"斯迈尔斯神话":19世纪英国社会对工业家起源的认识

"斯迈尔斯神话"是19世纪英国社会关于工业家起源的普遍认识,即认为在工业革命中涌现的工业家们大多是践行了"自助"原则的"自我塑造者"。这种认识的产生和流传既有一定的社会现实基础,也与工业家阶层有意识的"创造"和"宣扬"分不开。对工业家的起源所进行的计量史学研究发现,他们主要来自中等阶级,而不是劳工阶级,从而揭示了"神话"的可信性。作为一种社会认识,"斯迈尔斯神话"是中等阶级为工业财富寻求合法性辩护的意识形态工具,对19世纪英国社会其他阶层的观念和英国的现代化进程也产生了深刻影响。

Analysis of "the Smilesean Myth":On the British Social Idea of the Origins of Industrialists in the 19th Century and Its Influence

"The Smilesean Myth" was one of the British social ideas on the origins of industrialists in the 19th century,it considered the newly appeared industrialists as "self-made man" who had made fortune through the so-called "self help" process.The making of the myth was rooted in the social fact but also had close connection with the industrialists' class consciousness and its propaganda. The quantitative study on the original diversity among the social classes of industrialists in the British industrial revolution found that most of the industrialists had come from middle class or lower middle class families.As an element of the ideology of the British middle class,"the Smilesean Myth" provided some justification for the validity of industrialists' wealth as an ideological tool,and what's more,it exerted great influence on other social classes' idea and British modernization process in the 19th century.