EconLog

Class Warfare or the Battle of Sex?, 2003-01-15

The Atlantic Monthly is indispensable, in spite of the fact that its online publication lags (hence no links to articles here) and in spite of the fact that the latest issue brings some truly insipid policy proposals under the rubric of a "State of the Union." Among the citable articles in the current issue is one by Thomas Edsall, who writes,

Whereas elections once pitted the party of the working class against the party of Wall Street, they now pit voters who believe in a fixed and universal morality against those who see moral issues, especially sexual ones, as elastic and subject to personal choice.

The data that Edsall cites to back his claim strike me as persuasive. His view also coincides with that of George Lakoff, author of Moral Politics, who sees a conflict between the "strict father morality" of conservatives and the "nurturant parent morality" of liberals.

Discussion Question. Why might an economist prefer to see voting determined by economic class?