The end of the industrial revolution

In the latter

At the same time the employer-worker relationship of capitalism was creating

After years of complaint, a new Poor Law was introduced in 1834

The new pooot=r law was meant t reduce the cost of looking after the poor and impose a
system which would be the same all over the country.
under the new Poor law, parishes were grouped into unions and each union had to build

The deserving poor, to be supported as of old

The undeserved, to be kept under control

Accordingly the responsibility of decent people was

first to assess who among the poor were deserving and who were not,
then and only then to grant them either support or deterrence!

Qst: among the so-called decent people, who exactly were to be in charge of running the
system

Two fund changes happened during the 1830s

1-poverty came to be understood as social and moral evil
Of course middle class has always existed: commoners who earned their lives by other than
agric factory or domestic labour

But doctor lawyers, clerks, churchmen, shopkeepers and merchants had little in common
and their loose combination till then weighed very little against both the wealth of the nobility
and the number of working class ppl be them peasants or workers.

The industrial revolution had triggered the quantitative expansion of such activities, for all the
increase in the number of factory workers and, more importantly still, the 1830’s brought a
new feeling of confidence to the people involved.

This was all the more remarkable that, even at the end of the reign, the middle-class still
accounted for less than a third of the population.

The Municipal Corporation Act ( 1835) had them being given a prominent say in local affairs,
a change that increased their self confidence and served as a tuition ground for their soon to
come entry into national politics.
As of 1888, another Local Government Act established county councils, with members
elected by local residents, to take over the legislative and executive duties of the
magistrates. At the same time the councils of the largest cities were given increased power.
The middle-class also made the best of these changes
And yet the newly self-aware middle class knew only too well that it did not belong to the
aristocracy!
Thus it dreamed of being recognized as close to it, which first of all implied a neat distinction
with the working-class.

Never to be disregarded as mere working-class people was the arch-important issue for
them, thus their inventing a new binary division:
The Gentle
The Ungentle

Just as the most troublesome poor had been labelled ‘undeserving’, the lower classes of
society, lacking education and wealth, were deemed ‘ungentle’

Till then gentility was a synonym for nobility; it was a matter of birth.
From then

Given the depravity of the nobility of the times ( at least in their opinion, and the fact that
proving their gentility through decency was a constant necessity for them, they were even
better than the higher classes.

So gentility as behaviour came to set them apart from both

- uneducated and ungentle poor people ( the deserving poor included )
- and ill-mannered noblemen.

The royals and the most noble families,

Gentle commoners from the middle-class
Decadent thus ungentle noblemen
the ungentle lower ranks of society

Amazingly the middle class very quickly succeeded in convincing the society of the time that
such new social ranking was genuine; the new pattern was broadly accepted when victoria
became the new monarch in 1837

Yet two questions were left unanswered

Was it reasonable to believe that all middle class people were gentlemen?
Symmetrically were all working-class people so obviously ungentle

These were fundtl issues when it came to thinking about extending the franchise!

The Royals

The most noble families ( rank wealth or position)

Gentle commoners from the middle-class
Some decent working men

Decadent thus ungentle noblemen

Ungentle middle-class people
The bulk of working-class people and the deserving poor

The Undeserving Poor

Since the Royals and most noble families were expected to run the country and the
Empire , the gentle commoners from the middle-class believed it was their mission to
rule society
Theirs was therefore the mighty task of assessing gentility, be it for nobles, middle-
class or working-class people.
Theirs was also that of sorting deserving and undeserving poor.

We have thus answered these two questions:

1/ was it reasonable to believe that all middle-class people were gentlemen?
2/ Symmetrically, were all working-class people so obviously ungentle?

But this leads us to another question

Where did such obsession with binary classifications come from?

1) such rightfulness and such obsession with binary divisions had much to do with the
moralism of the time
Moralism: Importance of knowing what is right and wrong

Obsession with morality thus became arch-important for Victorians while, at the same time,
they did precious little for those who failed to enter the scheme and behave properly.
2) Such rightfulness and such obsession with binary divisions had also much to do with
the quick dechristianization of the time.
Since Eternal life/ damnation was no longeer a core belief for many, earthly life became
arch-important and therefore a rightful behaviour an absolute necessity for society as a
whole. People were either gentle or ungentle , without the possibility of standing in any
middle-ground position, exactly as they had -till then-been either saved or doomed.
Deschristinization thus paradoxically paved the way for a forceful implementation of earthy
justice along otherwise discarded religious rules.

“So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the
wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be
wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man
pluck them out

3) such obsession with binary divisions also reflected what was widely understood at
the time as the binary division of British society itself.

“Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who

are as ignorant of each other’s habits…

Sybil:Benjamin Disraeli : published in 1845

Conservative Prime Minister in 1868 and 1874-1880
4) Such rightfulness and such obsession with binary divisions was also a consequence
of what came to be referred to as ‘ social darwinism’
Charles Darwin: The origin of species ( 1859)
Is the theory that human groups and races are subject to the same laws of natural selection
as Charles Darwin had perceived in plants and animals in nature.
According to the theory, the weak were diminished and their cultures delimited while the
strong grew in power and in cultural influence over the weak
Social darwinists held that the life of humans in society was a struggle for existence rules by
“survival of the fittest” prop by the brit philosopher and scientist HIbert

Social darwinism
Thus wonderfully explained that sustaining the undeserving poor was not only useless, it
was utterly bad since it was less painful for them
Also powerfully explained why so many noblemen had become decadent people, unable to
match the rise of many from the middle-class.

Besides, Spencer promoted people’s actions against any sort of encroachments

For human beings to flourish and develop, Spencer held that there must be as few
artificial restrictions as possible, and it is primarily freedom that he, contra Bentham,
saw as promoting human happiness. While progress was something to be achieved
only through the free exercise of human faculties.

Charles Darwin himself fiercely fought against such infamous reframing of his work
“If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions,
great is our sin”.

Question: how did the middle-class of the time managed to assess with reasonable
accuracy these binary class

1) The Higher Class

Even Though some entrepreneurs and wealthy merchants had managed to enter this tiny
group, even at the time of the death of Victoria is was still almost equivalent to the higher
component of the landed inheritants

1’) The Upper Middle class

Such naming is misleading, since most of these ppl also belonged to the nobility and all of
them enjoyed a lavish lifestyle.
Therefore what was the pt in dividing the nbls into a higher class and an upper middle class

Overall the Higher class and the UpMC that is those with and income higher that £1,000
mightily enjoyed the prosperity of the time.
Even the Great Depression that was to strike the kingdom in the final decades of Victoria’s
reign barely affected them, since most of their income came from the rent their farmers paid
them and from either trade or industrial production

For all the rise of the entrepreneurs and the merchants, this higher segment of the british
people thus enjoyed a near-monopoly over the national economy thought the long reign.
With time this monopoly was of course to be somewhat challenged by the rise of such
merchants and entrepreneurs, but the Great Depression saw to that!

Saying that “the Royals and the most noble families were expected to run the country and
the empire” while “ the gentle commoners from the liddle-class believed it was their mission
to rule society” thus not only

Besides the quick reduction of the prerogatives and privileges of the crown which mrkd the
erly vic times, increased the power of Parliament and, even more so, of the government.

This ‘ one half of a percent of the people” also made the best of this to strengthen their
already strong power in politics.
Only the rise of the liberal party, in which they were not so prominent, came to somehow
limit their political might.

Their existence went alng almst completely unaltered and, on top of that, they benefitted
more than any other class from the material progress of the time.

They even failed to understand that the rest of society came into troubles, since they were
materially and morally satisfied. “ No one is better pleased than a contended man: he is
naturally at ease in a world that seems to have been made precisely for the likes of him.”

The rich man’s wealth is his strong city: the destruction of the poor is their poverty.
The ransom of a man’s life are his riches: but the poor heareth not rebuke.

For the work of a man shall he render unto him, and

The richest ppl within the middle