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Genealogy of Cultural Studies 83

According to Thompson, with industrialization, the price system “pene-
trated” (Innis’ word) the culture of the artisans, but they resisted, even if only
for a time. “Customary traditions of craftsmanship,” Thompson advised,
“normally went together with vestigial notions of a ‘fair’ price and a ‘just’
wage.” He continued, “Social and moral criteria—subsistence, self-respect,
pride in certain standards of workmanship, customary rewards for different
grades of skill—these are as prominent in early trade union disputes as
strictly ‘economic’ arguments.” 133
One of the first working class organizations, illustrating the interdepend-
ence of the cultural and the political-economic spheres, was the London Cor-
responding Society, established in 1792 to agitate for universal suffrage but
which, within the decade, was dispersed for being subversive by His
Majesty’s forces. Thompson described how, at the inaugural meeting in the
Bell Tavern on Exeter Street, nine “sober and industrious men” first shared
bread, cheese, and porter, and after supper partook of their pipes, before de-
liberating on the subject at hand, namely Parliamentary reform. The L.C.S.
during its brief existence, Thompson remarked, typified the working class
organization:

There is the working man as Secretary. There is the low weekly subscription.
There is the intermingling of economic and political themes. . . . There is the
function of the meeting, both as a social occasion and as a centre for political
activity. There is the realistic attention to procedural formalities. Above all, there
is the determination to propagate opinions and to organize the converted, em-
bodied in the leading rule: “That the number of our members be unlimited.” 134
Thompson placed great importance on that rule. The Society, he wrote,
turned its back on property rights, ending any notion that politics was the
preserve of an elite. “To throw open the doors to propaganda and agitation
in this ‘unlimited’ way,” he declared, “implied a new notion of democracy,
which cast aside ancient inhibitions and trusted to self-activating and self-
organizing processes among the common people.” He added sardonically,
“Such a revolutionary challenge was bound to lead on to the charge of high
treason.” 135
At the core of the emerging working class culture of the 1790s was a belief in
the “Englishman’s birthright . . . the conviction that the rule of law was the dis-
tinguishing inheritance of the ‘free-born Englishman.’” 136 The common Eng-
lishman at this time, Thompson summarized, actually had few affirmative rights,
but did feel legally protected against arbitrary power, and claimed a constitu-
tional right to riot to resist oppression. 137 The common person’s “defensive ide-
ology” soon nourished greater claims for “positive rights.” 138