ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the theoretical perspectives utilized by J. H. Goldthorpe, David Lockwood, Frank Bechhofer, and J. Piatt in the Luton study. It discusses briefly some of the changes that might be occurring in the structure and composition of the British working class. The chapter is concerned more with what the Affluent Worker study has not told us, rather than with the authors' detailed analysis of the class situation of the affluent worker per se. It concentrates upon a number of theoretical and empirical issues which have received too little attention in recent discussion – issues which must be at the centre of continuing debate on changes in the middle levels of the class structure. It is generally claimed that the privileged position of the craftsman in nineteenth-century Britain rested upon his ability artificially to restrict entry to his craft, thereby increasing the scarcity value of skilled labour.
