Reading Ferdinand Mount's study of the British class system brings home just how far ideas about British society have lagged behind actual changes. Mount has a good command of history and an eye for social conflicts but the templates of class structure he takes off the shelf do not work. They are viable - just about - up to the second world war. When he moves past that, his observations spill awkwardly outside of any coherent framework. This is not his fault alone, but also that of sociologists for failing to update property-based theories of class.
Mount's book starts out from two paradoxes. The first revolves around the question of why the British have been so obsessed with class, when in reality their class system has until recently been relatively open. He deals with this by showing how it is the insecurity of status created by social mobility itself which provokes class consciousness. Following the historian Lewis Namier, he argues that British industrialisation and economic development in the 18th and 19th centuries produced far more opportunities for social advancement than existed in other European countries at the time. This climate also nurtured a great flowering of working-class institutions of self-improvement - which Mount details lovingly. Although these invited scorn from the established middle class, they helped to facilitate movement into it.
His second and major question concerns how and why the emergence in postwar Britain of a state dedicated to an open, meritocratic society seems to have resulted in polarisation between classes, with less mobility. A gap is widening in Britain, just as it is closing in some other countries. This terrain is well suited to a Tory like Mount, sensitive to the power and self-interest of public bureaucracies. But instead of discussing the role of the public service elite in controlling rewards and incentives over the last two generations, he gets sidetracked into exploring the lifestyle choices of the "underclass."
This is tantalising, as he comes close to unpicking so much more. He notes and laments the way that middle-class charitable impulses have become channelled almost entirely towards the overseas poor. And he shows how the "nationalisation of working-class self-help" in the postwar welfare system has trapped many of the poor into dependency. However he does not even mention immigration - surely a crucial element in the situation.
The weakness in Mount's analysis lies in its confinement to metropolitan British society. For in practice, what underpinned the richness of opportunities in British society was its privileged placing within the British empire. The ascent of British industry would not have been sustainable without the access to raw materials and vast overseas markets which empire assured. Preferential trading permitted the economic growth which gave the metropolitan labour force the chance to improve its productivity and income. The emergent working class understood this and, mostly, recognised its shared stake in the imperial adventure. In addition, the administration of empire helped to create more high-status occupations and opportunities for social advancement than the domestic economy alone could have supported. Altogether, empire was a major factor in producing both the large middle class and the "open" stratification system which marked Britain out from its neighbours.
We cannot hope to make sense of the postwar transformation of Britain unless we look at the ending of empire which changed things for everyone; for the lower orders, in particular, it represented a tremendous loss. Within the empire, they had enjoyed many advantages over peoples in dependent territories. This made them amenable, in hands like Disraeli's, to a nationalistic alliance with their masters which prevented class conflict from getting out of hand. Shared enjoyment of external empire was internally integrative. The charitable concern for the poor of Victorian and Edwardian society was framed by a common imperial mission, in which class difference as well as tribal division between Normans, Anglo-Saxons and Celts lost their edge. While Britannia ruled, all Britons shared in the spoils.
This imperial dividend has been spent. Not only has power and glory passed but, more to the point for the indigenous British working class, imperial subjects who were formerly prevented from competing directly with them have now settled within the metropolis itself, and hold equal citizenship and political rights alongside them. In the context of a welfare system where the most vulnerable get the most benefits, the rights of newcomers may even appear as effectively superior. So the old white working-class has lost its position as the most deserving recipient of help and opportunities. This is probably why the second world war still fascinates it so much. The war was not just the last time that the British tribes and classes were fully united with each other: it also stands for the end of empire.
The postwar dismantling of British empire had a morally punitive aspect, with the US leading world opinion in the expectation that former metropolitan powers should express remorse for colonialism. This has influenced the reception of migrants into Britain, imparting to them an additional legitimacy, and prompting British politicians to heed their concerns and interests - even perhaps while seeming to turn deaf ears to their indigenous competitors. In this way, immigration has resulted in a deep gulf of mutual mistrust between the British elite and old working class. Some of the latter still believe that their contributions to national endeavours in the past entitle them to a special stake now. But the new British ruling class, or at least its liberal wing, could not contemplate such discrimination. Our new elite learned to respond to majoritarian resistance to immigrants' rights by declaring that these objections are just expressions of irrational, racial hostility - an accusation which its recipients are powerless to negate. Within the new internalised empire, therefore, the national majority has been cut down to size.
In the ashes of empire, metropolitan British society has developed a more complex shape, which makes the old language of class hard to apply. Culturally it is pluralist, and comprises a variety of groups with different histories, identities, aspirations and views about Britain's wider destiny. Yet all expect to have some influence and desire some rewards. This makes the position of the dominant class increasingly political rather than, as before, mainly concerned with organising economic production. The essential role of the elite now lies in holding some sort of balance between the needs and interests of different segments of the population, and in managing social mobility, especially entry to elite status, in a way which keeps them all happy.
The nature of this role helps to explain middle-class ambivalence over national identity. For the key to integrating a variety of disparate groups lies in not being too strongly committed to any particular culture, and in setting one's own identity at the most inclusive level possible. Hence the current enthusiasm for globalisation. It is all part of serving British interests discreetly: a higher form of patriotism. It will be easier when we are fully inside Europe.
The toughest problems lie in defining balance. If the elite becomes too fuzzy in its Britishness, or performs too valiantly when incorporating newcomers into high-status positions, then the muzzled national majority will sense that anti-nationalism has prevailed. The present decline of social mobility from out of the white working class could indicate that our masters are not being as even-handed as they need to be.
There is a good book for Mount in this - delving into the gap that has opened up between respectable society and the presumed-racist working class. But it would require going beyond the conventional models of class, and also getting a little dirty. So we should perhaps be grateful for the decent half-book which we have got.
