ABSTRACT
In England, modern society is indisputably most highly and classically developed in economic structure. Nevertheless, even here the stratification of classes does not appear in its pure form. The old Cheshire saying that 'when the world was made, the rubbish was sent to Stockport' had particular relevance to the period of the Industrial Revolution. Stockport thus comprised precisely the sort of industrial setting in which a mature 'working class' might be expected to emerge. This working-class nucleus continued to grow in size after the onset of industrialisation, Marx argued, due in part to the successive proletarianisation and alienation of shopkeepers, artisans and peasants. Lenin closely followed Marx's descriptions of class formation, class consciousness and alienation, and agreed that workers might fall prey to 'false consciousness' of the kind which appeared in the mid-Victorian years and which blinded workers to the true interests they shared with other workers in opposition to their capitalist oppressors.
