Farewell to the Leftist Working Class

<p>Social conflicts and voting patterns in Western nations indicate a gradual erosion of working-class support for the left, a process that class theory itself cannot adequately explain. <em>Farewell to the Leftist Working Class</em> aims to fill this gap by developing, testing, and confirming an alternative explanation of rightist tendencies among the underprivileged. The authors argue that cultural issues revolving around individual liberty and maintenance of social order have become much more significant since World War II.</p><p>The obligation to work and strict notions of deservingness have become central to the debate about the welfare state. Indeed, although economic egalitarianism is more typically found among the working class, it is only firmly connected to a universalistic and inclusionary progressive political ideology among the middle class.</p><p><em>Farewell to the Leftist Working Class</em> reports cutting-edge research into the withering away of working-class support for the left and the welfare state, drawing mostly on survey data collected in Western Europe, the United States, and other Western countries.</p> 1: The Specter of the Rightist Working Class; 2: What Drives “Unnatural” Voting? A Cultural Explanation for Voting Behavior; 3: A Cross-Pressured Working Class? Class Voting, Cultural Voting, and Issue Salience; 4: The End of Left and Right? The Transformation of Political Culture (1945-1998); 5: A Decline of Class Voting? Class Voting and Cultural Voting in the Postwar Era (1956-1990); 6: The Working Class and the Welfare State: Judgments on the Rights and Obligations of the Unemployed; 7: Is Working-Class Economic Egalitarianism Really that Politically Progressive? Economic Populism, Egalitarianism, and Political Progressiveness; 8: Conclusion Class Is Not Dead—It Has Been Buried Alive