United States | Lexington

Classlessness in America

The uses and abuses of an enduring myth

“DO YOU recognise the irreconcilable class antagonism between workers and capitalists that exists under the present economic system?” That is question one on the membership application form of the Socialist Labour Party of America. A helpful note explains that all questions must be answered Yes for an application to be considered. This insistence on ideological purity may explain why the fortunes of the party have disappointed of late. Though it can trace its history as far back as 1876, when it was known as the Workingmen's Party, no less an authority than Wikipedia pronounces it “moribund”.

Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the budget committee in the House of Representatives, accused Barack Obama this week of waging “class warfare” by suggesting that millionaires should pay at least the same rate of tax as the common man. But, really, would any president risk declaring class war and following the Workingmen's Party into oblivion? Not only is social class supposed not to exist in America, it is almost a dirty word—“America's forbidden thought”, in the words of one sociologist.

Anyone who does commit the solecism of talking or writing about class in America is assailed at once by a problem of definition. Asking Americans which class they belong to does not get you very far, since almost all Americans are sure that they belong to the middle. The last time the Pew Research Centre asked, in a poll in 2008, 91% of respondents put themselves in the upper-middle, middle or lower-middle class. Confusion about class is compounded by America's habit of defining the white “working class” not by income or occupation, as in Europe, but by the lack of a college degree. That is a pretty odd approach (Mark Twain observed that cauliflower is cabbage with a college education) given that many workers without a degree earn a decent income and consider themselves part of the middle too.

American talk about class differs from Europe's in another way. The country does not have a broad political movement on the left. Its trade unions never gave rise to a social-democratic party like Britain's Labour, for example. This is not to say that America has had no left at all. It has seen radicals galore. But Michael Kazin, co-editor of Dissent and author of anew history (“American Dreamers”), says its left did not focus chiefly on economic issues. From the mid-20th century, after all, America seemed to find a way for manual workers with only a high-school education to enjoy a middle-class lifestyle. The New Left of the 1960s and 1970s assumed (times have changed) that growth would take care of economic needs and devoted its energies to racial and sexual equality instead. The left has contributed to terrific success in such areas—from the abolition of slavery to the formal end this week of the ban on gays serving openly in the military. But Mr Kazin concludes that it was far more successful when it sought to expand personal liberty than when it struggled to advance the collective might of workers and the poor.

Envy and common sense

If class is America's “forbidden thought”, and not even the left has been strongly driven by economic egalitarianism, is it a tactical error for Mr Obama to keep calling on millionaires and billionaires, hedge-fund managers, the owners of corporate jets and other assorted fat cats to pay higher taxes in hard times? It is certainly misleading of him to imply that America will be able to tame its deficit and protect entitlements by raising taxes on the rich alone: the maths suggests that the middle class will have to pay too. But that does not make it bad politics. America is not so exceptional that its people are impervious to the sin of envy, or to commonsensical notions about what is fair. A Gallup poll published on September 20th found that those who supported raising the taxes of the rich outnumbered opponents by 66% to 32%.

Besides, American politics is not as free of class as politicians think. It is often said that Americans do not choose between parties for mainly economic reasons. This is a myth. Larry Bartels, a political scientist who defines class by income rather than education, concluded in his 2008 book, “Unequal Democracy”, that “traditional class politics is alive and well” in America. His data show that the Republicans are in general the party of the rich and Democrats the party of the poor. Bill Clinton steered clear of class politics, especially in his second term when he moved sharply to the centre. But in 2000 Al Gore injected a strongly populist tone into his campaign. “They're for the powerful, we're for the people,” he said in accepting the Democratic presidential nomination. And, pace Mr Kazin, the left has just scored a gigantic victory in the form of the health-insurance subsidies that the poor will receive from Mr Obama's Affordable Care Act.

One of the main exhibits of those who say America is free of class war is the behaviour of the white working class, which voted—against its economic interest, you might think—both for Ronald Reagan and against Mr Obama in last year's mid-terms. But Mr Bartels finds the poorest parts of this group solidly Democratic. And even if the rest of the white working class is in the Republican column for now, it may not stay there for long. These particular voters, says Henry Olsen of the American Enterprise Institute, “fear the consequences of an untrammelled market and wonder, as they have since the Great Depression, if conservatives really have their best interests at heart.” To put it simply, Mr Olsen concludes, “working-class voters believe in capitalism, but they also believe in the importance of a social safety net.”

Mr Obama is careful not to use the “c” word himself. It is his foes who accuse him of being a socialist. His own message is that Americans are all in the same boat but that the rich can row a bit harder. You do not have to be a member of the moribund Socialist Labour Party of America to see the political appeal of that.

Economist.com/blogs/lexington

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "Classlessness in America"

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