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I agree with the substantive point that working class support for the far right is real and a big concern, and also that for Marxists class is a socio-political process rather than a static sociological category. On the latter however, if we’re going to take any notice of voting (or voter or social attitude survey) data at all, as at least surface-level empirical indicators of underlying class processes, we might as well try to have the best possible indicators. There’s a lot of confusion in leftist commentary on voting and attitudes around the fact that mainstream commentary often uses an occupational/educational definitions of class rather than a Marxist definition, notwithstanding the limitations of any fixed categories for Marxist analysis. Self-employed or even employing tradespeople are often categorized as “working class”, while non-managerial white-collar workers who have zero autonomy at work and are union members can be categorized as “middle class”. The categories in the tweet in question seem to be, if google is translating accurately for me, respectively “manual workers”, “white collar employees”, “self-employed” and pensioners”, and the employer/employee relationship at least doesn’t seem mixed up. Knowing the “class” composition of each party (rather than as here the voting composition of each “class”), and any change over time, would both be good to know. With aggregate data like this we’re stuck with the categories given, and should be particularly wary of reifying them as indicating class as such. But if we’re able to get person-level survey data we might have some control over categorising respondents in a more Marxist framework. In my view the best way to do that within the limitations of most social attitudes or voter surveys is use categories of non-managerial workers (of whatever collar-colour), salaried managers, and business owners. For those interested in these issues I published an article in Capitalism, Nature, Socialism in 2012 relaying this class categorisation to attitudes and voting in the Australian Election Study, as part of an analysis of the Australian Greens (non-paywall and extended version here http://links.org.au/node/3180). More recently I’ve been noodling with the openly available 2016 Australian Election Study and have posted some notes and plots on the class composition of voting blocs here https://m.facebook.com/story/graphql_permalink/?graphql_id=UzpfSTU5NDQyMzM3NDoxMDE1Njc0MDY3OTMyODM3NQ%3D%3D and scored on an attitude to immigration scale by party vote here https://m.facebook.com/story/graphql_permalink/?graphql_id=UzpfSTU5NDQyMzM3NDoxMDE1Njc2NDE3NzQ0MzM3NQ%3D%3D The latter are steps towards regression modeling of the probability of voting for different parties, in which I expect class to have an effects on voting that’s partly direct, and partly indirect, mediated by attitudes to unions, business and immigrants (and maybe activity as participation in strikes and protests are asked about in this survey). On Tue, 3 Sep 2019 at 10:13 am, ioannis aposperites via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > ***************************************************************** > > > Interesting breakdown by social class: > > https://twitter.com/formelfriedrich/status/1168402855880994816 > > In confronting the rise of authoritarian far-right populism, Marxists > should really re-think the old Trotskyist shibboleths about fascism being a > primarily petit-bourgeois or "Bonapartist" phenomenon. It's pretty clear > that the new far-right has a substantial proletarian base. > > > > > >Well, I think fascism is a movement not a "authoritarian far-right > populist" party and certainly not just some pieces of paper in a ballot > box in Brandenburg. > Marxian social class is not a sociological category: "the proletariat" > is not just 'the workers" who as individuals are not immune to fascism, > let alone to "authoritarian far-right populism". > > JA > _________________________________________________________ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/nick.j.fredman%40gmail.com _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
