The physical exhibition closed on 31 August 2021. The online exhibition includes images of all exhibits with captions. However, this book is more than just an essay on class identity. Those familiar with Desolation Radio podcast will know Evans as a firm critic of the established Left (i.e., the Labour Party) in Wales and the UK. In A Nation of Shopkeepers , he argues convincingly that Labour has given up on serious class analysis. The party has become one of professional-managerial types, flogging the same old neoliberal capitalism dressed up in flimsy cultural progressivism. Its attempts at class discourse have been reduced to embarrassing faux-proletarian dress-up, typified by ex-Pontypridd MP (and pharma lobbyist) Owen Smith’s claim to be unfamiliar with the concept of a cappuccino . Smith is also quoted as saying that Britain was "a nation that is governed by shopkeepers", which is how he put it in the first (1776) edition. It is unlikely that either Adam Smith or Napoleon used the phrase to describe that class of small retailers who would not even have had the franchise. to embrace and accept downward social mobility, to realise one can have an identity and meaning without a “career”, and that there is nothing wrong with staying rooted and not leaving your small town. The “Network” model of Industrial Unionism was developed during the IWW’s foray into organising Deliveroo and JustEat riders in 2017-2018, through the IWW Couriers Network. These gig-economy workers were technically “self-employed” and thus had no trade union rights and competed against one another for work. The Network was a way to bring these atomised workers together into an Industrial Union to develop common demands that would make work-life better for them all. It had lots of local successes in various cities (particularly Cardiff and Glasgow) and culminated in the large #FFS410 strike in October 2018. Though the project unfortunately derailed, for reasons that can be found in this piece by FW Pete Davies, it is a model that could be adapted and practiced in different circumstances.The North America-based IWW Freelance Journalists Union is a similar project aiming to unite isolated workers, and there are conversations in UK and Ireland to form an organisation by and for freelance artists.

Your meddling in continental affairs, and trying to make yourselves a great military power, instead of attending to the sea and commerce, will yet be your ruin as a nation. You were greatly offended with me for having called you a nation of shopkeepers. Had I meant by this, that you were a nation of cowards, you would have had reason to be displeased; even though it were ridiculous and contrary to historical facts; but no such thing was ever intended. I meant that you were a nation of merchants, and that all your great riches, and your grand resources arose from commerce, which is true. What else constitutes the riches of England. It is not extent of territory, or a numerous population. It is not mines of gold, silver, or diamonds. Moreover, no man of sense ought to be ashamed of being called a shopkeeper. But your prince and your ministers appear to wish to change altogether l'esprit of the English, and to render you another nation; to make you ashamed of your shops and your trade, which have made you what you are, and to sigh after nobility, titles and crosses; in fact to assimilate you with the French... You are all nobility now, instead of the plain old Englishmen.This exhibition (curated by Senia Paseta) drew extensively on material from the John Johnson and John Fraser collections. The Season for Love: A collection of choice valentines from the John Johnson Collection, February 2010 Fernand Braudel, 1982. The Perspective of the World vol III of Civilization & Capitalism, 15th–18th Century A Nation of Shopkeepers sheds a light on this mysterious class, exploring the class structure of contemporary Britain and the growth of the petty bourgeoisie following Thatcherism. It shows how the rise of home ownership, small landlordism and radical changes to the world of work have increasingly inculcated values of petty bourgeois individualism; how popular culture has promoted and reproduced values of aspiration and conspicuous consumption that militate against socialist organizing; and, most importantly, what the unstoppable rise of the petit-bourgeoisie means for the left.’ Book Review: Dan Evans “A Nation of Shopkeepers: The unstoppable rise of the petty bourgeoisie” (2023) 8 th February 2023 This analysis is much more helpful than a purely cultural or a rigidly economic one, as it allows us to get to grips with divisions in the workplace and society and the comlex relationships of power involved. It helps us understand the ‘intermediary classes’ between proletariat and capitalist, with whom this book is primarily concerned. Evans thinks of the middle class or the petit bourgeoisie as a “DNA double helix” with two distinct fractions; the Traditional Petit Bourgeoisie and the New Petit Bourgeoisie, which have arisen due to profound changes to the economy over the last fifty years but have not yet been adequately examined by the Left. What is the ‘Traditional Petit Bourgeoisie’?

The supposed French original as uttered by Napoleon ( une nation de boutiquiers) is frequently cited, but it has no attestation. O'Meara routinely conversed with Napoleon in Italian, not French. [5] There is no other source. This complimentary term, for so we must consider it, as applied to a Nation which has derived its principal prosperity from its commercial greatness, has been erroneously attributed, from time to time, to all the leading Revolutionists of France. To our astonishment we now find it applied exclusively to BONAPARTE. Than this nothing can be further from the fact. NAPOLEON was scarcely known at the time, he being merely an Officer of inferior rank, totally unconnected with politics. The occasion on which that splenetic, but at the same time, complimentary observation was made was that of the ever-memorable battle of the 1st of June. The oration delivered on that occasion was by M. BARRERE [sic], in which, after describing our beautiful country as one "on which the sun scarce designs to shed its light", he described England as a nation of shopkeepers. Historical context [ edit ]The petty bourgeoisie - the insecure class between the working class and the bourgeoisie - is hugely significant within global politics. Yet it remains something of a mystery. Evans himself mentions (though he disagrees with it) that a majority of people in Britain identify themselves as working class. This surely gives us hope as organisers, as well as a potentially fertile terrain to organise. Ultimately for the workplace organiser the fluffy distractions of party politics and the latest fad issues of the day do not matter. A vivid and passionate account of the renewal of class divisions in British society and the visceral forms they take. Anyone who doubts the relevance of contemporary class divides is encouraged to read this book.” There is reason to doubt that Napoleon ever used it. No contemporaneous French newspaper mentions that he did. The phrase was first used in an offensive sense by the French revolutionary Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac on 11 June 1794 in a speech to the National Convention: "Let Pitt then boast of his victory to his nation of shopkeepers". [1] Later, during the Napoleonic wars, the British press mentioned the phrase, attributing it either to "the French" or to Napoleon himself. [2]