[lbo-talk] Class Divide in Iran (was Once Upon a time)

Yoshie Furuhashi critical.montages at gmail.com
Thu Aug 24 11:34:05 PDT 2006


On 8/24/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Aug 24, 2006, at 1:24 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > Bush's supporters stand on the opposite side of the class divide to
> > Ahmadinejad's supporters, Chavez' supporters, Nasrallah's supporters,
> > and so on.
>
> Lots of Bush's supporters are working class

Sure, but the higher up you go up the income ladder, the more support for Bush you find, which is the opposite of support for Ahmadinejad, AMLO, Chavez, Morales, Nasrallah, and so on.

The class divide, moreover, is clearer in Iran, Mexico, Venezuela, Bolivia, Lebanon, etc. than in the USA. After all, the USA is still a rich country, and even the poorest in the USA aren't as desperately poor as the poorer 50-80% or so in many countries outside the West. As I said to Chuck, Chris, Wojtek, etc., above a certain threshold of per capita income, the populace tend to express a preference for a combination of liberalism (i.e.. political liberalism) and democracy, liberal democracy, at the national level, and both the electoral Left and Right -- including the Democratic and Republican Parties here -- are basically committed to it. The masses' preference for illiberal democracy is only found in countries below a certain threshold of per capita income.*

* There are exceptions to the pretty common preference for illiberal democracy among masses outside the West. E.g., the ANC combines political and economic liberalism, and it has yet to lose mass support (though it might eventually). -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>



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