A Nation of Shopkeepers: The Unstoppable Rise of the Petite Bourgeoisie

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As well as an excellent analysis of social demographics as they actually exist in the 2020s (rather than the 1920s or even the 1820s), the book is impressive and refreshing in its utter refusal to do the usual left-wing thing of dismissing our small and large-c conservative friends, colleagues and relatives as inherently bad or irrational people. We are somewhat (though certainly awkwardly) aware that loud Leftists, despite all the tough talk, do not tend to be good workplace organisers.

Ultimately for the workplace organiser the fluffy distractions of party politics and the latest fad issues of the day do not matter. Indeed, it was precisely the convergence of internationalism and economic redistributionism – no matter how mild – that drew such ruling-class opprobrium. As usually happens in new fascist groupings, personality and class tensions precipitated a split in the organisation which undermined their local standing, yet during their brief residency in Cannock they clearly enjoyed not-insignificant support – highlighting the painful realities of class dealignment and the left’s disorganisation. It is nonetheless the case, as Evans emphasises, that ‘the agglomeration of certain industries and jobs in urban areas – universities, the media and culture industry, the political bureaucracy, the civil service and so on – means that the “progressive classes” … are overwhelmingly clustered in the cities.Evans looks at the complicated class structure of modern Britain, how education and housing play a part in class, and considers the impact of individualism upon politics and the left. Read it, and you may well find the class position of yourself and everyone you know being explained with startling clarity.

Historian of trade unionism Robert Taylor has emphasised the ‘violence’ of members of NUPE (the public employees’ union, which merged into UNISON in 1993), and the ‘anarchy’ which gripped Britain ‘in the last phase of Labour corporatism’. The North America-based IWW Freelance Journalists Union is a similar project aiming to unite isolated workers, and there are conversations in UK and Ireland to form an organisation by and for freelance artists. As someone with a masters degree in history from St Andrews who now works two cleaning jobs in my small hometown in Devon, I feel very seen! The flow of writing can also feel a little uneven at times, jumping sharply between hefty Marxist theory and light-hearted anecdote. The Thatcherite counterrevolution and the international setbacks suffered by socialism have cast a long shadow, but it is not the job of the left to merely adapt to the regressive ideological terrain.Don’t forget: you can now sign up to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get news, features, interviews and reviews delivered direct to your inbox. did not and could not engage with the working class precisely because it was animated by the desires, needs, interests and ideology of the new petty bourgeoisie and the professional managerial class; those involved simply did not understand or appreciate the scale of the glaring class divide between them and the people they wanted to appeal to. Accompanying this has been an expansion of non-manual waged jobs, with white-collar workers forming the core of the diminished ranks of the left.

This work serves as the foundational catalyst for a fresh perspective in the realms of analysis, discourse, and strategic thinking for Socialists. When Evans goes so far as to say that the working class’s rejection of the left ‘is an entirely rational one’, (p. Contra many of his Eurocommunist disciples, Gramsci’s exhortation for the left to exert moral and intellectual leadership over the popular classes did not entail swallowing whole the reactionary prejudices of either strands of the middling strata – the managerial-paternal, and the anti-collectivist. He gives the example of Guardian investigative journalist Helen Pidd travelling to Leigh, a northern brick in the red wall, to interview a ‘working class’ Tory artisan who owned several pizza restaurants.

stars for the excellent critique of the contemporary Western left, and the very helpful outlining of the petite bourgeoisie as a class defined by precarity and social mobility. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of ‘habitus’, it emphasises that class boundaries are lived through shared mentalities and values. The only way [for the left] to win’, he argues, ‘is by building class alliances between the petty bourgeoisie and the working class’.