The Petite Bourgeoisie

Thinking Allowed

BBC

Science, Society & Culture

4.4 • 973 Ratings

🗓️ 30 August 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Petite Bourgeoisie - Laurie Taylor talks to Daniel Evans, Research Assistant at Cardiff University and author of a new study which explores the unstoppable rise of the lower middle class. Marx predicted that this insecure class, sandwiched between the working class and the bourgeoisie, would be absorbed into the proletariat as artisans died out during the industrial revolution. In fact, it has grown exponentially and is now a significant player within global politics, courted by the right and the left. Far from losing influence, the individualist values associated with it have been popularised by a society which some say fetishizes “aspiration” and entrepreneurship.

They're joined by Nicola Bishop, cultural historian and Senior Teaching Fellow at Loughborough University, whose latest book analyses white collar workers in British popular culture, from the novels of Charles Dickens to comedy TV sitcoms. Why have lower middle class, suburban values become such a staple of our cultural consumption and what can this tell us about national British identity?

Producer: Jayne Egerton

Transcript

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0:00.0	Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of
0:07.0	Happiness Podcast.
0:08.0	For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want
0:14.4	to share that science with you.
0:16.1	And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley.
0:19.4	I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that
0:25.4	calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:30.3	BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.
0:36.7	This is a Thinking Loud Podcasts from the BBC and for more details and much, much more about thinking aloud, go to our website at BBC.co.uk.
0:47.0	Hello, I had indulgently thought to mark the beginning of this new series of thinking aloud with a cheery acknowledgement that
0:55.1	it was our 25th birthday this year. But any such Felicity was quickly put to rest by
1:01.3	last week's report of the sad death at the grand old age of
1:06.0	95 of American sociologist Howard Becker.
1:10.0	Becker's late 1960s book on Deviance and Labeling Theory
1:14.4	outsiders became a standard and much love text for thousands of sociology students
1:20.5	although as I discovered when we met on this program back in 2007, Becker's own reasons
1:26.7	for devoting his life to sociology were far from conventional.
1:31.1	His life began as a barroom musician.
1:34.0	Sociology was sort of a hobby, which I did partly so that my father wouldn't be angry.
1:41.0	The kind of people I worked for were mostly Mafiose, you know, who owned these bars and I have sort of a smart mouth and I would say things to them that you know could really have gotten me in trouble and
1:54.8	after I got a PhD I thought the safer place would be in the university also run by
2:02.0	mafiosi of a somewhat different kind.
	...

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