--- On Mon, 8/10/09, Dennis Claxton <ddclaxton at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Again, this gets the cart a little ahead of the
> horse. You are discounting the great efforts put out
> in the last 40 years to stoke fear of crime. It's one
> of the main domestic issues that brought the neocons to
> power and kept them there.
>
[WS:] This is an altogether different argument than one I was trying to make. What I was arguing was that the threat posed by the poor to the ruling class is negligible, so the ruling class does not need to use the prison system to keep the poor in line. The demand for punitive measures against the poor and lower social strata in general come mainly from the middle strata of the society.
What you wrote above seems to imply is that the ruling class uses the fear of crime etc. to keep the middle class in line - which is a very different argument, one with which I tend to agree. The middle strata of the US society do pose a *potential* threat to the ruling class if - and that is a big if - they change their view of the legitimacy US institutions and social stratification, and as a result of that - their voting behavior. That is why the ruling class and conservative elements use every trick on the book - including scapegoating the lower social strata - to prevent that from happening.
To sum it up, I think the push for punitive policies against the lower class come mainly not from the upper class - because the upper class has little to fear from the lower class - but from the middle and working classes. There are many reasons why the middle and working classes push for such policies. Scapegoating the lower class, instigated by the media and the conservatives, is certainly one of them, but not the only one. There are many other reasons, such as the individualistic value system that tends to blame individuals for social ills, or simply the fact that the middle and working classes are the ones who are directly affected by negative consequences of poverty (the so-called 'quality of life' issue.)
Therefore, one needs to take a much broader view than simply blaming the ruling class. The ruling class would not be able to hold its hegemonic position and grip on public policy without consent of the middle and working classes.
Wojtek