THEM & US?

The Rise and Fall of Class in Britain David Cannadine Columbia University Press, $29.95, 274 pp

It is terribly difficult to explain to Americans the problem (I do think it is a problem) of class in Britain. British social reality is actually different. We still have hereditary political power and social prestige. Present plans to abolish the voting privileges of the hereditary peers do not propose abolishing titles, which will remain influential (charities and businesses still seek out titled individuals to confer prestige upon their enterprises). Paradoxically, at the same time the discourses of socialism have never had the sinister applications that they have acquired in the United States. A language of "class" persists within the political process. Moreover, class as a question of style, of representation, and language, at every level, has been annexed to, and reinforces, the social reality.

David Cannadine quotes Lord Beaverbrook saying that in America "the only difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich have more money." This is not true in Britain. There is a whole language and social structure that separates wealth from class, and creates a set of complex nuances around social status. And, because of the legacy of the empire, even race does not entirely escape these distinctions-Indian aristocrats educated at Eton are more Etonian than Indian, for instance.

Although it is common to describe Britain as class "obsessed," I don't think it is helpful. If obsession suggests a continuous anxiety and engagement with a subject, it is no more true to say the British are class obsessed than it is to say we are "breathing obsessed." We all breathe and we all, in language and in actions, address class on a daily basis-from what plants we choose to grow in our gardens to how we think politically.

Cannadine's admirably well-written account of the development of the language of class over the last three centuries should therefore prove extremely useful in the United States. He sees class as a rhetorical device reflecting not a simple social reality, but a set of perceptions about how society is constituted. These perceptions are available for manipulation and social construction, and have been so used for the last three centuries. For example, there was not any measurable "middle-class triumph" in the mid-nineteenth century, there was merely a new perception that power should lie with the bourgeoisie. These sets of perceptions have proved enduring and effective precisely because they are vague and inaccurate.

Cannadine argues-and I am convinced he's right-that British life has three particular understandings of class. First, there is a hierarchical continuum, based on every individual having a place slightly above or slightly below her neighbor; a ladder with a rung for everyone from monarch to beggar. This understanding of class as a classification implies that there are no true points of disjuncture or division. Second, there is a binary opposition between the working class and the upper class: Them and Us, the classic Marxist model. And finally there is a three-part model of lower, middle, and upper class. All three models can be presented from different angles: the middle class is virtuous; the aristocracy understands; the workers are the heroes. Or the reverse. Different models gain supremacy at different points in history, but the other two continue to lurk and inform. "The class consciousness of the majority of the people is characterized by its complexity, ambivalence, and occasional contradictions," Cannadine writes. "It does not reflect a rigorously consistent interpretation of the world."

Cannadine is less helpful when looking at precisely where and why people shift from one model to another. Looking at my own class consciousness afresh in the light of his definitions, I realize that I do use all three models, but under quite specific circumstances. With Marx, I believe that the interests of labor (of the working class) are inevitably in competition with the interests of capital. At this grand scale I believe in the binary model. The failure of the working class to identify with this analysis does not change my conviction.

In terms of social policy, however, I am more inclined to use the tripartite scheme that includes the very rich (new and old), the seriously poor, and a middle class made up of everyone in between, including certain skilled workers and large branches of the "professions." This is the way I look at social exclusion, education, housing policy, welfare distribution and tax burden, and similar issues.

In my personal tastes and my social and community networks, I use a professional and hierarchical model. It isn't quite a ladder, more a bell graph, and subconsciously I am at the center. My mother, for example, still believes that it is possible as well as desirable to seat people at her dinner table "correctly," knowing who should take precedence over whom, despite the extremely narrow social range of people she would invite to dinner. I fear that I exercise similar sorts of judgments, even though in my own social circles I do not need that precise social skill.

Class prejudices are still a serious problem in Britain. Whether or not it is possible to change this should concern anyone interested in justice and in the best use of talent. I doubt it can happen unless we abolish all hereditary privilege, plus the Public School system. But there is clearly no political will for that at present. In the meantime, Cannadine's clarity, lively writing, and depth of reading (nearly one-quarter of the book is references) is immensely helpful in explaining the phenomenon of class and making readers aware of their own history and language of identity and representation.

Sara Maitland, a frequent contributor, is the author of Angel Makers: The Collected Stories (Holt).