Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Define class identity and related terms including economic class and social class
- Describe how class identity affects our quality of life
- Explain how class identity is important in the study of comparative politics
Introduction
Class identity is how a person or group of persons think of themselves in relation to others in society based on their economic and social position. Class identity can impact our happiness, our sense of security, our daily interactions, and even our experience with the justice system. For example, there is evidence that people from lower economic classes are arrested, charged, and imprisoned at higher rates. According to O’Neil Hayes (2020), “Adults in poverty are three times more likely to be arrested than those who aren’t, and people earning less than 150 percent of the federal poverty level are 15 times more likely to be charged with a felony.” Hayes’ research also indicates that “The likelihood that a boy from a family in the bottom 10 percent of the income distribution will end up in prison in his thirties is 20 times greater than that of a boy from a family in the top 10 percent.”
Classes can be divided according to how much relative power and control members of a class have over their lives. On this basis, we might distinguish between the owning class (or bourgeoisie), the middle class, and the traditional working class. The owning class not only have power and control over their own lives, their economic position gives them power and control over others’ lives as well.
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Class identity, and its connection to power, manifests itself in politics. In his book, The Power Elite, sociologist C. Wright Mills asserted that political power is held by the Elites, the upper socio-economic class, or the “ruling class", who use it for their own self-interests. They have social capital, networks to call upon for help finding a new job, new clients, new customers - for themselves and their family. At its conception, The Elite Theory was focused on the nexus of power in the United States. Today, it is discussed in international terms and has been expanded to include elite organizations, such as major oil companies, global military contractors, (Horowitz, 1981).
Class Identity: Socioeconomic Class
Social status is a person's standing or importance in relation to other people within a society. Economic class is based on measurable characteristics: money and material resources. When we combine both economic [income, wealth] factors with social factors, such as level of education and occupation, we have what is called socioeconomic class. Note: “An individual's socioeconomic status does not always align with their social class identification. In the U.S., for example, those who identify as middle class vary on every indicator of socioeconomic status (e.g., level of education)”.
Components of social class vary significantly across cultures. In some societies, for example, it is considered more prestigious to be a religious leader than a medical doctor. One profession that is measured is that of a teacher. According to a 2018 Varkey Foundation report, “In Malaysia and China, teachers are compared to doctors – seen as the highest status profession in our sample, but [in most countries] it is most common for teachers to be compared with social workers having a mid-range status”.
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Class Identity and Politics
Class identity is a major component of politics, influences political affiliations and attitudes, and can drive political and social movements. Politicians appeal to class identity as a means of gaining support for their policies.
We can see this intersect in Marxism. Discussed in greater detail in Chapter 8, Marxism is an approach to political economy that is based on the idea of class conflict - between the owner and worker classes. The theory focuses on the exploitation of workers by owners and seeks to mobilize the working class to demand that the power dynamic change. Marxists seek to change the economic class structure and, as a consequence, the political structure. In other words, by overthrowing the capitalist class, this revolution would usher in a socialist system (Sociology Boundless, n.d.). But, before such an uprising could happen, the working class had to see itself as working class and recognize that - as a class - they are being exploited by the capitalist class. Marx viewed class in objective terms, whereby “a person’s social class is determined by his or her position within the system of property relations that constitutes a given economic society” (Little, n.d.). Therefore, it is not just about being in a certain class that has political significance, it is also about one’s identity as belonging to a particular class that is politically important.
Class identity is often a key focus of political campaigns seeking to win votes or support for specific candidates and political parties. An example would be the U.S. presidential election campaign of 2015-2016 with the intense interest in the working class. The working class contains people engaged in manual-labor occupations or industrial work, who often do not have a four-year college degree. Beginning in the 1930s, unionized working-class Americans had been fairly united behind the Democratic Party. However, that started to change in the 1980s. In the 2016 election, many working class voters were disappointed by the Democratic Party candidate and stayed home rather than vote. This action helped contribute to Republican candidate Donald Trump winning the presidency.
Members of the working class tend to be more religious, more outwardly patriotic, and more culturally conservative than college graduates” (Leonhardt, 2021). This mix of different identity characteristics - including class - helps us understand the relationship to politics. In September 2021, a survey found widely differing views across class lines. In particular, a clear majority of working class respondents voiced serious concern about foreign influence in the United States. However, the more educated [and presumably wealthier] respondents had the opposite view (Public Religion Research Institute, 2021). In another study, scholars found that many working class Americans feel threatened by global trade and had seen their economic security reduced. Whereas, wealthier Americans tended to see globalism in either a neutral or positive light.
Turning our attention to the role of class in Israeli identity politics, we see something a bit different. Rather than identity politics being a way to bring attention to groups who feel “left behind” in some way, in Israel a class-based identity politics movement is evident in the more economically and secure middle class. As Kaplan explains:
Whereas theories of identity politics tend to focus on the socially disenfranchised, we look at how the higher-ranked may use others’ essentialisation of culture and identities for their own advantages. We explain the secular middle class’s turn to Judaism as an attempt to reestablish or reclaim the social power they feel entitled to, under changing cultural, social and material conditions. [Kaplan, et al]
Kaplan’s analysis also highlights the intersection of class, culture, and politics:
Inasmuch as Israel is an advanced-capitalist and a Jewish state, our middle-class participants have re-adjusted to the changing terms of belonging to the Israeli collectivity. In doing so, they may very well advance the ‘Judaisation’ of Israeli culture, yet not merely as an explicit political process, but also as a class distinction practice. [Kaplan, et al]
Israel demonstrates that even groups who generally are seen as having well-established economic, social, and political power can feel their identity is threatened and, in this case, seek to redefine important aspects of that culture to help maintain their place in the hierarchy.
