More than self‐interest: Why different classes have different attitudes to income inequality

Abstract

The connection between social class and political preferences is among the most well established in the social sciences. This association is typically taken as prima facie evidence of economic self‐interest: Classes hold different attitudes, values, and party preferences because they have different economic interests. However, this assumption has rarely been tested empirically. In this article, we use survey data from 18 West European countries to examine why classes differ on a central aspect of political preferences, namely their views on the desirability of income inequality. We find that only a moderate proportion of differences between employee classes in support for redistribution can be accounted for by contemporary differences in resources and risks; differences in economic interests to some degree account for the anti‐redistributive preferences of the professional middle classes compared with the working class. However, the preferences of the self‐employed have a different explanation; autonomy is a better explanation of the right‐wing preferences of the self‐employed compared with the working class.

Dynamics of contention in the gig economy: Rage against the platform, customer or state?

“…In the UK between 40% (Charlwood, 2002) and 46% (Freeman and Bryson, 2006) of non-union workers would join a union if their colleagues formed one at their workplace. 4 That support for unions among the surveyed platform workers here was similar to that found among standard workers in several high-income countries is perhaps surprising given the individualist attitudes that autonomous, self-employed workers have typically been found to hold (Evans, 1993;Jansen, 2011;Langsaether and Evans, 2020;Knutsen, 2018;Svallfors, 2006;Van de Werfhorst and de Graaf, 2014).…”

Elite Cues and Economic Policy Attitudes: The Mediating Role of Economic Hardship

“…Our friendly amendment to public opinion scholars' workhorse model both builds on and speaks to extensive cross-sectional evidence that economic attitudes vary with economic circumstances, whether captured by class, education or income (Cavaille & Trump, 2015;Chan & Goldthorpe, 2007;Langsaether & Evans, 2020). While this relationship is well documented, its interpretation is far from consensual.…”

“… Zaller's model, developed in the 1990s, does not mention material circumstances, overlooking the robust cross-sectional relationship between economic position and attitudes (seeLangsaether and Evans (2020) for review). This relationship makes material self-interest an obvious candidate as a mediating mechanism.…”

Clase, política y percepción del conflicto de clases en Chile

“…Otros estudios han llegado a conclusiones similares a las de Wright. Estos han demostrado que la posición de la clase de los individuos es, al denotar su lugar en las relaciones de producción, un determinante relevante de la identidad de clase, de sus intereses de clase (por ejemplo, sus preferencias redistributivas) y de sus percepciones de conflicto clases (Dodson, 2017;Edlund y Lindh, 2015;Elbert y Pérez, 2018;Langsaether y Evans, 2020;Robison y Stubager, 2018). Por ejemplo, Dodson (2017) ha demostrado que quienes pertenecen a la clase trabajadora tienen más probabilidades de apoyar políticas redistributivas vía impuestos que quienes pertenecen a la clase de profesionales y ejecutivos, mientras que en su estudio de una veintena de países desarrollados Edlund y Lindh (2015) concluyen que las personas de clase trabajadora perciben más conflicto de clases que las personas de clase privilegiada.…”