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The Politics of Consensus in an Age of Affluence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Robert E. Lane
Robert E. Lane
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

Marx is surely right when he says that the way men earn their living shapes their relations to each other and to the state; but this is, of course, only the beginning. Aside from all the other non-economic factors which also have these effects, there is the matter of the source of income, the level of income, and, especially, the security of income. Moreover, each of these factors has both an individual effect, a set of influences apparent in the study of individual enrichment or immiseration, and a social effect, the influences which appear when whole societies become richer or more secure economically. So I am led to inquire into what is happening to men's political interests, behavior, and attitudes toward politics and government in an Age of Affluence, a period when men's economic security and income have increased and when, for the first time in history, it appears likely that the business cycle can now be controlled. Like Marx's, my interest is in change over time.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 59 , Issue 4 , December 1965 , pp. 874 - 895
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1965

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References

1 Galbraith, John K., The Affluent Society (Boston, 1958)Google Scholar.

2 These data and the economic and social statistics to follow are taken (or derived) from three main sources all by the U.S. Bureau of the Census: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington, D.C., 1960)Google Scholar, and its Continuation to 1962 and Revisions (1965); Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1964 (85th ed., Washington, D.C., 1964)Google Scholar.

3 Russett, Bruce M. and associates, World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1964), p. 155Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., p. 245.

5 Ibid., pp. 160–61; also First National City Bank, Monthly Economic Letter, 08 1965, p. 89Google Scholar.

6 David M. Potter (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1954).

7 David Riesman (Garden City, N.Y., 1964).

8 The difficulties of showing change through survey data are substantial. Sampling error may often account for the differences (though it should be recalled that most comparisons are between a proportion in one survey, with a sample usually around 1600, and a proportion in another; not, as is more familiar, proportions of sub-groups in only one survey). Great differences such as one hopes for in correlational analysis, would here imply some rather unstable attitudes and hence indicate the influence of transient events rather than historical change. The most solid evidence is provided, rather rarely, by many observed changes in the same direction over a long period. Unfortunately, the data for this paper often come from sources which do not give the size of the sample, eliminating the possibility of significance tests or correlational tests. Wherever possible [Tables I(d), I(e), IV(a), VI(a), and IX(b)], I have tested the significance of the distributions by the method of difference of proportions (Z). The dichotomized differences are all significant beyond the .01 level. I wish to thank Mary Frase for these computations.

9 See Bradburn, Norman M. and Caplovitz, David, Reports of Happiness (Chicago, Aldine, 1965)Google Scholar.

10 See compilation of survey material by Erskine, Hazel Gaudet in Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 28 (1964), p. 519Google Scholar. Future reference to these compilations will be as follows: Erskine, POQ.

11 Gurin, Gerald, Veroff, Joseph, and Feld, Sheila, Americans View Their Mental Health (New York, Basic Books, 1960), p. 22Google Scholar.

12 See Almond, Gabriel A. and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture (Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1963), pp. 266–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Rosenberg, Morris, “Misanthropy and Political Ideology,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 21 (1956), pp. 690–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 This is the implication in McCelland's, David discussion of other-directedness. See his The Achieving Society (New York, 1961), pp. 190–203CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Candor compels me to note here that between 1937 and 1964 there was virtually no change in the belief that we will never do away with poverty in this country: in both 1937 and 1964 some 83 per cent said “no,” we will never do it. Erskine, , POQ, p. 526Google Scholar.

16 See Fromm, Erich, The Sane Society (New York, 1955)Google Scholar; Mills, C. Wright, The Sociological Imagination (New York, Oxford University Press, 1959), esp. pp. 165–76Google Scholar.

17 Consortium codebooks, NORC 1944 election study and SRC 1960 and 1964 studies.

18 Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E., Stokes, Donald E., The American Voter (New York, 1960), pp. 205–7Google Scholar.

19 These findings on “interest,” “personal caring” and partisanship are from the Consortium codebooks of the relevant years.

20 Centers, Richard, The Psychology of Social Classes (Princeton University Press, 1949)Google Scholar.

21 Hadley Cantril and Mildred Strunk, op. cit., p. 116 (AIPO).

22 Consortium codebooks (SRC).

23 Converse, Philip, “The Shifting Role of Class in Political Attitudes and Behavior,” in Maccoby, E. E., Newcomb, T. M., and Hartley, E., Readings in Social Psychology (New York, 1958), pp. 388–99Google Scholar. The consortium codebooks show the following proportions of national samples reporting themselves as “middle class”: 1952: 37 per cent; 1956: 36 per cent; 1960: 31 per cent; 1964: 40 per cent. The 1952 figure includes “upper class.”

24 Campbell and associates, The American Voter, p. 357Google Scholar.

25 P. Converse, “The Shifting Role of Class,” op. cit., pp. 391–93.

26 The 1944–1956 changes are documented in Converse, ibid.; these, and the 1936, 1940 and 1960 data are reported in the most extensive available study of “class voting,” Alford's, Robert R.Party and Society (Chicago, Rand McNally, 1963), pp. 103, 352–53Google Scholar. The 1964 figures are based upon AIPO release, December 13, 1964.

27 See Rice, Stuart A., Quantitative Methods in Politics (New York, 1928), pp. 210–11Google Scholar.

28 See Alford, , Party and Society, pp. 225–31Google Scholar.

29 AIPO releases, Feb. 21, 1960 and July 5, 1964.

30 The U. S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics, give the basic data on affiliation; The American Institute of Public Opinion conducts surveys every year on church attendance. The percentages given above are averages based on several surveys a year. Erskine, , POQ, Vol. 28 (1964), pp. 671–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 AIPO release, April 18, 1965.

32 See, for example, Lenski, Gerhard, The Religious Factor (Garden City, 1963)Google Scholar.

33 AIPO release, April 21, 1965.

34 Consortium Codebooks; SRC data from election studies for years indicated.

35 The 1948 data are computed from Campbell, Angus, Gurin, Gerald, and Miller, Warren, The Voter Decides (Evanston, Ill., Row, Peterson, 1954), p. 71Google Scholar; the data for the other dates are based on AIPO release, Dec. 13, 1964.

36 See Berelson, Bernard R., Lazarsfeld, Paul F., and McPhee, William N., Voting (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1954), p. 70Google Scholar. On the cognate matter of ethnic influences, see Wolfinger, Raymond E. and Heifetz, Joan, “The Development and Persistence of Ethnic Voting,” in this issue of this Review, below, pp. 896–908Google Scholar.

37 Some of these data are available and are increasingly accessible both at the Roper Center, Williamstown, Mass., and Inter-university Consortium for Political Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Further exploration of these data is needed.

38 AIPO release, May 5, 1965.

39 NORC, May 1946, reported in Erskine, , POQ, Vol. 26 (1962), p. 139Google Scholar; AIPO release, May 5, 1965.

40 AIPO release, March 1, 1956.

41 AIPO releases, Dec. 13, 1964 and Aug. 15, 1965.

42 This evidence, based on a comparison between SRC 1958 and 1964 findings, runs contrary to my main argument regarding the increasingly favorable view of men toward government in the Age of Affluence, but supports the minor theme: 1964 as a return to the politics of crisis and alienation. Actually, I think it is a more or less ephemeral response to discussion about corruption in the Bobby Baker case and the Johnson administration more generally. Compare reasons for not wanting one's son to enter politics, reported below.

43 AIPO release, March 3, 1965.

44 The SRC 1958 and 1964 election studies asked, “How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right—just about always, most of the time, or only some of the time.” Proportions in each category are nearly constant. I interpret this as a long run increase in trust equalized by an election which stirred up (short term) doubts on the matter. But perhaps it is better to leave it uninterpreted for now.

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