The Moral Economy of Class Class and Attitudes in Comparative Perspective [Hardcover]

This book surveys whether and how social classes differ in their views on important social issues, such as work and family, the economy and politics, rights and morals, and the distribution of justice. What accounts for such differences in opinion? Are class differences comparable and consistent across different nations? Do class differences change over time?InThe Moral Economy of Class, Stefan Svallfors builds on data from large-scale comparative surveys to paint a picture of these class differences. Comparing the United States, Britain, Germany, and Sweden, he shows that class differences are highly persistent. Class remains one of the key dividing lines in society. Through empirical analyses based on a sophisticated model of how class influences attitudes, Stefan Svallfors makes an important contribution to the growing body of literature on how a 'moral economy' shapes the views that people hold about the social world and their evaluations of it. The book should be widely assigned to students and read by scholars, both for its empirical content and as an example of how to do first-rate empirical work. A comparative study of political attitudes across social classes, examining what accounts for such differences in opinion and determining whether these differences change over time In this excellent overview of how social classes differ in their social attitudes, Svallfors shows that less inequality in conditions often goestogether with large differences in attitudes among classes. His discussion and explanation of this paradoxical condition should interest social scientists, students, and the interested public. Svallfors shows not only that class matters to social attitudes, but also that national institutions shape class differences in social attitudes, sometimes in unexpected ways. His analysis is carefully crafted and his interpretation of the results is remarkably judicious. This wide-ranging book is truly a tour de force and deserves to be real3l