Whatever happened to the affluent worker? Deindustrialisation, the British sociology of class and class composition in Luton, UK

This article challenges longstanding trends in the British sociology of class by drawing on insights drawn from class composition analysis and applying them to Luton, UK, the site of the original affluent worker study. Class composition has received little attention from sociologists, though neo-Weberian and cultural approaches struggle to grapple with the relationship between deindustrialisation, social reproduction, migration and class. This is because both approaches are (1) methodologically nationalist; (2) concerned primarily with subjective identification with a class, and (3) ahistorical in their theory building. Class composition offers a means of mediating between the objective and subjective dimensions of class. This demonstrates how class has changed in response to the demands for continued surplus-value creation through waged and unwaged work. Finally, the article will take a historical view of Luton’s class composition as a way to demonstrate how the approach can offer an alternative to the sociology of class.