[lbo-talk] further adventures in political surrealism

[Michael Hoover]

>>> dhenwood at panix.com 02/15/06 4:12 PM >>>
[this is an excerpt from Larry Bartels' paper "Homer Gets a Tax Cut" 
<http://www.princeton.edu/~bartels/homer.pdf>]
The results of my analysis suggest that most Americans support tax 
cuts not because they are indifferent to economic inequality, but 
because they largely fail to connect inequality and public policy. 
Three out of every four people say that the difference in incomes 
between rich people and poor people has increased in the past 20 
years, and most of them add that that is a bad thing-but most of 
these people still support Bush's tax cuts and the repeal of the 
estate tax. People who want to spend more money on a variety of 
government programs are more likely to support tax cuts than those 
who do not, other things being equal. And people's opinions about tax 
cuts are strongly shaped by their attitudes about their own tax 
burdens but virtually unaffected by their attitudes about the tax 
burden of the rich-even in the case of the estate tax, which only 
affects the wealthiest one or two percent of taxpayers. Some of these 
peculiarities appear to be mitigated by political information, but 
others seem perversely resilient.
<<<<<>>>>>

that class divides public opinion should be a *truism* of politics, after
all, mounds of data over last 50 years *consistently* shows that working
class folks are more likely to favor government programs to create jobs,
establish workplace health &  regulations, prevent capital flight, promote
national health insurance, increase public funding for educatiion, and
taxing on basis of ability to pay... 

people with incomes and formal education levels below the median are 
more concerned about high unemployment, feel more vulnerable in 
global corporate economy, more likely to think favorable about unions, 
less likely to think favorably about corporate behavior...

now, class divided opinion may not be as pronounced in the u.s. as in
most other political democracies, working class folks in other places 
might well be surprised at comparatively high percentage of u.s.
workers who seem to oppose measures that would redistribute wealth
- and power - downwards, thereby, limit corporate behavior in the
process...

moreover, if working  people do not always think like a class, wealthier
generally do, surprise, surprise, little support among affluent and above
for economic redistribution...

if class opinion differences in u.s. re. economics are less pronounced than 
in most capitalist democracies, they are more so re. certain political
aspects - affluent in u.s. not only have stronger sense than u.s. working
class that political participation matters, they express higher levels of
political efficacy than their counterparts in other liberal democracies...
meanwhile, u.s. working class falls below its counterparts in such places
(one result is steep decline in voter turnout among u.s. workers compared
to workers elsewhere)...

notion, nay, theory of 'plural elite' democracy - upon which much poli sci 
research dating to post-ww2 rests - *requires* largely passive public...
yes, opinion can be ill-informed and incorrect, particularly re. policy 
details, and appear to 'go whichever way the wind blows' (you don't need a 
weatherman, yeah, yeah, yeah), particularly re. presidents & military 
deployment...

however, there is lttle evidence that working people - nor anyone else,
for that matter - hold generally incoherent views relative to their class
position, too much of current debate is about trying rearrange vote
choice of some portion of existing electorate... mh