The Undeserving Rich: “Moral Values” and the White Working Class<sup>1</sup>

Prasad, Monica; Perrin, Andrew J.; Bezila, Kieran; Hoffman, Steve; Kindleberger, Kate; Manturuk, Kim; Powers, Ashleigh Smith; Payton, Andrew R.

doi:10.1111/j.1573-7861.2009.01098.x

Cited by 34 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…I recruited respondents from 2013 to 2015 by employing a variety of techniques-including canvassing, referrals, recruiting through local gatekeepers, THE MORAL ECONOMY OF NEOLIBERALISM 249 and online recruitment (e.g., Lamont 1992Lamont , 2000Prasad et al 2009;Sachweh 2012;Swidler 2001). Recruitment was difficult to some degree because I used a number of sampling parameters.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Moral Economy of Neoliberalism: How Voters Use Neoliberal Ideology to (De)Legitimate Undocumented Worker Access to Labor Markets

Vila‐Henninger

2018

Sociological Inquiry

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Neoliberalism is prevalent in American life. While researchers have documented the use of neoliberal ideology in institutional and macrolevel policy contexts, they have yet to investigate how voters use neoliberal ideology to legitimate their position on economic policy. I use data from semi‐structured interviews with 85 Tucsonans about why they voted the way they did on Proposition 202 (2008): “Arizona Stop Illegal Hiring”—which sought to reregulate undocumented worker labor market access—to address this gap. I found evidence of two distinct neoliberal ideological legitimations: “fair market competition” and “individual responsibility.” Furthermore, I use these data to shed light on the debate over whether neoliberalism spans partisan affiliation or converges with American conservatism. I found that voters across party lines who supported the measure paired neoliberal legitimations with conservative legitimations. We can interpret this bipartisan use of neoliberal ideology as evidence of a neoliberal “moral economy”—or consensus about the moral principles in which market action is embedded. Evidence of this moral economy indicates that moral principles from neoliberal ideology are simultaneously bipartisan and converge with American conservatism. These findings suggest that there could be a broader moral consensus among voters concerning the legitimacy of anti‐immigration economic policies.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Moral Economy of Neoliberalism: How Voters Use Neoliberal Ideology to (De)Legitimate Undocumented Worker Access to Labor Markets

Vila‐Henninger

2018

Sociological Inquiry

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“…Finally, this research could prompt analysts of how moral values or other individual characteristics affect voting behavior to look more closely for evidence that a values divide is rooted in debates over postmodern family patterns and related change in gender relations (see, e.g., Messner 2007). For example, Prasad et al. (2009) analyze in‐depth interviews to argue that members of the white working class who voted Republican in 2004 were especially influenced by perceptions of Kerry's and Bush's attitudes toward their own wealth, which served “as a heuristic about whether the candidate will govern with working‐class voters” interests in mind' (p. 227).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

All in the Family: Red States, Blue States, and Postmodern Family Patterns, 2000 and 2004

Monson

Mertens

2011

The Sociological Quarterly

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In this article, we propose a new way of understanding presidential election outcomes in red and blue states in 2000 and 2004, one that takes into account state-level variation in postmodern family patterns. Using data from the Statistical Abstract, Census, the American Community Survey, and National Vital Statistics Reports, we construct two measures of state patterns of postmodern family formation (a father-absent family scale, and a small/delayed family scale). We find that these patterns of postmodern family formation are powerful predictors of states' percentage of votes cast for the Democratic candidate in 2000 and 2004, even after controlling for differences in the composition of states' populations and for differences in states' economic characteristics (rates of economic growth, unemployment, and poverty). We suggest ways that this approach could contribute to the literature on how individual-level factors, such as demographic characteristics and moral values, shape voting behavior and electoral outcomes.

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“…In Lamont's study of working‐class White and Black men in the United States and France, she finds that the working class has particular boundaries that they erect in order to define themselves as morally upright individuals compared with the wealthy. Prasad et al () find that White working‐class voters erect boundaries against who they perceive as the undeserving rich. These boundaries shape people's worldviews and voting behavior.…”

Section: Ethnicity and Class: Black Community Transformedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a Minority Culture of Mobility: Immigrant Integration into the African‐American Middle Class

Clergé

2014

Sociology Compass

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Two important social transformations have occurred since the 1960s: the rise of the Black middle class and the inf lux of immigrants from Latin, America, Asia and Africa. The cultural and economic outcomes for first-and second-generation Black immigrants are often linked to the Black poor/underclass. However, we understand little about the ways in which the Black middle class is a potential pathway of integration for immigrants. This paper reviews the sociological debates on the socioeconomic incorporation of immigrants and the racial and ethnic relations of new and old African-Americans. It discusses the important contributions of minority culture of mobility hypothesis for class-based theories of immigrant integration. We draw from the literature on social stratification, race relations and immigrant incorporation in order to chime in on the conversation about how becoming socially mobile in America may mean having similar social experience as the African-American or minority middle class. The paper also suggests ways to better analyze the relationship between identity, integration, space and generation in minority incorporation.Two important social transformations have occurred since the 1960s: the rise of the Black middle class and the inf lux of immigrants from Latin, America, Asia and Africa. According to the Migration Policy Institute (2012), the immigration population totaled approximately 40.8 million, accounting for 13 percent of the overall US population. Between 2000 and 2010, the foreign-born population increased by 31.2 percent, more than three times faster than the US-born population. Second-generation immigrants, too, have dramatically increased. Among children under 18 years, 24.8 percent have at least one parent of immigrant origin compared with 13.4 percent in 1990. The majority of the immigrant population originates from Latin America and the Caribbean (54.2 percent) and Asia (29.2 percent). In light of these population shifts, there are two theoretical and empirical issues at hand in sociological literature. Despite the recent advancements in our knowledge of the socioeconomic and political lives of the African-American middle class, we understand little about (i) how the Black middle class serves as a model of integration for immigrants of color and (ii) the contemporary ethnic heterogeneity that exists among the Black middle class.This increasing ethnoracial diversity within populations, as well as the emergence of a minority middle class, calls for a reconfiguration of the ways in which we imagine the complexities of social mobility and incorporation for people of color. This paper's goal is to revisit Neckerman, Carter and Lee's theory of the minority culture of mobility (MCM) by merging the literature on the African-American middle class and immigrant integration. This paper will synthesize and bring up to date what we know about how middle-class minorities experience their economic inclusion yet racial exclusion and how the African-American middle class is a key group for understanding ...

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The Undeserving Rich: “Moral Values” and the White Working Class¹

Cited by 34 publications

References 33 publications

The Moral Economy of Neoliberalism: How Voters Use Neoliberal Ideology to (De)Legitimate Undocumented Worker Access to Labor Markets

The Moral Economy of Neoliberalism: How Voters Use Neoliberal Ideology to (De)Legitimate Undocumented Worker Access to Labor Markets

All in the Family: Red States, Blue States, and Postmodern Family Patterns, 2000 and 2004

Toward a Minority Culture of Mobility: Immigrant Integration into the African‐American Middle Class

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The Undeserving Rich: “Moral Values” and the White Working Class1

Cited by 34 publications

References 33 publications

The Moral Economy of Neoliberalism: How Voters Use Neoliberal Ideology to (De)Legitimate Undocumented Worker Access to Labor Markets

The Moral Economy of Neoliberalism: How Voters Use Neoliberal Ideology to (De)Legitimate Undocumented Worker Access to Labor Markets

All in the Family: Red States, Blue States, and Postmodern Family Patterns, 2000 and 2004

Toward a Minority Culture of Mobility: Immigrant Integration into the African‐American Middle Class

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Product

Resources

About

The Undeserving Rich: “Moral Values” and the White Working Class¹