trend would appear to be, in voting behaviour at least, away from the
sort of class-based voting found in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s
towards a more North American pattern in which issues, persona-
lities and tactical voting predominate; hence an increased tendency to
vote for third parties in the UK, considerable fluctuation in the
socialist vote in France, the desertion of both the neo-communist and
Christian democratic voters in Italy. Instead of a clear commitment to
parties based upon class identification, the ‘floating voter’ has come to
rule. However, it is worth noting that one school of thought suggests
that the dominance of the ‘floating voter’ may be temporary until a
new cleavage in voting behaviour replaces class.
Empirical studies of voting behaviour also indicate that few voters
think in ‘proletariat v bosses’ terms. Right-wing parties (Republicans,
Christian Democrats, Conservatives) have successfully appealed to a
broader concept of a middle-class identity. The middle classes have
been defined to include not only the self-employed and business
professionals, but a whole variety of ‘white-collar’ occupations
especially those paying higher ‘salaries’ (rather than ‘wages’) and
open to growing numbers of people with higher education. Increasing
levels of affluence (at least amongst those employed) and, especially,
of homeownership, amongst traditional working-class voters also
seem to have played a part in weakening traditional class allegiances.
Marxists may lament these trends as an example of ‘false class
consciousness’ and also the decline in both the numbers of trade
unionists and their links with socialist parties. But it seems an
unjustifiable act of faith to assume that these trends are only ‘blips’
distorting an otherwise inevitable process.
Post-industrial politics: the information polity?
Dahrendorf (1959) and others have argued that the trends in the class
system observed above mean that Marx’s analysis has been outmoded.
He argues that Marx wrote in an era of lone capitalist entrepreneurs
and unskilled mass production workers. This simple dichotomy is no
longer adequate to a production system in which the functions of
capital have become divided – for instance between shareholders and
professional managers – and labour is divided between skilled
professionals and unskilled labourers, between white-collar office
workers and production-line operatives, and so on. Dahrendorf goes
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