English Language and
Culture for Business
Dr. Peter Cullen
Module II
The History of British Culture

What is Culture?
M. Arnold (1869): Culture from above – learning the canon to
improve society and avoid the anarchy of “popular culture”.
R. Williams (1960): Culture = lifestyle expressing certain
significance and value ascribe not only to art and “high culture”,
but also to institutions and everyday behaviour.
NOTE: definitions of culture are motivated by social
factors.
WHICH SOCIAL FACTORS ARE IMPORTANT IN ITALY?
WHICH SOCIAL FACTORS HAVE BEEN IMPORTANT IN
BRITAIN?

What is Culture?
Learning culture: Pierre Bourdieu and field,
habitus, doxa
Field: the arena of social interaction – verticle
and horizontal – constituted by the
relational differences of social agents.
Habitus: lasting aquired schemes of perception,
thought and action internally developed by
social agents in reaction to objective
conditions (i.e. of field).
Doxa: deep-founded, unthought beliefs that
inform an agent’s actions in the field. Universal
concepts. These propagate the structure of the
field.

Bourdieu and Culture
Habitus reconciles the objective (field) and the
subjective (doxa).
Objective realities are subjectively assimilated by the
individual social agent, creating a subjective agreement
about external social structures – field.
Key concept: Culture is learned behaviour.

Learned Behaviour in Britain –
1945 - 2007
Major themes:
the fall of Empire
Anglo-American relations
transition from industry to services
immigration
class
gender
race
tradition vs. innovation
generation
legitimacy

1945 – Bombed into Democracy
quote: J.B. Priestly
Massive war-time output had broken down class and
gender relationships: 6,000,000 enlisted, 250,000 killed
1940: Dunkirk evacuation
375,000 BEF.
1940 - “Battle of Britain”
1941: RAF vs Luftwaffe.
English cities
heavily bombed
children evacuated
countryside.
1941: Atlantic Charter – US entry only if Empire
dismantled.

1945 - Bombed into Democracy
1941: First “Keynesian budjet passed in Parliament =
commitment to full-employment to keep the
economy afloat
Beveridge Report – “cradle to grave” state
1942:
assurance of welfare, NHS = Labour
committed to post-war social
reconstruction.
Churchill’s Conservative party considered
1945:
patronising and out-dated (war heroism)
Conservatives negotiate an emergency loan
from the US government and hope that the US
will “view the world through British spectacles”.

War and Social Change
Shift towards social importance of the working class.
Labour (after Beveridge Rpt.) promotes Keynesian fiscal
intervention, direct control of manpower, state control over
means of production = NHS (1948), Nationalisation, power
to Unions.
Note: Rationing continued until 1954, as part of
reconstruction planning.
Hoggart, Williams, E.P. Thompson come
from this collectivist experience
= British intellectual socialism.

Post-War Cultural Studies in the
UK
Emphasis on culture of labour , not economy of labour
This is a break with pre-war concepts of class.
Thompson and Hall are working class.
This movement promotes adult education as opposed to
elitist university education.
Question: WHAT IS CLASS IN BRITISH SOCIETY?
Problem: education from below vs. education from
above.

Social Hierarchy: Class, Caste,
Order, Rank, ???
Caste – informed and structured by religion (i.e. India)
Order – informed and structured in monarchical/Imperial
societies (feudalism)
Rank – military hierarchy sometimes applied to social
order
Class – social hierarchy related to the “means of
production” (Marx et. Al.)

Working Class and Culture: 1950’s
War-time pop culture = cinema, dancing
Question: rural England vs Industrial England
shift in mass cultural consumption to
the major cities: London, Birmingham,
Manchester, Newcastle.
The working class recognises it’s own importance to the
country – cultural creation of the working-class anti-hero.
(i.e. Look Back in Anger and The Loneliness of the Long Distance
Runner) and the “angry young man” in the late 1950’s.
The aristocracy is forced into business investment to
preserve its wealth and standing – BBC, British Airlines

Working Class Youth
Britain in the 1950’s is grim (rationing, social split
between working class, middle class, upper class)
Factory work is grim – energy is supplied by coal
and emerging nuclear energy – sparking CND
protest
Economic growth in the late 1950’s undermined
the Labour party = dissaffecting labour with it’s
leadership
Youth needed a form of self expression: music

Youth Culture 1958 - 1968
British youth turn to Black music and Black
hybrid music like Elvis.
Teddy Boys = Rockabilly
Rockabilly is inspired by American country and
blues (Johnny Cash, Dwayne Eddy, Carl Perkins,
Little Richard) and interpreted in local working
class bands
i.e. Crazy Cavan and the
Rhythm Rockers

Youth Culture 1958 - 1968
Mass media – Radio and TV – could only approach socially
acceptable bands – like the Beatles and later the Rolling Stones.
The Beatles were inspired
by Chuck Berry and Roy
Orbison (rockabilly light)
Liverpool 1958
The Rolling Stones were
inspired by Chuck Berry
and Muddy Waters
(rock – blues)
London 1962

Mods and Rockers
Angry young men – baby boomer rebellion
split on style
Rockers: rural, manual labour, working class,
motorcycles (BSA and Triumph),
rockabilly, leather jackets
Mods: urban, pretensions of sophistication,
scooters, ska, R&B, early reggae.
The “Second Battle of Hastings” = 2 day Mods vs
Rockers gang fight in Brighton (they’d all gone on
holiday there!)

The British Invasion 1964 - 1967
British Bands, particularly the Beatles and the
Rolling Stones become massive successes in the
US
1° the Beatles on Feb 7, 1964. They went on the Ed
Sullivan show with the song “I Want to Hold Your Hand”
Followed by Manfred Mann (Do Wah Diddy Diddy), The
Animals (House of the Rising Sun), The Troggs (Wild
Thing), and Donovan (Sunshine Superman)
This gained British performers access to massive
American markets – and becoming rock n’ roll

Conservative Success
Growth in the 1950’s was presided over by the
Tory government. Labour was lost.
BUT
Growth in the UK was much slower than in
France, FDR, US, and Japan
The Suez Crisis (1957 UK, French and Israeli attempt to
block Suez nationalisation by Egypt) left bitter taste for UK
foreign relations
Popular culture became decidedly “anti-
establishment” in the 1960’s

Education in Britain – 1960’s and
1970’s
Schools indicate class
Accent indicates class
Geography indicates class
Popular culture after ’64-’67
became anti-class

Education in Britain – 1960’s and
1970’s
University indicated class
The fall of Empire meant an
influx of immigrants from the
Commonwealth (India, Pakistan, Africa)
How to incorporate them in the British National
State?
How to deal with aspiring working classes?

Richard Hoggart and the Red-
Bricks
Born in Leeds 1918
At Leicester (1959 – 1962) *1957
Birmingham (1962 – 1973) *1900
London (Goldsmiths 1975 -1983) *1836 *1990
Oxbridge (Ox. and Cam.) should not be the
universal custodians of British culture
Concerned that “popular culture” would become
de-valued by “mass culture” imported from the
US. Including mass media

Immigration and Enoch Powell
Enoch Powell conservative Minister of Health 1968 Tory gv
Late ’60s sees significant black immigration from former
colonies and fears race problems as in the US
Powell gives speeches against Labour’s
introduction of the 1968 Race Relations Act
citing Virgil that “the Tiber would run red
with Blood” if immigration was unchecked
Much of his protest was aimed at equality
in housing applications
Racism?

Raymond Williams
Born in Wales – 1921
Went to Cambridge with Eric Hobsbawm and became a communist
– graduating in 1946
Was a tutor in Adult Education at Oxford
Returned to Cambridge in 1961 and was Professor from 1974 –
1983
In Culture and Society (1958) he argues that the notion of
“culture” developed in response to the industrial revolution
“culture is ordinary”
In The Long Revolution (1961) he argues that culture is both
traditional and creative at the same time – zeitgeist
Maintains that Mass Media allows greater possibility for cultural
learning, criticising detractors as “too selective”. Cultural learning
can create consensus

E.P. Thompson
Born in Oxford in 1924
Educated at Cambridge where he founded the Communist Party
Historians Group with Hobsbawm and Hill in 1946 – founding Past
and Present in 1952
Taught at Leeds
Wrote The Making of the English Working Class (1963) as a social
history of the development of working class culture and identity
from the 1700’s on.
He concludes that class is not a “thing” or a “category”, but rather
a process in which real people live in real contexts
He wants to tell the history of the “forgotten heroes” of English
industrial development – “everyday people”
He holds, however, that culture creates conflict

The New Left
Hoggart, Williams, Thompson, Hobsbawm, Hill, Perry Anderson,
and Eric Wolfe form the “New Left” – British post-Marxist
members of the Communist Party
Founded the New Reasoner (1957) to discuss leftist ideas that
did not agree with Soviet social practices – they are the dissident
left protesting the Soviet invasion of Hungary and Stalinism
The New Reasoner becomes The New Left Review in 1960,
under the editorship of Perry Anderson – Thompson leaves the
group and allies himself with Williams in the late 1960’s
= break between the “First New Left” (Thompson and Williams)
and the later New Left of Anderson (focused on the aristocratic
trajectory of English cultural development)
Influenced undergraduates to criticise and contrast the
intellectual authority of traditional education – including
institutions

1968 – 1980 Cultural Revolution?
1967 – Britain’s application to join the EEC is vetoed by Fr. Pres.
De Gaulle because the Sterling “served as a reserve currency, and
British consumption of cheap European products made it
incompatible with EEC membership
Harold Wilson’s Labour government faced: retreat in Rhodesia,
massive trade deficit, and dockworker strikes in Liverpool and
London = economic confidence failed and the Sterling was de-
valued
Poor Labour Gov.t must now negotiate with the Trade Unions the
party was originally designed to support
1970’s = stagflation. Transition period in technology and business
process. Dockland strikes (Miners strikes (1973), nationalism in
Ireland and Scotland,
1980’s Thatcher and Reagan solidify “free market” economics and
undermine Labour politics – the working class becomes
conservative

1980 - 2007
Various agents in society now apply Hoggart and William’s
concept of “culture”: i.e. Business culture, Sports culture, Student
Culture
Cultural Studies provided the basis for anglophone understanding
of foreign culture, global culture, and world systems (although
this was driven more by the French and Americans and received
badly by the British left academics)
Mass Media provides instruments that make cultural
understanding central to successful business
Old “class boundaries” are de-politicised as the economy shifts
away from protectionsim. “Left” and “Right” (Tory and Labour)
definitions become muddied.
“Thatcherism” re-aligns British society in the 1980’s. Greater
social risk and greater economic gain. Fully assimilated in the
1990’s current decade

Structuralism and Post-
structuralism
Structuralism = analytical interest in the structures of
society – well adapted to socialism and communism
Post – structuralism = analytical interest in behaviour and
psychology of social agents – more flexible application –
growing out of sociological trend toward “functionalism”
Talcot Parsons)
Foucault, Derrida – deconstructionism = the breaking up of
a text into its culturally informed constituent parts,
therefore leaving each part and its contribution open to
interpretation: emphasis on dichotomies and discourse
Tends to be anti-empirical and vague.

Margaret Thatcher – “The Iron Lady”
Conservative Party leader since 11 Feb 1975.
19 January 1976, she made a scathing attack on the Soviet Union,
stating:
The Russians are bent on world dominance, and they are rapidly acquiring the
acquiring
means to become the most powerful imperial nation the world has seen. The men in
the Soviet Politburo do not have to worry about the ebb and flow of public opinion.
They put guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns.
Became PM in May 1979 after “the winter of
discontent” – labour unrest and shortages.
“Thatcherism” – reduce the role of the
state in the economy = increase interest
rates to slow money supply (curb inflation)
use indirect tax (VAT) – hurting business
and industry and pushing up unemployment
BUT centralise power in the hands of the
national government – and personally to
Mrs. Thatcher

Thatcherism and the 1980’s
Thatcher’s monetarism and foreign policy usually fit well
with US Pres. Ronald Reagan’s ideas of the free market
world.
Except Falkland’s war (1982) which saw Britain enforce their
sovereignty in the Falkland Islands (claimed by Argentina)
NUM (National Union of Mineworkers)
launched strikes in 1983 after Thatcher’s
re-election – they were badly managed
and over the year broke into splinter groups
The Tory govt. closed all but 15 of the coal
mines in the UK (which were sold in 1994)
1987-89 fought against inclusion in the
EEU on principle of “small govt.”
Supported Gorbachev’s reforms in USSR and convinced
Ronald Reagan that he was “someone we can do
business with”.

The Business of Thatcherism
Anti-corporatist/statist mood in the 1980’s = do
away with “monolithic bureaucracy”
Nigel Lawson – Chancellor of the Exchequer introduces
significant cuts in public spending and taxes to create
incentives for investment
The social gap widens: 1985 – richest 6% of pop.
Holds 25% of GDP
poorest 20% holds
+-5% of GDP
Global incentives to “multinationalise” helped the economy
grow up to 1987 (labour and production are moved over-
seas in many cases) with annual growth at +-4% and
falling inflation

The Business of Thatchersim
North Sea oil bolsters the balance of payments
Unemployment is high, but is not a political issue
Nigel Lawson’s 1987 budget, however, ignores long term stress on
the balance of payments
taxes hit sales and corporate returns – not the
individual = great incentive for private gain
Thatcher’s government cuts the power of Local Government
(Local Government Act 1985) thereby removing socialist
oppostition at the city level
Media and arts institutions were stocked with party friends and
sympathisers (Rupert Murdoch in the press)
University funding was seriously cut and universities were placed
on short-term profit basis for review
Watchword = wealth generation

1987
October 1987 = massive stock market crash, killing 24% of
stock value in 1 day.
BUT Nigel Lawson’s March 1988 budget allowed only two
tax brackets 40% for the rich and 25% for all other income
brackets = private bleed on business revenue and no state
support. Consumerism and consumer credit WAY UP.
1987 – 1989 = unemployment up AND inflation up to 8.9%
Thatcherite monetarism had problems.

New Labour
1989 – Labour distanced from the trade unions and
nationalisation.
They applied a policy of “new realism”: favoured the
consumer, curbed union power, promised law and order
- by 1988 +20% of adults owned shares
- by 1990 +66% of residents owned their home
Labour adapted to represent the property owner
John Major Tory PM 1990-97
Tony Blair Labour PM 1997-2007

The 1990’s - 1997
Tory commitment to American alliance vs. Iraq
(Major has been on the Carlyle groups European Advisory Board since
1998 – after his terms in office)
Treatment of domestic issues =
- 1993 “Back to Basics”, affermation of law, order,
education – interpreted as “family values” and
defaced in the wake of Tory minister scandals
- Britain exits the Exchange Rate Mechanism and loses
more than a billion £ trying to prop up the £n (caused by
currency speculators unfavourable to the £/$ rate)
- Beginning of talks with Gerry Adams and the IRA
disarmament

1997 - 2007
Tories still infighting about EU and leadership
Blair moves Labour to pro-market policies and is “Tough on
Crime”
Wins the May 1997 election by a landslide
Increased public spending in health and
education, but enacted market-oriented
reforms in management of them
Supported devolution in Scotland and Wales
Helped create peace talks in Ireland
Staunch supporter of Bush’s post 9/11
“War on Terror”
TOOK LABOUR TO THE CENTRE

Mr. Brown
1997 - 2007: Chancellor of the Exchequer
July 24, 2007 – became Labour Party leader
July 27, 2007 – became PM of GB and NI
As chancellor:
granted independence to the Bank of
England in monetary policy (interest rates)
33% to 28% Tax cut for large business
24% to 19% cut for small-medium business
expanded govt. spending
overall growth in UK – 2.7%
(in Europe growth = 2.1%)
Unemployment fell from 7% to 5.5%
In Europe it is 8.1%)

Mr. Brown
Growth Brown states that his Chancellorship had seen the longest
period of sustained economic growth in the history of the United
Kingdom
Anti-Poverty The Centre for Policy Studies found that the poorest
fifth of households, which accounted for 6.8% of all taxes in 1996-
7, accounted for 6.9% of all taxes paid in 2004-5. Meanwhile, their
share of state benefit payouts dropped from 28.1% to 27.1% over
the same period
Tax According to the OECD UK taxation has increased from a
39.3% share of gross domestic product in 1997 to 42.4% in 2006,
going to a higher level than Germany.[48] This increase has
mainly been attributed to active government policy, and not simply
to the growing economy.
Pensions The Conservatives have accused Brown of imposing
\"stealth taxes\". A commonly reported example resulted in 1997
from a technical change in the way corporation tax is collected, the
indirect effect of which was for the dividends on stock investments
held within pensions to be taxed, thus lowering pension returns
and contributing to the demise of some pension funds. The
Treasury contend that this tax change was crucial to long-term
economic growth.

Mr. Brown
Higher education In 2000, Brown started a political row
about higher education (referred to as the Laura Spence
Affair) when he accused the University of Oxford of elitism
in its admissions procedures, describing its decision not to
offer a place to state school pupil Laura Spence as
\"absolutely outrageous\". Lord Jenkins, then Oxford
Chancellor, said \"nearly every fact he used was false.\"
Anti-racism and popular culture During a diplomatic
visit to India in January 2007, Brown responded to
questions concerning perceived racism and bullying against
Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty on the British reality TV
show Celebrity Big Brother saying, \"There is a lot of support
for Shilpa. It is pretty clear we are getting the message
across. Britain is a nation of tolerance and fairness.\" He
later said the debate showed Britain wanted to be \"defined
by being a tolerant, fair and decent country.\"

Britain in Iraq – 2007
Gordon Brown:
\"We will not allow people to separate us from the United
States of America in dealing with the common challenges
that we face around the world. I think people have got to
remember that the relationship between Britain and
America and between a British prime minister and an
American president is built on the things that we share, the
same enduring values about the importance of liberty,
opportunity, the dignity of the individual. I will continue to
work, as Tony Blair did, very closely with the American
administration.\"