important reason—that quite simple distinctions drawn between occupations
lead to categories that do seem to correlate highly with political and social
beliefs and actions. Research into voting behaviour, for example, used to
employ a simple two-class model. Those who earn their living in non-manual
jobs (typically defined as the middle class) do in fact vote for therightwing
parties much more often than for theleft, while manual workers (the working
class) vote more frequently for the left. Although class-voting models in
political science are now more sophisticated, their basis is still occupational
ranking. Such models of social structure may be more or less complicated, and
may correspond more or less successfully to actual social and political beha-
viour. There are many difficulties inherent in these models too. For example,
in countries with a sizeable agricultural sector, it is very hard to fit farmers and
farm labourers into a class model. (Though this aspect is accepted in Marxist
models as well.) Another typical problem is in assessing the class position of
married women, whether they work or not.
A particular problem, both theoretical and empirical, is whether or not class
has to be a conscious matter. Is it enough to categorize an individual by
external facts about them, or does their own sense of what they are matter?
Taking this into consideration leads to endless complications. For example, in
the United Kingdom a surprisingly large minority of people whose jobs would
put them at the top of the class scale actually report thinking of themselves as
working class, while many skilled manual workers claim middle class status. At
the theoretical level there has always been a problem of what Marxists callfalse
consciousness—people holding beliefs and attitudes which seem to fit with
an economic and social position which aids those actually above them on the
class ladder.
However difficult it may be to construct class models, whether Marxist or
otherwise, the brute facts of politics require them. Though not all parties have
a class base, most do at least to some extent, and all societies have political
parties whose appeal is based on representing the interests of fairly clear socio-
economic groups. Some political parties (notably conservative parties but also
some liberal parties) claim as part of their ideology to be classless or to regard
class as irrelevant, but this does not necessarily mean that their voting support,
or their policies, are any less class oriented. It is, nevertheless, a mistake simply
to interpret evidence that people with specific and precise economic interests
support one party rather than another as evidence of class politics; this may be
no more than evidence that rational income–party connections are easily
made. Class has to be a deeply structured factor, if it exists at all. AsWeber
said, class is about the way economic positions affect long-term life chances.
Whatever subtle theoretical distinctions and empirical variances are shown, the
existence of something that is more akin to class than to status orcasteseems
evident in most Western societies: not only the level, but the source, predict-
Class