Class was originally a general term for a division or a group \nand was thus equivalent to modern \u201ccategory\u201d. Thus it had no particular \nsocial significance but from the period 1770 to 1840 it came \nincreasingly to be used to describe divisions in society. Williams \nexplains its displacing of previous words for social divisions such as \nrank, order, estate, degree by the fact that, unlike them, class did not\n imply a hierarchical arrangement of society\u2014such as feudalism had been \nbut as (an) emerging capitalism was not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even so, the first uses of class were hierarchical: lower classes, \nmiddle classes, upper classes. \u201cWorking classes\u2019\u2019 dates from early in \nthe 19th century and seems to have been coined by Robert Owen (who is \nalso responsible for another key word in the socialist vocabulary: \nsocialism itself). At that time the big political struggle in Britain \nwas for the Reform of the House of Commons, i.e., a redistribution of \nconstituencies to give the new industrial areas more representation and \nan extension of the franchise. In this struggle \u201cthe middle classes\u201d, as\n the capitalist employers called themselves, supported by \u2018\u201dthe working \nclasses\u201d, saw themselves opposed to \u201cthe privileged classes\u201d (i.e., the \nlanded aristocrats, the clergy of the Established Church, those with \ngovernment sinecures).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The compromise reached between the capitalists and \u201cthe privileged \nclasses\u201d in 1832, which left the great bulk of workers without the vote,\n led groups of workers to perceive the conflict of interest between the \nworking class and \u201cThe middle classes\u201d or capitalist or master class (a \nterm used in our declaration of principles in 1904 but which has now \ndropped out of use) as they came to call them. Pro- working class \nwriters showed how \u201cthe middle classes\u201d too should be included among \n\u201cthe privileged classes\u201d since they lived off profits got from the \nlabour of the working class. By the 1860s \u201ccapitalist class\u201d and \n\u201cworking class\u201d were in current use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Marx in Capital (1867) in fact distinguished a third class: the class\n of landlords who monopolise natural resources and live off rents, not \nonly without haying to work but also without having to invest\u2019 any \ncapital either. Nowadays this class, through long ago investing its \nrents in industry and banking, has merged with the capitalist class arid\n so virtually disappeared as a distinct class.. Thus we can say that \ntoday society is, to all intents and purposes, divided into two classes:\n the capitalist class and the working class, defined by their different \nrelationship to the means of production. The capitalist class, as a \nclass, monopolise the means of production; they own and control them. \nThe working class are excluded from ownership and control of the means \nof production and only have access to them on the capitalists\u2019 terms: on\n condition that the capitalists think they can make a profit by selling \nwhat the workers produce. There is thus a fundamental conflict between \nthese two classes which takes the form of a permanent class struggle, \nultimately over the ownership and control of the means of production but\n at the moment only over wages and working conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The phrase working class was, as we saw, originally \u201cworking \nclasses\u201d,, but this usage is loose and theoretically wrong since there \nis only a single working class. But there is another confusion arising \nout of the phrase\u2019s association with \u201cworking man\u201d and \u201cworkman\u201d which \nrefer to manual labour, so that it is often assumed that the working \nclass is confined to manual workers, in the factories and mines\u2019, on the\n railways and docks, etc. This mistake is made not only by those who do \nnot want to be considered as members of the working class, but also by \nmanual workers who do not consider civil servants, clerks and other \n\u201cpen-pushers\u201d as real workers. But it is a mistake and arises from an \nalternative and inadequate definition of class in terms of social status\n rather than relationship to the means of production. Thus there is \nsupposed to be an upper class of aristocrats and capitalists enjoying \nhigh social status, a middle class of professional people and office \nworkers enjoying a middling social status and a lower, working class of \nmanual workers with no social status; various refinements can be \nintroduced according to taste like lower middle class, upper working \nclass, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it is clear that, as far a relationship to the means of \nproduction is concerned, office workers (including managers) are in \nprecisely the same position as shop floor workers: they are excluded \nfrom ownership and control of the means of production and are forced to \nobtain a living, by selling their mental and physical energies to an \nemployer. This in fact is our definition of working class: all those who\n are forced to sell their mental and physical energies in order to live.\n It would have been convenient to use some phrase such as \u201cwage-earning \nclass\u201d in order to make our point of view clear at first sight, but \nunfortunately not only does a section of the working class call itself \nthe \u201cmiddle class\u201d but even denies that it is paid wages as workers are \nand insists on calling them a salary instead. In fact a salary is \nequally a price for the sale of a person\u2019s mental and physical energies,\n but this snobbery means that in order to make ourselves absolutely \nclear who we mean by working class we have to say \u201cthose forced to work \nfor a wage or salary\u201d or, less adequately but more simply, \u201cwage and \nsalary earners\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Williams detects a third use of class defined not by relationship to \nthe means of production, nor by social status but by political \nconsciousness. It is true that Marx did sometimes, especially in his \nearlier writings, use class in this sense, saying that the workers or \nthe peasants did not constitute a class until they perceived themselves \nto be a class with a common interest and organised themselves \nconsciously to pursue that interest. This has been expressed, in \nphilosophical terms, by distinguishing between a \u201cclass-in-itself\u201d \n(defined by relationship to the means of\u2003production) and \n\u201cclass-for-itself\u201d (defined by political consciousness). While not \ndenying that this is a useful distinction it is hardly an adequate \ndefinition of class; otherwise the working class would be reduced to the\n tiny minority who at present want Socialism! The distinction is better \nmade by saying that the working class now exists, but is not yet class \nconscious (defined politically to mean not simply a trade union \nconsciousness but as wanting and understanding Socialism).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reform, Reformism, Reformist<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Reform, as a noun meaning a specific measure, dates from the end of \nthe 18th century and was particularly associated with moves to make \nelections to the House of Commons more democratic. Thus the 1832 Act of \nParliament which redistributed constituencies and extended the franchise\n was called the Reform Act. A second \u201cReform Act\u201d, which further \nextended the franchise, was passed in 1867. But then, as the focus of \npopular agitation shifted from trying to change political institutions \nto trying to change society, reform came to mean also a specific measure\n aimed at improving society, hence \u201csocial reform\u201d. But (at least in the\n way we have always used the word) reform does not refer to all attempts\n to improve social conditions but only to measures passed by Parliament \nor implemented by the State; thus, for instance, trade union activity \nand the work of private charities, whatever may be said for or against \nthem, are not reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Raymond Williams (Key Words, Fontana) detects an ambiguity, dating \nfrom the word\u2019s first appearance in English in the 14th century, between\n reform in the sense of improve and reform in the sense of re-form, \nrestore, rearrange. Thus someone who wants to reform capitalism may \njustify this as a supposed step towards Socialism or as a means of \nstrengthening capitalism. There is no doubt that Williams is right here \nas can be seen from how the meaning of the word reformism has changed \nover the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This word is less than a hundred years old and originates from \narguments within the French Social Democratic movement towards the end \nof the last century. One tendency argued that it was possible to \ngradually reform capitalism into Socialism by a series of reform \nmeasures; this view was known as \u201cr\u00e9formisme\u201d and its supporters called \nthemselves \u201cr\u00e9formistes\u201d. In Britain a similar doctrine was propagated \nby the Fabian Society where it was more commonly known as \u201cgradualism\u201d \n(from the Fabian slogan \u201cthe inevitability of gradualness\u201d). The Social \nDemocratic Federation too had a similar position, labelling the reforms \nthey advocated \u201cstepping stones to Socialism\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, however, we use the word reformist to refer to anyone who \nseeks to reform capitalism for whatever reason and irrespective of \nwhether or not he claims to be a Socialist. This (quite justified) \nextension of the word reflects the fact that nowadays the leaders of \nparties such as Labour have no idea of what Socialism is (unlike some \nearly Fabians who were on record as calling for the abolition of the \nwages system) and so cannot be said to want to transform society, even \ngradually, into Socialism and the fact that openly pro-capitalist \nparties, even the Conservative Party, also claim to stand for the \nimprovement of society by means of reforms. Thus when we call someone a \nreformist today the suggestion is not there, as it once was, that he \nwants Socialism but has a mistaken view of how to achieve it. A \nreformist today is simply someone who (Williams\u2019, second sense) wants to\n re-form capitalism in one way or another or for one reason or another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n