The embourgeoisement thesis states that participation in the second economy provides a person with the skills and experiences necessary for successful self-employment. The embourgeoisement thesis is not new because even before the Second World War there was visible assimilation between the manual and non-manual classes. The opposite of embourgeoisement would be class consciousness. Embourgeoisement thesis argues that contrary to the class conflict perspective theory of Karl Marx, increasing numbers of the working class will come to assume the life style and individualistic values of the middle class and will reject commitment to collective social and economic goals.
The rise of a new working class with consumer culture lifestyles was proof that everyone was going to become middle class and this idea was generally promoted as the embourgeoisement thesis. The examination of the behavior of a group of affluent workers is in itself one way of testing the embourgeoisement thesis. The degree of working-class affluence and embourgeoisement in embourgeoisement thesis has been exaggerated.
Studying Social Class: The Case of Embourgeoisement and the Culture of Poverty -
Garth Massey.
Abstract: The question of changing social class, and in particular of classes in close
proximity, has been explored since the early 1960s. This paper examines two perspectives, the cultural and the situational, in the context
of the culture of poverty thesis and
the embourgeoisement thesis. Both cases exemplify serious weaknesses in
social class research, weaknesses that are traced to the failure of each to deal
adequately with the relationship of culture to class structure.
Some Economic Aspects of
Embourgeoisement in Australia - R. Parsler.
Attempts to test hypotheses based on the embourgeoisement thesis, and its
variations, in a social system with a strong equalitarian ideology and compulsory
arbitration for all sections of the work force. It assesses the economic differences
between white collar and blue collar workers and also the difference between these groups
and a middle class group.
Embourgeoisement among
Blue-collar Workers?
Joan Talbert Dalia, Avery M. Guest.
Abstract: Longitudinal analysis indicates that
embourgeoisement among blue-collar workers has been slight and suggests that the
manual-nonmanual gap in class orientations is widening.
Affluence and the Embourgeoisement of the Working Class: A Critical Look - James W. Rinehart. Abstract: A review of the literature reveals substantial differences in earnings, market situations, life styles, working conditions, and politics of manual and non-manual workers. Advocates of the embourgeoisement thesis usually rely on economic variables to explain workers' political responses, but the literature indicates that social relationships and the nature of blue-collar work are more important determinants.
Optimism of the intellect, pessimism of the will.
By the mid-1960s, in what bourgeois sociologists and politicians proclaimed to be a
contradiction-free post-war capitalist world, the embourgeoisement theorists were winning
the argument. Adorno now insisted that 'society' was 'irresistably turning bourgeois'.
The refutation of the 'embourgeoisement thesis' in the 1960s:
J.Goldthorpe et al, The Affluent Worker in the Class Structure chapters 1 & 6 -
Proletarianization thesis only looks at the production side, while the embourgeoisement
thesis refers only to the distributional aspect.