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

by Dan Evans

A Nation of Shopkeepers explores the unstoppable rise of the petite-bourgeoisie, one of the most powerful, but underexplored, classes in modern society.

The petite-bourgeoisie — the insecure class between the working class and the bourgeoisie — is hugely significant within global politics. Yet it remains something of a mystery.

Initially identified as a powerful political force by theorists like Marx and Poulantzas, the petit-bourgeoisie was expected to decline, as small businesses and small property were gradually swallowed up by monopoly capitalism. Yet, far from disappearing, structural changes to the global economy under neoliberalism have instead grown the petite-bourgeoisie, and the individualist values associated with it have been popularized by a society which fetishizes "aspiration", home ownership and entrepreneurship. So why has this happened?

A Nation of Shopkeepers sheds a light on this mysterious class, exploring the class structure of contemporary Britain and the growth of the petite-bourgeoisie following Thatcherism. It shows how the rise of home ownership, small landlordism and radical changes to the world of work have increasingly inculcated values of petite-bourgeois individualism; how popular culture has promoted and reproduced values of aspiration and conspicuous consumption that militate against socialist organizing; and, most importantly, what the unstoppable rise of the petit-bourgeoisie means for the left.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Sociology, Class, Economics, Society, History

325 pages, Paperback

First published February 14, 2023

Reviews

[lindsi · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 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. This book introduces a way of looking at class that is much more comprehensive and useful than simply proletariat vs bourgeoisie, given the complex class structures of the UK and US in which the “intermediary classes” (the petite boug & the PMC) are more numerous and more politically active than the working class.

However, I did observe some shortcomings that limited the usefulness of Evans’s framework: namely, the lack of consideration for the *global* class structure, without which any analysis of class falls short.

I suspect that Evans does not delve into issues of nationality because of his stated hostility toward identity politics - a fair stance given liberalism’s successful co-optation of potential sources of genuine radicalism (race in particular) into toothless, individualized points of interpersonal grievance. But it is just plain wrong to speak of the “working class” without considering the global division of labor, and where the Western working class fits into that.

After all, imperialism is a capitalist imperative that benefits not only the ruling classes, but every class in the imperial core, even the most exploited ones. Perhaps because he is British, he is unaware of how strongly the desire to attain and retain the objective and subjective power of being an American motivates people’s politics. Even the working class in the imperial core *does* have something to lose — the massive privilege and power that simply being a part of the empire affords us. This fuels reactionary politics across all classes as strongly as domestic conditions do, if not even moreso. (For instance, the traditional petite bourgeoisie in the US has long identified China as a source of competition, which leads them to support right-wing politicians who are more willing to engage in openly racist denunciations of China, which in turn prompts the Democrats to try to match their “tough on China” rhetoric, thus ratcheting the entire Overton window even further towards racist, imperialist reactionary politics).

I still highly recommend reading this work, because the basic framework it lays out and its diagnosis of the left’s failures are spot on. As always, just don’t consider it in isolation — it must be synthesized with other, more globally minded paradigms.

[Rob M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this book. It combines a broad, sociological-historical sweep of British class politics in the 21st century (in the fine tradition of EP Thompson), linked to a post-mortem of the failures 2015-2020 British left.

The argument is that, between the working class proper (people who produce commodities while not having any stake in the means of production or capital in general) and the ruling class (the minority who actually own everything, plus the well-remunerated 'professional managerial class' that manages society on their behalf) there is a huge intermediary class, with many different fractions within it.

These people provide services and administration (public and private), they own small capital (because they are a shopkeeper, a sole trader, or a small farmer), or they perform relatively junior supervisory or managerial tasks. They share many of their economic interests with the working class, but they often aspire towards, or identity with, the interests of the ruling class, which leads them to contradictory or perverse political activity. Some of this aspiration is delusion, while other elements of it are rational, because of their minor interest in capital via their expensive education, house, or other small assets.

It's perfectly possible, Evans asserts, that this petit-bourgeois intermediary class constitutes a full third of the working population, which means the traditional Marxist assumption that the working class form a social majority on their own may not hold true in modern Britain.

Within this middle strata, Evans identifies two main fractions. The 'old' fraction (the aforementioned shopkeepers, tradesmen, and farmers) and the 'new' fraction (downwardly mobile graduates for whom the broken jobs and housing markets have thwarted the upward expectations set by their education). Historically, these classes have broken in any and all directions politically, from Jacobinism to Nazism, but in today's Britain, the older fraction tend to feel more invested in the current system and tend to lean Tory, while the newer fraction tend to feel frustrated by the system and form the majority of left cadre, largely displacing the working class as the core social base of progressive politics.

The working class themselves, who correctly identify party politics as the arena where the petit-bourgeois contest for space ("inclusion") within the state and capitalist apparatus, largely abstain.

Evans takes aim at what he considers to be a misreading of Marx's idea that society was divided into two great hostile armies, the two fundamental classes of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The division of society into two classes is a process operating between two poles, not an event that has happened or ever will happen as such. Marx's notion that the middle classes would simply wither away is clearly wrong. They have, if anything, grown enormously.

This misreading, in Evan's view, causes Marxists to ignore the huge mass of "interstitial" classes, and to obfuscate or deny glaring class antagonisms within society and within the left electoral coalition. In this topsy-turvy misreading, the white van man fixing your boiler may as well be a fascist, while a junior academic is as working class as a coal miner. This misreading serves the additional function of allowing petit-bourgeois leftists, whose politics are largely formed by frustration at their blocked social mobility, to frame themselves and their interests as genuinely proletarian.

Evans, graciously, includes himself in this category and asks searching questions of his reader from a point of empathy. If we can't be honest about our own class position, is it any wonder that the wider working class distrust us, refuse our leadership, and reject our programme at the ballot box? Having a real, not idealised, analysis of the class forces at play in contemporary Britain is the first step to winning power in it.

This argument came as a huge gust of fresh air to me personally. It's something I knew in my bones and having it expressed so clearly came as an almost physical relief.

All of us that took part in Corbynism understood that, yes, we were beset by a hostile media and state apparatus, and we were fighting against an all-encompassing neoliberal hegemony. But our failure was not just the result of bad headlines, or poor strategic choices, but something fundamental about ourselves as a movement. Our obsessions (the EU, the electoral system, abject poverty, etc) were not the obsessions of the class we sought to represent or, if they were, they often ran exactly counter to the prevailing class view.

This book is a triumph that sadly could only have been written post 2020, but would have been invaluable if we'd had it a decade sooner.

It will, no doubt, ruffle some feathers on the left. The question is, do we want to look at the real world and try and win next time, or do we want to carry on cosplaying our way towards another glorious defeat?

[Hector Norris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took me way too long to read but it is very good. The structure of the book, walking you through the history of the petit bourgeoisie to their place in the present economy in Britain, their varieties and their involvement in left wing and right wing movements, is excellent. There were times that I felt the book could do with a bit more academic rigour (more referencing, less generalising e.g. rich students r like this, poor students r like this blah blah blah nothing to support apart from Dan Evans own observations and opinions) but I also think it takes a publisher outside of academia to allow for the writing of a book as deeply on point as this, providing Evans the freedom to intertwine complex sociological concepts and scholarly work with personal experience. It also makes for good writing. The most important stuff is about how the new petit bourgeoisie have recently been at the forefront of left wing movements, not the working class, and that these movements have therefore tended to be driven by the Blairist and Thatcherite ideology of social mobility, even if they r in support of somewhat more radical policies (I.e. corbyn). the stuff on housing is fascinating. The book does do that thing many of the most convincing leftist texts unfortunately do where the vast majority of it is about why everything’s fucked and then a couple pages at the end like ‘but be optimistic unlike the left is! Don’t be hopeless!’ But it’s not so bad as some others in this regard, because it feels like an understanding of its argument is genuinely necessary for the greater success of the British left. There’s a lot to say but it’s bare good you should read it.

[Elizabeth Sorrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This scratched the annoying itch I have with left-wing class commentary in the UK that often doesn't acknowledge what our modern class system actually is now (or is aware but chooses to focus on two extreme ends of the class system anyway).

Maybe I'm asking too much of the book but I think it would've been a good idea to bring in some firsthand accounts to add some tangibility to a theoretically dense book.

Because of this there were times I thought I wouldn't make it. But it's very much worth the read. The intermediary classes don't get nearly enough attention even though they make up the majority of the population.

[Seymour Millen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The traditional understanding of class society focuses on the ruling and working classes, but overlooks the various trades in between, (shop owners, nurses, taxi drivers, etc.), partly due to their sheer diversity. Evans’ Nation of Shopkeepers addresses this by splitting the middle class into two: an old petty bourgeois of small capitalists, who work their own businesses, and a new class of downwardly mobile graduates who occupy state bureaucracy and service jobs.

This new class seems downwardly mobile yet distinct from a traditional working class, and Evans is convincing in his argument that this class needs specific treatment, rather than claiming they are simply a new proletariat and papering over obvious distinctions between a cleaner and an office worker. Taking the middle class seriously as a political and economic force, rather than a remainder of the essential class equation helps us better understand the complexity of class society and helps puncture a self-serving view that conveniently identifies today’s Jacobin readers as the protagonist of history.

However, when applied in the book, it’s hard to say the distinction helps to clarify the situation, as the author adds further classes (the Eichenreich's "professional-managerial class", a highly-educated section of the middle class that is entrusted to run the business on behalf of the owners), and then defines these three sub-classes by income, assets, the function of their job, their beliefs and culture, their behaviour, their education, etc. The granularity of the analysis promises to add detail and flexibility but felt unfocused and unpredictable, so a job coach to the DWP may be culturally working class, paid little, a trade unionist, but their job function is petty bourgeois. The approach starts to break down at the edges: the guy delivering takeaways on his moped and the one who owns the restaurant might technically both be self-employed, but in practise they differ so much that Evans admits it’s a grey area.

Nation of Shopkeepers explores the distinguishing features of the petty bourgeois in other areas. While education is a key part of separating the classes from one another, Evans does not see housing the same way, despite it being a key concern for the new class living in the major cities. Owner-occupation has long been the dominant form of tenancy in the UK, even among the working class, and this did not destabilise class society. Evans goes further: these owner occupiers are not property speculators, but merely happened to acquire an asset at the right time, and unless we consider this structurally, we lapse into moralism.

Evans contrasts the new petty bourgeois renter, who may be radicalised by their housing situation today, but with inheritance or assistance from their owner-occupier relatives, may end up becoming owner-occupiers in future, and so their class position will stabilise and undermine the basis of their radical politics. For this reason, to include housing tenure in class determination would be to "descend into chaos and lose any analytical grip on class" (p.254), and Evans prefers to see housing as a parallel issue to class, blurring the lines between classes rather than identifying them. This struck me as an unjustified closure of Nation’s otherwise capacious approach to class identity. A new petty-bourgeois of the kind Evans considers will be paying a third of their income to provide their landlord with equity as well as profit, and find themselves in rotting bedrooms and pest-ridden kitchens for a decade or more: should we not view these things as impacting class structures as much as post-16 education?

There’s a certain romance in the way Evans portrays the life he left behind in Porthcawl- the working class and old petty-bourgeoisie of his hometown are said to have never expected much from life, did not concentrate at school since it was unlikely to improve their lot, and do not overly suffer from aspirations of a better life. Conversely, the new petty-bourgeois are said to do well in school and move to major cities because of their grand ambitions, adopt left-wing politics because of their social ascent has been blocked, though since they fear ending up working class, they end up insecure in their status, and ultimately too invested in their own individual advancement to spearhead social change. Plenty of this rings true in my own experience, but the anecdotal, arbitrary, and moralistic treatment of class psychology made me suspicious of the author’s claims to be merely offering a dry, structural viewpoint. The final straw for me were the useless references to arguments on social media- there’s a discussion of the “deano” meme, for example. These could have been intended as cultural criticism but come off, at best, like the author is trying to have the last word for some online argument without letting the reader see who he’s responding to. Admirably, Evans is not one to spare himself in his examination of this new petty bourgeois, but replacing a self-serving argument with a self-critical one maintains the individual at the heart of the debate.

[Siobhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Nation of Shopkeepers is a book exploring the history and present of the petite bourgeoisie, particularly in Britain. 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. The conclusion offers suggestions for how the petite bourgeoisie, which Evans positions as vital in modern Britain, could come together with the working class to actually make a difference.

There's a lot of interesting content in the book, particularly around the divide between old and new petite bourgeoisie and how these differences manifest in terms of politics, ideas, and living reality. The charting of the history of education and housing in Britain and how this has been impacted by and influences politics and class gives a good framework for seeing some of the structural elements that create and maintain the petite bourgeoisie and gives a good background for what has gone before. The book provides some frameworks for thinking about class in modern Britain in new ways and seeing beyond prejudices on various sides to consider where it came from and what impact it has.

There are quite a lot of references to left Twitter, which if you're not someone who is part of it or sees those posts, can feel like Evans is arguing against a broad generalisation (I learnt what the Deano meme is, at least). In particular, there's a few throwaway complains about identity politics and intersectionality being too individualist, but it feels like if this is a reason to not consider the impact on intersectionality, whether as it applies to individual people or broader groups, then it could've been expanded to actually argue a point about "identity politics" rather than use it as a vague complaint against some parts of the left new petite bourgeoisie. Maybe this is something seen as already debated on left Twitter or elsewhere, but as I haven't read many similar books or engaged with many debates on left Twitter, to me it felt like ignoring other factors that impact the modern impressions of not only class itself, but also the key areas covered in the book like education, housing, and social mobility.

A Nation of Shopkeepers offers a new framework for thinking about class in modern Britain and there's a lot of interesting things to think about in terms of the present and future of socialism and trade unions, but also around specific areas like home ownership and precarious work. However, as is often true with political and sociological topics, some of its analysis didn't work for me and at times it felt a bit repetitive whilst barely covering other things it mentioned.

[Alex]

Haven't fully 'read' this to my satisfaction yet, but marking as such so I can write some thoughts here.

There's a lot of really interesting stuff in A Nation of Shopkeepers, and it's notable in that it doesn't feel as though the author is waffling for the sake of reaching a word count to justify the book's existence. In recent years, it's seemed like a lot of nonfiction gets published on 'progressive' topics that might be good for the author's career, but doesn't make that much of a contribution to knowledge. In contrast, this book feels important. It feels original. And it has personality, with Dan Evans weaving in his own experiences and generally departing from the convention that seems to exist where books engaging with the sociology of class must be unreadably dense and leave most readers feeling too stupid for the subject OR be dumbed down to the point where you doubt the author's credibility.

I'll admit, I don't read much Marxist literature, and it will take study for me to fully understand this book. But from what I do understand, I like the critiques of the media's inability to understand the existence of people living in 'working class' towns who are not actually working class in terms of their social position, despite having accents/not having degrees from Oxbridge/etc. I also like the critiques of the snobbery and insularity of the English Left.

I'm struggling a bit with how expansive Evans' definition of the petite bourgeoisie is, and as much as I get that the book is *about the petite bourgeoisie*, what with class being relational (As Evans acknowledges), I think it would be nice for there to be more discussion of the working classes and the 'underclass', as so far I have a confused sense of who Evans thinks they are. The book seems to do the thing that a lot of UK academic literature does where 'working class' and 'poor' are one and the same (notably, for example, in the chapter on education), but any class below the working class isn't really theorised.

Also, while Evans isn't entirely wrong about liberal identity politics (Middle class people *do* use it as a way of asserting their position in the class hierarchy), to give a crude example of the extent to which the book engages with race -- surely a matter of some significance to the contemporary UK class structure -- the word 'race' (the social category) never appears in the book. In contrast, the word 'racist' appears 10 times, generally in the context of critiquing the characterisation of certain groups of people (for example Brexit voters) as being racist. Hmm.

Anyway, I'll revisit this when I have more thoughts.

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deep and vital look at who and what constitutes the 'middle classes', what makes them different to the proletariat and bourgeoisie, and how they've become one of the most powerful blocs in modern British politics.

A chance for self-reflection for those of you, like myself, who grew up not feeling like you were truly working class, pushed to achieve as highly as possible in school, get a degree, and then find a career. And how those things make us think and act vastly differently to the inherently collectivist working class.

While very much targeted at the social democratic left who have seemingly abandoned the working class, it is still informative and eye-opening for those on the more revolutionary side of left politics.

[Peter Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dan Evans’ book sets out to analyse the petty bourgeois in the UK, proposing that this class now occupies a highly influential position in society and politics. This means he is swimming against the tide of much left-leaning opinion which, as wages stagnate and the opportunities for young graduates in particular disappear, sees an increasing polarisation between “us” the 99% and “them” the 1%, suggesting that to all intents and purposes the vast majority of us are all proletarians now.

This view of the 99% vs the 1% presupposes a definition of class based on your economic position, or sometimes even more simplistically on your earnings. The foundation of Evans’ position is a deeper analysis of class. He suggests that class is not simply a function of the job you do, but also your relationship to the means of production, what type of work you do, and a range of other things. Critically these other factors also includes a range of cultural factors such as education and where you live among other things.

In this he consciously differentiates himself from a simplistic marxist view which defines class solely by economic position. Evans’ view is that there is a difference between the graduate who can’t get a job in their chosen field and ends up working in a coffee shop and is thereby left with a feeling of frustrated expectations, and someone who grew up in a working class community, didn’t go to university, and potentially works in a very similar manual job. He suggests that this highly educated but frustrated segment are in fact a new fraction of the petty bourgeoisie.

In Marx-adjacent analysis the petty bourgeoisie are usually described as small scale labourers who differ from the proletariat by owning their own means of production but have very little capital of their own, people like self-employed sole traders or small shopkeepers. This economic position leaves them in a particularly precarious situation, never entirely sure of their ability to survive without falling down into the wage earning proletariat. This economic position means they are particularly aware of the fragility of their position, with no natural inclination to either left or right, but with a strongly individualist streak and therefore likely to be moved to support a movement which positions itself as standing against the large state. This ambiguous position has led them to supporting in different periods both the French revolution and fascism.

The common assumption, taking a lead from Marx, has been that the polarisation of society would in time see the petty bourgeois lose their status and become simply workers like everyone else – and the 99% vs 1% argument put forward earlier is a modern variation on this theme. Evans’ suggests that not only has this strata continued to exist, but that this ‘old’ petty bourgeoisie has now been joined by that segment of young graduates who are scraping a living in precarious work. Rather than being a segment of the working class, Evans suggests that this group in fact forms a ‘new’ petty bourgeois. For Evans therefore not only has the petty bourgeois continued to exist, but it has grown to become the dominant class in modern British politics as the traditional industrial working class has declined.

Marx of course never completed his theoretical analysis of class, the chapter of Capital intended to cover this (at the end of Volume 3) cuts off unfinished. As noted before it is often assumed – based indeed on some of his writing – that he thought the petty bourgeois would be unable to maintain their position and would fall back into the proletariat, something which much of the modern left would suggest is happening today. As is often the case with Marx though there is a much richer and more pragmatic analysis in his political writing. In the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte he analyses the class breakdown in mid-nineteenth century France with much more nuance than might be assumed by people who see things in crudely economistic terms. Marx assesses where each part of the contemporary class structure fits into the picture and analyses how their class position influences their role in the politics of the time, an approach at least faintly similar to Evans’ more thoughtful analysis.

What then to make of Evans’ book? I’m not sure I’m convinced by the separation that he draws between the working class and what he describes as the ‘new’ petty bourgeois, of that this separation necessarily means that the young and well educated in precarious jobs form a natural coalition with the older petty bourgeois of shopkeepers and sole traders. Evans is plainly correct however that the values of the petty bourgeois are dominant in British politics right now, and that the common view of class in the media is deeply out of kilter – exemplified by the 2020 article in the Guardian which characterised a pizza shop owner as typically working class, someone who almost by definition is petty bourgeois.

However it strikes me that as EP Thompson suggested classes are ‘made’ through the actions of ordinary people developing conscious connections to each other to develop a shared awareness of their position in society. Evans’ analysis of the different fragments in society feels largely correct, that some of those fragments should coalesce around a petty bourgeois agenda feels by no means given. The task of the left is to find a way to build the sort of working class consciousness that binds Evans’ “new” petty bourgeois to the working class rather than the petty bourgeois, and thereby makes the “99% vs 1%” narrative a reality rather than a theory.

You can also read this review on my blog https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2...

[joel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poulantzas worship that repeats the same fatal error as Classes in Contemporary Capitalism: the dubious formulation of a “new” petty-bourgeoisie made up of white collar workers, such as managers, professionals, supervisors, and a long list of service workers including "declassed graduates, call centre staff, teachers and teaching assistants, salespeople, estate agents, nurses, firefighters, and public sector workers."

What gets distorted in this theory is the basic structural problem that economic classes are derived from the relation to the means of production and not vibes-based analysis of whether something is "productive" or "unproductive" labor. The petty-bourgeoisie has historically possessed some independent or semi independent economic base. Small shops, trade licenses, or minor assets allow them to operate outside direct wage dependence. None of these supposed members of a “new” petty-bourgeoisie possess this. Their near total reliance on wages places them firmly in the proletariat at the structural level.

Yet even if we put aside this straightforward and deterministic reading of class and take E. P. Thompson’s viewpoint that class is a historical identity made and unmade through culture, political habits, and everyday life, the conclusion shifts only slightly, from a structural claim about class location to a historical account of how a particular worker stratum develops its own identity. What should be said is that despite their position as wage workers, this "new" professional-managerial stratum has produced a distinct shared political and cultural identity, a convergent consciousness that marks it off from other workers even as it remains structurally proletarian.

That is why this professional-managerial group might find itself more aligned with the petty-bourgeoisie rather than with other wage workers. No doubt in part due to their shared emphasis on personal advancement, credential based status, and professional autonomy, along with their physical/social distance from manual workers and the contradictory, unstable character of their own class position (fear of downward mobility). While they remain dependent on wages, their supervisory, administrative, or specialized roles tie them to management and can pull them ideologically toward the priorities of capital.

A more valuable avenue of inquiry would focus on this rich terrain of inter-class alliance rather than the broad generalizations drawn from flawed ideas that run amok here.

[Colin Thin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really useful critique of the contemporary left. There were definitely places where I didn't completely agree with Evans analysis, and I thought he could have approached some areas with a degree more nuance.

I'd still say it deserves 5 stars for making me think in a far more critical way about class. The book describes how the class structure in the west has dramatically changed in the past 50 years, and the left has simultaneously been completely reshaped by this process and failed to understand or respond to it.

It's been a while since a book made me think this much. I'd def recommend giving it a read if you consider yourself on the left in any form

[Eirwen Abberley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such an interesting read and very accessible and humorous for an academic/class text! I particularly enjoyed the chapter about education but I feel like I learned a lot throughout the book. It has definitely deepened my awareness of class and redefined how I think about 'social mobility.'

It was even better because we got to see Dan speak at the Hay Festival earlier this month.

[Ivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must-read for any westerner in leftist organizing spaces. Lacking in connections to imperialism, but still a fantastic exploration of the "middle classes" in the UK (and to an extent, the US)

[Lindberg Chambliss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sparked a lot of introspection on my own life, habits, jobs, housing, education, class, etc. As someone who was extremely confused about what constitutes the working class, this book provided a ton of clarity, and in a very approachable way. Really broadened my thought. Great work, Mr. Evans.

[willow · Rating 5 out of 5]

essential essential essential reading

[Kaleigh]

this book cover uses the exact same text color and font that i use for my ig stories i know it's gonna rule

[Bruce In Barum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent resetting of what 'class' is in the UK, giving workable definitions and specifics instead of the useless 'middle class' terminology. A must-read for anyone interested in social class, political economy, or trade unionism and the Left in the UK.

Full review on IWW website here: https://iww.org.uk/news/book-review-d...

[John Forth-Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought this was great until the conclusion, at which point Evans made a few claims that were larger than justified or poorly argued.

Just to give an example, he endorses Trotsky’s line of argument the petty bourgeoisie don’t support labour movements because they’re weak but argues that they’re weak because they’re dominated by the professional-managerial class…but the original argument is unrelated to that and its historical context was one where that domination didn’t exist. So there must be another reason why labour movements are weak or another reason the petty bourgeoisie don’t support them. To me the latter seems more plausible chiefly because of arguments *Evans convincingly made earlier in the book*.

He also lambasts the left’s preoccupation with social issues/representation, its pro EU tendencies, and its blanket support of authoritarian Covid measures. Each of these issues is interesting and the left certainly has problems with them, and Evans doesn’t declare himself a Brexiteer or lockdown sceptic - but they shouldn’t be thrown in the conclusion with no elaboration, in which case they come uncomfortably close to dogwhistles.

Nevertheless most of the book is very interesting, well argued, and informative. Overall I’d definitely recommend.

[jed · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In the early 1950s, C. Wright Mills identified the distinct qualities that white-collar workers had to cultivate and learn from an early age. He claimed that, while the self-employed were entrepreneurial and focused on making short-term profits for their business, the new petty bourgeoisie were also entrepreneurial, but in a different way. He argued that every white-collar worker developed the personality of a salesman, but rather than selling a product or trying to make profit, over their lifecourse they learn to sell themselves and their personal qualities in the
"personality market". In this market, of course, we are in competition with others. The school thus inculcates in the new petty bourgeoisie the ideology mentioned in the previous chapter, which was contrasted with the working class: a need to rise to the top as individuals, a view of the world in which others are a threat, competition. In school we are taught that we are the most important person in the world, that we are special and that getting ahead and selling ourselves (ahead of others) is crucial. In school, children learn the competitive individualism that leaves them isolated from others, sat on their own desks, hiding their answers from their friends, putting their hand up in class, trying to be first."

"This is not just about presentation alone. The actual form of "socialism" that has historically been on offer in the UK has a clear class character that alienates people.
In The Path Not Taken, the anarchist thinker Colin Ward provides a valuable lesson on "why British socialism consistently fails to win the hearts of the British public".
Ward argues that socialism in the UK gradually evolved from a bottom-up, DIY, prefigurative movement, in which working-class people built their own institutions and civic life, to an inflexible, top-down state bureaucracy. He writes that "the political left in this country invested all its fund of social inventiveness in the idea of the state, so that its own traditions of self-help and mutual aid were stifled"."

"But just as petty-bourgeois ideology and neoliberalism have been embedded in society through revolutionary right-wing policies such as the right-to-buy, which changed the soul of society and made individualism "rational", these policies can equally be undone. It is eminently possible to enact policies that can encourage a more socialized and collectivist society. Secure work contracts would prevent permanent angst and the drive to compete against one another. Decommodifying housing by mass building council housing would break the hold of the market, as well as providing shelter and security. This removes the incentive for petty landlordism and property fetishization. It has been done before and can be done again. It is also possible to achieve true comprehensivization and the abolition of academies and grammar schools, implementing an education system that breaks down the mental/manual divide and focuses on an integral form of education where all children are taught practical and life skills. The removal of testing, setting and pressure, in turn, removes competition and hierarchies between children, and the awareness that social mobility is not the role of education. Means-testing, another Blairite favourite, encourages competition and resentment between subordinate classes, particularly between the petty bourgeoisie and the working class, whereas universalism can prevent this. The old institutions that facilitated collectivism and have been sold off — sports clubs, community halls, libraries and so on — have to be brought back. Above all, socialism has to come from below, it cannot be led from above, and it cannot be bureaucratic and dominated by a cadre of professionals or managers."

"Finally, I have spent most of my adult life and career
"on the left" around the new petty bourgeoisie. As I hope I have shown, the aspirations and ideology of this class are not so different from the old petty bourgeoisie at all.
What would now be most transformative for the new pett bourgeoise - not just politically but psychologically - would be to abandon social mobility, to dispense with its obsessive focus on climbing the career ladder, to embrace and accept downward social mobility, to realise one can have an identity and meaning without a "career" , and that there is nothing wrong with staying rooted and not leaving your small town. This would lead to the gradual erosion of class boundaries between the subordinate classes and help guarantee the formation of broad political alliances, as well as making people a lot happier personally."

[Amir · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s rare to come across a book that not only shifts your understanding of class, but also helps explain the political terrain we’ve all been fumbling through in Britain over the past decade. Dan Evans doesn’t just offer analysis, he gives language to something many of us have lived but not fully grasped: the rise and dominance of the petty bourgeoisie, and what that means for both class struggle and the left’s constant failure to win.

What I found most compelling was how Evans challenges the traditional Marxist assumption that society can be neatly divided into two great camps: proletariat vs bourgeoisie. Instead, he foregrounds a huge, interstitial class, people with small amounts of capital, a professional job, maybe a home, who neither own the means of production nor fully sell their labour like traditional workers. It’s in this murky middle, this petty bourgeoisie, that so many of us live, myself included and Evans doesn’t let that go unexamined. He’s brutally honest, even about his own place within this group, and it’s that self-awareness that gives the book its power. You feel like you’re being invited into a reckoning, not just handed a theory.

Reading it, I found myself constantly reflecting on my own experiences, especially around social mobility and the moral weight we assign to property, respectability, and aspiration. The way Evans picks apart the dream of the suburbs, the logic of owning your way into security and status, hit me hard. Not because it was shocking, but because it felt so familiar. That aspirational individualism is everywhere in British life, from the way we think about housing to how we vote. And it’s almost entirely at odds with any collective project of solidarity.

The book also helped clarify something I’ve felt for a while but couldn’t quite put into words: that much of what passes for progressive politics today is shaped not by working-class interests, but by the frustrations and anxieties of a downwardly mobile middle class. Evans’ distinction between the ‘old’ petty bourgeoisie (shopkeepers, tradies, small landowners) and the ‘new’ (precariously employed graduates who lean left but are still heavily invested in cultural capital and status) was incredibly useful. It explains so much of the cultural tone of the contemporary left, why it often feels more concerned with being right than being heard, more focused on language than material change.

This isn’t just a book about class; it’s also a forensic diagnosis of why the left keeps losing. Evans doesn’t dismiss the Corbyn project out of hand in fact, you can feel his emotional investment in it but he also doesn’t shy away from the hard truth that many of us, myself included, needed to hear: we weren’t trusted. The people we claimed to fight for didn’t see themselves in us. And that’s not just the fault of media narratives or bad messaging, it’s a structural problem, born out of our own class location and the disconnect it produces. That part of the book felt like a gut punch, in the best possible way.

What makes this such an important read right now is how clearly it speaks to the moment we’re in, politically stuck, socially divided, and still grasping for explanations that make sense. With an election on the horizon and a sense that change is both urgent and impossible, Evans gives us the tools to see why politics keeps misfiring. It’s not just about policy or leadership, it’s about class, aspiration, and the myths we’ve built around both. This book doesn’t offer easy answers, but it cuts through the noise in a way that’s honest, sharp, and timely. If we’re serious about rebuilding something meaningful on the left or even just trying to understand the country we live in, this is essential reading.

[Pete Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a brilliant and provocative book and I recommend it highly. Not because Evans gets it right as I am unconvinced by his primary thesis.

Against the concept of the “99%” and the idea that “we are all workers now” in a constantly evolving working class – and drawing heavily on the work of Poulantzas - Evans argues instead that highly educated and precarious working people constitute a “new petit bourgoisie”. Roughly speaking he sees the petit bourgeoisie (new and old) as today constituting as much as a third of society.

Reading this book was a bit like marking a mathematical solution where the pupil gets every step wrong but somehow gets to the right answer at the end. Evans does this in a storming final chapter that excoriates Labourism and left wing activism - for both their disconnect from and contempt for working class people - and ultimately suggests a return to the workplace.

I think the problem is that Evans remains stuck in a political rather than a thoroughgoing class struggle mindset. His concern is critiquing the left rather than looking to how we build working class power in the workplace and organise to build the widest possible solidarity within the class. Never has a turn to a new form of syndicalism been more obviously what workers of this country need.

Evans himself mentions (though he disagrees with it) that a majority of people in Britain identify themselves as working class. This surely gives us hope as organisers, as well as a potentially fertile terrain to organise. Ultimately for the workplace organiser the fluffy distractions of party politics and the latest fad issues of the day do not matter.

What matters is which workers are with us. Which workers stand on the right side of the picket line. Both the literal picket line outside the workplace, and a more figurative line in wider society.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Erudite, eye-opening, and very much a reckoning with how we see class in modern Britain. It articulates a confident call for introspection and a movement away from the framework of a dualist class system, instead advocating that we understand the precocity of the petty-bourgeoise and how this animates everything from attitudes to education, work, and housing. The chapters interlock and the grand thesis statement flows naturally from here (“While the middle class is precarious and impoverished, this doesn't make it disappear or sink down — it still needs to be understood on its own terms. It remains, and in fact its precarity is precisely what defines it and which produces its distinct ideology”). Highly recommended, especially as it meets readers where they are and is a sympathetic foray into the class system rather than a disinterested dissection.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Couldn't recommend this book enough. This work serves as the foundational catalyst for a fresh perspective in the realms of analysis, discourse, and strategic thinking for Socialists. This book adeptly navigates the distinctive conditions that exist beyond the ideological confines of "leftist" thought. Big thanks to Dan Evans for eloquently expressing the profound sentiments that many of us may not have been able to articulate like here did here. I would even go so far as to say that it is perhaps one the most important books of our contemporary, post Corbyn, multi-polar, brink of WW3 era. Must read!

[Rhys Morris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book that details the development of the petty bourgeoisie over the last century. In most places hits the nail on the head - the spread of the individualist petty bourgeoisie ideology, the prevalence of a private managerial class who doesn’t speak for petty bourgeois people, and discussing in detail the types of people in this broad class.

There are some sweeping generalisations which come off poorly - e.g. saying the old grammar school system didn’t help the working class but somehow delivered social mobility is a particularly weak one off the top of my head.

Otherwise a great analysis and probably the best book cover I’ve seen

[Iza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting and accessible! I think class has always been fascinating as it permeates into every part of life and I think we don't really understand it or know how to categorise it now that things have gotten so complicated. Dan did a great job of explaining the middle and how it relates to our lives and politics today, he articulated a lot of feelings I had growing up and feelings I still have today. He was also a great host/speaker @ Hay Festival, he definitely convinced me to grab his book and I'm glad I did!

[Richard Atkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most insightful book of this type I've read since Charles Umney's "Class Matters". 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. Highly recommended.

[Stu Napier · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a tough read as it is theory laden and very information heavy. It perhaps could have been shorter as there is lots of repetition, but ultimately this serves to hammer home the intricacies of the points Evans makes. Saying that, this book was worth the effort and challenge of reading, as Evans make a case for the return of a socialism which unites across class and means instead of the neoliberal individuation and name calling of Labourism. What a world we could create through seeing the human underneath the voting record and the scars of life in a vastly uncaring system of exploitation.

[Tom Bain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very thorough and convincing analysis from Evans, although it occasionally feels a little insular when it comes to concrete examples. I wish some of the optimism/practical thinking from the conclusion had been introduced a little earlier, as the preceding chapters can be a bit relentless in their vinegary tone.

[Pinko Palest · Rating 2 out of 5]

starts promisingly, makes some very valid and original points and is generally very readable, but takes a swing towards a stridently blue labour approach towards the end. Although he is all for Poulantzas and althusserian eurocommunism in the beginning, by the end of the book has adopted a harsh trotskyite sectarian position. Very disappointing

[joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

unpretentious. eye opening. super insightful on the class structure in the UK today and how it needs to be seen for socialist politics. Like asking your mate a question on politics rather than reading a hundred year old Lenin pamphlet.