The Location of the Proletarian and Deferential Worker

Abstract

three types : deferential, proletarian and privatized. He defines each type in terms of a distinctive occupational culture, community situation, reference group and life style. The deferential worker is employed in small scale or service industry, interacts with the boss on a face-to-face basis, and accepts as legitimate the distinctions of both the occupational and local status hierarchy . Socially he is relatively isolated from other workers, and tends to political conservatism. The proletarian worker is employed in traditional heavy industries and interacts with large numbers of other workers through formal and informal groups. Social distance between worker and employer is great, and the sense of 'us' and 'them' engenders a perception of worker employer relationships as one of power and conflict. The trade union is an expression of solidarity, and not merely an instrument to achieve individual economic goals. Local communities with solidary traditions and limited cultural horizons reinforce the tendency for the reference groups to be working class. The privatized worker lacks occupational and community ties of the solid working class kind. Both job and trade unions are viewed instrumentally3 rather than as sources of solidary relationships. The community is generally a lower-median income private or council estate in which traditional kinship systems and reference groups are missing. People are evaluated by what they possess and the privatized worker has what Lockwood calls a 'pecuniary image of society'. The three categories above are ideal types, and not many areas conform in community and occupational structure to only one type. To test Lockwood's typology, and to produce a range of urban sociological comparisons, we thought it necessary to isolate towns in which the social characteristics appropriate to deferential, proletarian and privatized workers apply in a relatively unmixed form.