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(2010) Class, individualization and late modernity, Dordrecht, Springer.
Forty years ago, the spectre of embourgeoisement haunted the sociology of class. Ever-increasing affluence, relative parity of incomes and living conditions and the expanded availability of consumer goods had all, so proponents of this famous thesis asserted, ensured the cultural and political assimilation of the working class into the middle rungs of society and, as a consequence, effectively rendered the concept of class redundant (see, for example, Zweig, 1961). Lifestyles and social values had converged, the argument went, with the erstwhile working class eagerly appropriating the tastes and leisure pursuits of the growing middle class, unapologetically jettisoning their once unbreakable commitment to collectivism and trade unionism in favour of bourgeois privatism, individualism and status-obsession and turning to Conservatism in the political arena as the only force capable of ensuring the maintenance of their new-found principles. In sum, no distinguishable difference warranting sociological attention existed between occupational groups, it was claimed, and despite its scant empirical backing this idea soon accrued considerable popular purchase.
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Atkinson, W. (2010). Introduction, in Class, individualization and late modernity, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 1-14.
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