Duty unto Death:

E.P. Thompson’s’ The Making of the English Working Class is widely known throughout the academic world, ² and indeed beyond; justifiably so, as it has many virtues. Among other things, it is an impressive synthesis of the ideas of the ‘good and the great’ of the social sciences. In it we hear echoes not only of Gramsci but of Weber and Durkheim, and we see references not only to classes but to codes and values. ³ Thompson, of course, was concerned, first and foremost, with the creation of ‘community’. In the eighteenth century, he argued, in traditions which revolved around the ‘code’ of the self-respecting artisan – decency, regularity, mutuality – were to be found the seeds of the ‘highly organised and self-conscious working class’ of the Industrial Revolution. This code promoted a secure, ordered, cultural milieu and ensured a viable working-class culture. As this culture evolved, it linked to the artisanal code the languages of religious brotherhood and socialist idealism. The outcome was a collectivist culture, propagated by political theory, by new social organizations and by cohesive rituals. ⁴ This cultural transformation, Thompson insisted, ensured political recognition. In Thompson’s view, the emergent autonomy of working-class culture ‘was a historical and political necessity’ ⁵ – an interesting viewpoint with period application elsewhere.