Citizenship and Social Class T. H. Marshall pinto three pas. [.+.] I dull call these three litical end social. The evil eementis composed i sadividual freedom ~ liberty of the perscn, Tpropose to divide citizenshi parts, or elements, civil of the rights necessary freedom of specch, thoughe and faith, the sgl sonelade valid contracss, end the right fram the others, becaus rights on terms of s the right to defend and asser: all on with others and by due process of law. This us Une the lestitations most directly associate the courts of justice, By the political element T mean atein che exercise of political power, as « men fs body invested with authority or as en elector of che members of such a box scutions ate parliament and | clement T meas the ¥ modicum of economic welfare ard sece ‘heritage and to live the life ofa civ standards prevailing in the sociery. The institutions most closely con- nected with it are the educational By 1832 when pol suncils of local govern range, from the right to a to the cight to share to the fl sd Being according zo the ment. By the social system and the so: first infantile atempe co wall, d come to man’s estate and bore, in most essentials, the “The specific work of the earlier Hazo- es Trevelyan, ‘was the establishment of the rule of | as atleast a law of freedom. On that solid foundation all our subsequent reforms were built’ This eighteenth xed by the French Revolution and com- was in Large measure the work of the courts, both in their al rights made th appearance that they Lev: today century achieveme; TH, Marshall 33 daily practice and also in a series of famous cases ia some of which they were fighting against parliament in defence of indi celebrated actor 1 this dzama was, | sappose, John Wilkes, and, alshoug> may deplore the adeence 23 him of those noble and s co find in out national heroes, we canaot complain whieh we should the cause of liber choice, subject only ag, his right bad been denied by s hand by the Flizabethen Starute of Artfivers, which confined certain occupations to oertein social classes, and on the other by local vegalat reserving employment in a town to its own members and by she use o apprenticeship as an instrament of cxclusion rather chan of reeitment ‘The recognition of the right involved che formal eeceptance of a funcla- mental changé of attitads, The old asmmpcon thet local and group .s were in the public inerest, beotuse “tade and waffic cannot be maintained or increased without order and government’, was replaced by the new assumption that suc restrictions weve an offence agains: the liberty of che subject and a menace to the prosperity of che sxtion. [.++] By the beginning of the nineteenth century this principle of i economic frzedom was accepted as axiomatic. You are probably familiar with the passage auoted by the Webbs icom the report of the Select Cominiteee of 1811, which states that smonopol id ference of ths leyislerure wich the (reedom of trade, or with the Tidal to dspace of bis tine and of hs sour in Ine may judge most conducive co his owa hout violating general pracipies of the Sse impo-tance to tie prospecty and happaness of the commautity? [-~.] wrest, son take place ‘The story of evil rights is their formative peried is one of che gradual aldition of new rights to a status that alseady existed and wes held to sppertain to all adult members of the community - oF pechaps one should say to all mle members, since the status of wor least of married women, Wes #1 some ixporant respects peculiar, This demecratic, oF teniversél, characzer of the status arose nacurally Lom the fact that it was sventially the status of freedom, and in seventeenth-century England all nen were fice, Servite status, or villeimage by bio: patent anachronism in the days of Elizabeth, but vanhed soon after- Wards, This change from servile w free labour has been described by Professor Tawney 2s ‘a high landnvark in the development both of ez0- nomic and political society” and 2s the finel triumph of dhe common law’ in rogions from which it ad been excluded for four conturies. Henceforsh34 Citizenship and Social Class TH. Marshall 2 continuing the bectle, and to those orker weaklings wggie, admitied defeat, and cried for meres, The tsntat the concept of social security was reversed. Bur more than that, the minimal social hat remained were detached irom the status of cd the claims ofthe poor, not as an integral n, But as a aksenatie wo theme a society in which there is, nor pave up move toward: ywas had become his by right. In the towns the enchip’ were incerchangeable. When freedom became universal, citizenship grew from a local into a national instution, The story of poli 5 is differenc both in time and in cheractes. The formative period began, as I have lhe early nineteenth «: whea the civil sights attached to che status of freedom Ind acquired su‘ficienc substance wo justly us in speaking of a genere! status of citizenship. And, when i tights to cnrich 2 status already enjoyed by Fights to new sections of the population. sense of the word. For paupers forfeited in. practice te personal libecty, by internment in the workhouse, and they forfeited by Jaw any neal rights they might p possess. This dscility of det in being finale 5 but in the granting of [ed in the ninete! wh century citizenshiy he pollacalliaa bie Vasuatone ‘who accepted relief must cross the read that separated the community of f citizens from the outcast company of the destitute, The Poor Laiw is nota ed example of Lais divorce of sociel rights carly Factory Acts show the same mprovement of working con nd aredhction of working hours to the bexefit ofall employed in the industries 10 applied, they meticulously refrained from giving this protection dizecily vo the adul: male ~ the citizen par excellence. ‘And they did so out of respect for his status as a citizen, on the grounds that enfozced protect right to conclude a free consract of employment. Protection was confined to women ard idren, and champicns of women’s rights were quick to detect the implied insult, Women were protected because they were not citizens. If they wished (© enjoy full and responsiale citizenship, they must forgo protection, By the end of the nineteenth century such arguments ilcte, aad the factory code nad become one of the ice of social rights. [...] end of the nineteenth cemury elementary education was not only compulsory. This signal depercure from Lasse: stified on the grouads that free choice is a sight on y subject to discipline, ang that whose limits were extended by each successive Reform Act. | Te was, 28 we shull se, appropriate that raneteenth-certu capitalist appropriate thse th mencaiiconin cary should abandon toe attach political rights directly and independently to citizen- ship as such. ‘This vital change of prizeJple was put into elfeux when the Act of 1918, by adopting manhood suffrage, shifted the basis of political rights from economie substance to personal satus, Lsay ‘mankood’ dlib- ne the great significance of this reform cu apart from the second, and no less important, reform introduced at the same time ~ namely the enfranchisement of vomen, ‘The original source of social rights was membership of local comaun- rexsures curtailed th lars in ich replaced by a Poot Law and system of wage regulation were netionally conesived and locally administered. [...] As the pattern of the old order dissolved ws free, it w course, be mature minds, that chi parens childses. Bur the priseiple goes de right combiced with a public duty 10 exercise th imposed mezely for the benefic of the individual — because children canne approciate their own interests and parents may be unfit co enlight y ich the idea of social rights was gradually drained away. But at the very end of the eightcenth century thexe occurred a final stnuggle between the old and che new, between the ed (or patterned) socisty and the competitive economy. Nad in this enship was divided against itselé; soeial rightesided with the nd civil with the new. s brief episode of our history we see the Poor Law as the agzressive champion of the social rights of citizenship, In the succeeding phase we find the atizeker ériven back far bebind his original position. By the Ae: of tse Poor Law renounced all claim to trespass om the territory of the orto interfere with the forces af the relief oniy ta those who, through age or sickness, were ineapable of them? I hardly think thai this can be an adequate cxplan increasingly vevogsized, the nineteenth contury wore om, thet p ated electorate, and thar scientific manufacture needed educated workers and twechnicizns. The dury t improve and cilize oneself 's therefore a social duty, and nov mevely a personal one, offered36 Citizenship and Social Class 2B because the so members. 4 that its culture isan orga follows that the growth of pu teenth century was ment of th is dury hus begun to realize sion 4 national heritaze ic elementary education during the nine- ve step on the road to the re-establish- social rights of citizenship in the twentieth. [... ] id s communi Citizenship isa status hestowed on thase who cre full members of a comeunit and duties with respect r2 is no universal prin- that determines what those rghts aad cuties shall be, bur societies x which citizenship is a developing institution create an image of an ideal Giizenchip against which achievement can be measured and towards, which aspiration can be directed. The urge forward along the path chus pleted is an urge cowards fuller measure of equelity. an exrichment of thestuff of which the stetusis made and aa increase in the numberof those ‘on whom the status is bestowed, Social class, on the other hand, isa system of can be based on a sct of ideals, beliefs and values, I is thevetore zensonable to expect that the impact citizenship on social class should take the form of 4 conflict between opposing prizedples, If | am right in my contention that citizenship has been. adev gland at least since the latter pert af th seventeenth century, then it is clear that its growth coincides with the rise of eapit not of equality, bu: of inequality, Here is something that needs explaining. How is it that these two opposing princigles could grow and flourish side by side in the same soil? Whee ible for them to be reconciled with one enother aad 10 instead of antagonists? The question is a pertinent one, for itis clear that, in the twesticth century, citizenship and the capitalise class system have beem at waar [...] I is tre ther class still fometions. Soeit inc necessezy and purposeful. It provides the incentive to effort and designs the dis:ribution of power. Butthece is I pestern of inequality, which an appropriate value is attached, a priori, to each social Inequality therefore, though necessary, say become excesive, As Patric Colquhoun said, in a much-quoed pessige: “Without a large p! of povesty there could be na riches, since iches are the offepring lebour can result only from a state of poverty... Pover & most necessary and indispenseble ingredient in society, withowe which agand communities could not cxist in 2 state of civilizaton’ [...] ‘ou lock on wealth 2s conclusive proof of merit, the more @ to regard poverty as ev tare — but che p {ailire may seem to he greater shan the offence warrants, In such circum np velity is regarded 03 ” be treated, rather irresponsibly used to pour unchecked from our factory shisine time, as the stirs to life, class-abateme Oa dhe conary system less vulaer “ sequences. I: raised the floor-level in the besement of the social edifice, and perhaps made it rather more hygienic thon it was before. Bur it remained 2 basement, and the upper storeys of the bt “hore developed, im the late part of the ni Jorerest in equality ae a principle of secial justice andl an appreciation of the fact that the formal recogaition of an equud capacity for rights wes not enough. In theory even exe removal of all the barriers that sepaztted civil ights from their remedies would not Lave imterfered with the principles or the class structure of the capitalist systez, 1t would, in fact, have created situation which many supporers of the competi marist economy falsely aesvmed ta be ziready in existence. Butin practice the aitirude of mind which inspired the efforts x0 remove these barriers grew out of a conception of equality which overstepped these nazr Timits, the conception of equal social worth, not merly of equal natural hes. Thus although citizenship, even by the end of the nineeemh ceatuzy, hdl done fitle to reduce social ney progress into the path whicls led direcsly +0 the egalit rvemtieth century. [-..] This growiog satiozal consciousness, this awakening public opin and these first strings of a sense of community membership and common at the end of the inequality Zor the simple and obvious reason. eal the mest of the working penple cid not wield effective politcal power. By that time she franchise wasiunly wide but those waa had recently received the vote yet lsarzed how to use it. The political sights of citizenstip, civil rights, were full of potential danger to the capitalist system, although those who were ciutiowly eavending them down the sacial scale probably did not zealize quite how prearthe danger arly be expected to foresee whet vast changes could be brought zbout by the peaceful use oF political power, without a violent and bloody revolution. The ‘planned society’ and the the practical p contractual 288i there were some grounds lor expecting that che worlsing