E. P. Thompson

Have you seen this from our ever-growing archive?The Making of the English Working Class, by E. P. Thompson. Pelican. 18s.Thompson’s excellent work, 800 pages long and first published in 1965, has now been brought out as a paperback. Applying the Marxist view that men make their own history but only out of the materials at hand, Thompson traces the formation of working class consciousness (by which he means the awareness among industrial workers that they were a separate class in society apart from the ruling landed and commercial oligarchy and manufacturing middle class) under the impact of the industrial revolution between 1780 and 1832. But this was not a passive process; working class consciousness was forged out of the struggles of London artisans, weavers, field labourers and Irish migrants against oligarchic government and the factory system.The early working class is often seen as an ignorant rabble. Thompson exposes this myth and shows how the independent craftsmen who spearheaded the resistance to capitalism, in the Midlands and the North as well as in London, were in fact well-informed and literate with their own view of what society should be like – basically a simple and stable community with a secure place for all.Wilkes and Liberty, Tom Paine and radicalism, the Corresponding Societies, the pernicious effects of Methodism, Peterloo, the early trade unions, the Cato Street Conspiracy, Robert Owen and Owenism are among the names and events in radical and working class history examined in detail.Thompson’s book deserves a place on every socialist’s bookshelf alongside Thorold Rogers’ Six Centuries of Work and Wages, the classic history of the workers in England which it (to a certain extent) replaces and certainly supplements.ALBSocialist Standard No. 772 December 1968› 

There are two editions of his biography of Morris. The first came out in 1955 when he was still in the CP and does put the “Party line”. In the second edition, in 1977, Thompson cut out much of this and added a 50-page postscript. This is the one to read, even though he does criticise Morris for what we like in him, what Thompson called his “purism”. It is probably the best biography of Morris, certainly better than the more recent one by Fiona McCarthy which tries to make him out to be some sort of  Green rather than a class-struggle Socialist.

 If I remember correctly A. L. Morton (A People’s History of England) is straight forward and easy to read and well worth a look at. (The CPGB overtones need to be ignored.) Leo Huberman Man’s Worldly Goods is clear and well written. (The last chapter in which Russia  / the Soviet Union is given a  glowing write-up can be missed.) There are several critical / liberal left / materialist / “class struggle” historians eho provide a bracing antidote to much conventional “great men” historians.  Some of them (marked with a * )  make for difficult reading at times:E. H. CarrTimothy MasonPhillip FonerRodney HiltonChristopher Hill*David RoedigerGeorge Fredrickson*E. LeRoy LadurieGeorge RudeEugene Genovese*Perry AndersonEric WilliamsGotz Aly All must be read critically of course Several Party members speak highly of Howard Zinn (A People’s History of the US). It’s on my “Must Get Round to Soon” list.

Notwithstanding the general excellence of his historical work, EP Thompson’s definition of class does not fit with that of the SPGB (or Marx).  He views the working class as having been ‘born’ only when it has a consciousness of itself as a class.  For EPT this was around the 1830s/40s.  This makes problematic the study of social class in societies with no consciousness of class, ie. feudal, ancient, etc.  which is clearly silly.  For Marx, and the SPGB, class exists whether or not there is a consciousness of it (a class in itself as against a class for itself).
Other historians of note in the labour history tradition in the UK (all ex-CPGBers) are John Saville (particularly on the British state and capitalist class consciousness, eg. 1848), Dorothy Thompson (wife of EPT, particularly on Chartism, e.g. The Chartists) and Rodney Hilton (medieval history and the transition from feudalism to capitalism).  More recently Ellen Meiksins Wood (various titles, particularly on the transition to and rise of capitalism) are well worth a read.

I was not suggesting Edward Thompson  was silly.  His study of the emergence of class consciousness is a masterpiece.  No argument there.  Only that the implications of his definition of class were (let me substitute a new word for silly) problematic.
The problem is, if there is no language of class then class is assumed not to exist.  EPTs historical work is around the late-eighteenth-century to mid-nineteenth century because he is interested in exploring the ’emergence’ as it were of the working class.  This is problematic, like it or not, from a Marxian perspective because ‘structure’ is important.  EPT says that class happens when people identify their interests as different to those of others.  This is saying that when the working class do not identify their interests as against the capitalists and aristocrats then the working class does not exist.  Consciousness for EPT is everything when it comes to class.  But it is not.  It exists whether there is consciousness of it or not. 

It is subtle but it is his view.  The productive relations are involuntary, the consciousness is active and
“…class happens when some men, as a result of common experiences (inherited or shared), feel and articulate the identity of their interests as between themselves, and as against other men whose interests are different from (and usually opposed to) theirs.”
However, whether class relationships happen or not does not depend on their being articulated or otherwise.  It obviously makes the history writing easier if it is articulated.  Most historical work on class before working class consciousness is looking at structure and not primarily consciousness to identify class.