THE PROLETARIANISATION OF A SERVICE WORKER.

Recent controversy about embourgeoisement seems to have paid scant attention to the possibility that there are also influences within some occupations in the manual work sector liable to increase working class consciousness. To help in the study of such influences, the present article proposes the well-established concept of proletarianisation and applies it to the manual work occupation of cooking. For sociologist Karl Marx, the concept of proletarianisation expressed his that part at least of the "petit bourgeoisie" would sink into the working class. He was thinking particularly of groups on the fringe of the class of owners: tradespeople, small-holding peasants and the like. Proletarianisation was denoted both by structural influences and a growing realization of where class interest really lay, leading to the gradual emergence of working class consciousness. However, the present article wishes to use the concept to refer, not to any movement between the middle and the working class but rather to mark a trend within the working class stratum itself.