This essay challenges the interpretation of Chartism,which has been dominant since the late nineteenth century and dates back to the writings of Carlyle and Engels in the 1840s.According to this “social” interpretation, the use of class terminology by the Chartists was an expression of a class consciousness newly acquired by a working class movement in response to the “industrial revolution”. Here it is argued instead, that the Chartist articulation of grievances and demands, including the use of class terminology, belonged wholly to a language of radicalism.This language dated back to the middle of the eighteenth century and was targeted, not against employers,but the state.Its basic assumption was that the misery of the industrious part of the nation was due to the monopoly of power and political representation possessed by the owners of private property. Other forms of radical discourse in the period – trade unionism, cooperation, Owenism, so-called “Ricardian socialism” – are examined,but are also shown to be no closer to class-consciousness of a Marxian kind than radicalism. What was new about Chartism was,firstly, that after 1832 the “people” became de facto “the working classes”, the only group now excluded from the franchise.Secondly,the state was no longer seen to oppress the people by unequal taxes and special privileges, but primarily by employing the legislature to increase competition among workers and thus lower wages.Around the end of the 1830s, however, the state abandoned simple repression. By lowering indirect taxes, regulating hours in mines and factories, abolishing the Corn Laws and promoting education and urban health,it demonstrated that beneficial reform was possible within an unreformed legislature. Therefore, reform of the state brought about the disintegration of Chartism even before the growth of prosperity in the mid-Victorian period.