Conclusion

Abstract

Two main themes have threaded their way through the preceding discussions. One is the progressive transformation of the labour process, and in particular the series of changes in access to the means of production encountered first by the croppers and shearmen, then by the spinners and finally by the weavers, as each stage of production was mechanised and brought within the ambit of the factory system. Clearly, these changes entailed a transformation of economic class relations, but they were also registered through their changing political and cultural conditions of existence. The other theme, in consequence, is the progressive transformation of the political and cultural process, and in particular the conjoint series of changes in the constitution of the state and in the content of popular political practice.

Today all our actions are performed by our grandfathers; we take no responsibility, like the owners of umbrella-stands in hotels. So, you see, nobody believes really in people any more. People, well, they are a nineteenth-century concept. Now man is a focus of forces.

MALCOLM BRADBURY: Stepping Westward