Working-class culture

Working class culture is a range of cultures created by or popular among working class people. The cultures can be contrasted with high culture and folk culture and are sometimes equated with popular culture and low culture (the counterpart of high culture).

Existence

Working class culture is extremely geographically diverse, leading some to question whether the cultures have anything in common. Many socialists with a class struggle viewpoint see its importance as arising from the proletariat they champion. Some states which claim to be Communist have declared an official working class culture, most notable socialist realism, which aims to glorify the worker. It should be noted that glorification of the worker in abstract is seldom a feature of independent working class cultures. Others socialists such as Lenin believed that there could be no authentic proletarian culture free from capitalism, nor that high culture should not be outside the experience of workers.

Development

Working class cultures developed alongside the working class itself, during the Industrial Revolution. As most of the new proletariat were former peasants, so the cultures took on much of the localised folk culture. This was soon altered by the changed conditions of social relationships and the increased mobility of the workforce, and later by the marketing of mass-produced cultural artefacts such as prints and ornaments and events such as music hall and later cinema.