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

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shopkeepers". Napoleon.org. Angleterre…a people which he [Napoleon] so disdainfully used to call a nation of shop-keepers 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? 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 petty 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?

Dan Evans’ new book cuts through the nonsense and provides useful working definitions for fractions of the Middle Class and their role in the capitalist system. Building on the work of thinkers such as Poulantzas, Bourdieu and Marx, his analysis challenges syndicalists to learn how to build alliances with those fractions with whom we share common interests. 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.The organisation supports reading groups and community libraries around the UK. Reading groups provide an inclusive and accessible space to debate political ideas and strengthen community networks. It also organises online events, where you can put your questions to authors and special guest speakers. Left Book Club is also building a network of reading groups, and it can help you get your own group off the ground. 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.

This complimentary term, for so we must consider it, as applied to a Nation which has derived its principal prosperity from its commercial greatness, has been erroneously attributed, from time to time, to all the leading Revolutionists of France. To our astonishment we now find it applied exclusively to BONAPARTE. Than this nothing can be further from the fact. NAPOLEON was scarcely known at the time, he being merely an Officer of inferior rank, totally unconnected with politics. The occasion on which that splenetic, but at the same time, complimentary observation was made was that of the ever-memorable battle of the 1st of June. The oration delivered on that occasion was by M. BARRERE [sic], in which, after describing our beautiful country as one "on which the sun scarce designs to shed its light", he described England as a nation of shopkeepers. Historical context [ edit ] 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.

Evans does a terrific job of helping us break out of classic class schemas that are either too abstract to help practical political interventions or have not kept up to date with the evolving and complex developments in the formation of classes in Britain. ”– Mike Wayne, author of England’s Discontents