Start Date
2-10-1999 3:30 PM
End Date
2-10-1999 4:00 PM
Description
Outlining the shape of the Australian class structure between 1900 and 1914, Stuart Macintyre described minor professionals, storekeepers, and salary earners on incomes between 200 and 500 pounds per annum as the 'anxious class'.' This group were sandwiched between capital and labour, located just above the mass of wage labourers, and yet with the ever-present fear of falling back into the ranks of the wage slaves. The 'petite bourgeoisie', the 'lower middle class' or 'storekeeper class' have been the subject of considerable theorising and discussion. For example, theoretical debates raged throughout the 1970s and 1980s concerning the exact 'class position' of this 'intermediate strata'.2 Their political role, particularly in view of their support for Victorian conservatism in England, and right-wing populism and fascism in continental Europe, also attracted a number of scholars.l
The 'Anxious Class'?: Storekeepers and the Working Class in Australia, 1880-1940
Outlining the shape of the Australian class structure between 1900 and 1914, Stuart Macintyre described minor professionals, storekeepers, and salary earners on incomes between 200 and 500 pounds per annum as the 'anxious class'.' This group were sandwiched between capital and labour, located just above the mass of wage labourers, and yet with the ever-present fear of falling back into the ranks of the wage slaves. The 'petite bourgeoisie', the 'lower middle class' or 'storekeeper class' have been the subject of considerable theorising and discussion. For example, theoretical debates raged throughout the 1970s and 1980s concerning the exact 'class position' of this 'intermediate strata'.2 Their political role, particularly in view of their support for Victorian conservatism in England, and right-wing populism and fascism in continental Europe, also attracted a number of scholars.l