Abstract
SUMMARY This paper examines a town in northwest England and a particular set of conditions that inhibited the growth of working-class politics during the twentieth century. The paradox of class politics in Lancaster is that despite a proletarian population, the labour movement locally remained extremely weak. Ironically, it was only upon the deindustrialisation of the town in the later 1960s that labour showed any collective strength. Explanation of quiescence in terms of paternalism and deference is rejected. Rather an account is given in terms of powerlessness. Local structural conditions rendered Lancaster workers so highly dependent that resistance to political domination was precluded.