability were equated with the values of bourgeois capitalism. Roughly, the theory maintained that the leadership of the working class - the skilled worker and trade union ~lite - capitulated to bourgeois values and developed false consciousness. This false consciousness largely explained the failure of the British working class to reach Marxist revolutionary class consciousness .