“Marxism Lite”: Modernity, Industrialism, and Culture

Class and Politics in Contemporary Social Science “Marxism Lite” and Its Blind Spot for Culture SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION AND STRUCTURAL CHANGE An Aldine de Gruyter Series of Texts and Monographs SERIES EDITORS Bernard Philips, Boston University Harold Kincaid, University of Alabama, Birmingham James Aho The Orifice as Sacrificial Site Culture, Organization, and the Body Lawrence Busch The Eclipse of Morality Science, State, and Market Leo d’Anjou Social Movements and Cultural Change The First Abolition Campaign Revisited Frank Hearn Moral Order and Social Disorder The American Search for Civil Society Dick Houtman Class and Politics in Contemporary Social Science “Marxism Lite” and Its Blind Spot for Culture David R. Maines The Faultline of Consciousness A View of Interactionism in Sociology Pierre Moessinger The Paradox of Social Order Linking Psychology and Sociology Bernard Phillips Beyond Sociology’s Tower of Babel Reconstructing the Scientific Method Class and Politics in Contemporary Social Science “Marxism Lite” and Its Blind Spot for Culture DICK HOUTMAN Translated by Sheila Gogol ALDINE DE GRUYTER New York About the Author Dick Houtman is a Professor in the Department of Sociology, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Originally published as Een blinde vlek voor cultuur: Sociologen over cultureel conservatisme, klassen en moderniteit, copyright © 2000 Van Gorcum & Comp. B.V., Assen, the Netherlands. Copyright © 2003 Walter de Gruyter, Inc., New York All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. ALDINE DE GRUYTER A division of Walter de Gruyter, Inc. 200 Saw Mill River Road Hawthorne, New York 10532 This publication is printed on acid free paper I The author and publisher wish to acknowledge the support of The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), which provided a grant enabling the translation from Dutch of the major portion of the present edition. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Houtman, Dick. [Blinde vlek voor cultuur. English] Class and politics in contemporary social science : “Marxism lite” and its blind spot for culture / Dick Houtman. p. cm. — (Sociological imagination and structural change) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-202-30688-7 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-202-30689-5 (Pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Social classes—Netherlands. 2. Class consciousness—Netherlands. 3. Netherlands—Economic conditions. 4. Conservatism—Netherlands. 5. Liberalism—Netherlands. I. Title. II. Series. HN520.Z9S623513 2003 305.5’09492—dc21 2003002640 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Veerle, with love This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface xi 1. “Marxism Lite”: Modernity, Industrialism, and Culture 1 Introduction 1 Modernity as Industrialism 2 Research Problem 11 Approach 16 Data 19 Design of the Book 21 Notes 21 2. What Is Actually a “Class”? Martin Lipset and “Working-Class” Authoritarianism 24 Introduction 24 What Is Actually a “Class”? 25 Hypotheses 28 Operationalization 30 Results 35 Conclusion 42 Notes 43 3. What About Occupational Self-Direction? Melvin Kohn and “Working-Class” Authoritarianism 47 Introduction 47 Melvin Kohn: Theory and Research Findings 48 vii viii Contents Hypotheses 53 Operationalization 55 Results 58 Conclusion 61 Notes 62 4. Is Postmaterialism Really Different from Libertarianism? And Can It Be Explained Materialistically? 66 Introduction 66 What Does Inglehart’s Postmaterialism Index Measure? 68 Parental Affluence and Postmaterialism 70 Measurement 72 Results 74 Conclusion 79 Notes 81 5. Why Are There So Many Postmaterialists in Affluent Countries? An International Comparison 83 Introduction 83 Hypotheses 84 Data and Measurement 87 Results 93 Conclusion 100 Notes 101 6. Who Votes for Whom? And Why Exactly? Class, Cultural Capital, and Voting Behavior 103 Introduction 103 Methodological Progress and Theoretical Stagnation 104 Class Voting and Cultural Voting in the Netherlands 109 Contents ix How Theoretical Complacency Can Produce Wrong Findings 116 So, Once Again: Has There Been a Decline in Class Voting? 118 Notes 120 7. Has There Really Been a Decline in Class Voting? Class Voting and Cultural Voting in Britain, 1974–1997 121 (with Peter Achterberg) Introduction 121 Operationalization 122 Has the Relation between Class and Voting Decreased? 127 But Has Class Voting Declined Too? 130 The Decline in Class Voting and the Silent Revolution 136 The Ironies of “Marxism Lite” 138 Notes 141 8. Conclusion: “Marxism Lite” and Its Blind Spot for Culture 145 Introduction 145 Research Findings 146 Education, Social Inequality, and Cultural Capital 152 Severing the Link with Class and Social Stratification 157 Culture, Industrialism, and Modernity 164 New Answers to Old Questions 169 Notes 170 Appendix: Secondary Data Sources 172 References 173 Index 187 This page intentionally left blank Preface This book is an expanded revision and translation of my book Een blinde vlek voor cultuur: Sociologen over cultureel conservatisme, klassen en moderniteit (A Blind Spot for Culture: Sociologists on Cultural Conservatism, Class and Modernity), published by Van Gorcum in the Netherlands in 2000. It argues that contemporary non-Marxist social scientific theories such as Lipset’s on working-class authoritarianism, Kohn’s on class and conformity, and Inglehart’s on the Silent Revolution are nevertheless examples of Marxism lite because they assume it is class or economic background that shapes people’s values. Despite their differences, the three theories are based on largely identi- cal research findings—in particular a strong negative relation between education and authoritarianism. Unobstructed by the conclusions these authors felt called upon to draw from the findings themselves, they are theorized here in a new way. The hypotheses derived from this new theory allow for a systematic strict and competitive testing of the original ones. This procedure leads me to conclude that authoritarianism/libertarianism cannot be explained by class or economic background, but rather by position in the cultural domain (cultural capital). Although all of the statistical relations Lipset, Kohn, and Inglehart base their theories on are replicated in this book, it nevertheless demonstrates that the conclusions they draw from them at a more general theoretical level are untenable. Apart from demonstrating that authoritarianism/libertarianism cannot be explained by class or economic background, I study the implications of this for today’s death of class debate in political sociology. I demonstrate in this context that it is quite unfortunate that the relevance of class to politics is typically addressed by studying the relation between class and voting. This conceals a complex cross-pressure mechanism that causes this relation to capture the net balance of class voting and its opposite, cultural voting, instead of class voting. Although references to a decline in class voting are basically correct, reliance on this relation between class and voting to prove the point systematically underestimates levels of class voting xi xii Preface and produces an exaggerated picture of the decline. Political sociology’s deeply rooted one-sided class approach to politics thus in quite an ironical way prematurely digs its own grave. My point is not that class plays no role in the explanation of political values. Indeed, there is ample evidence in this book that unlike authoritarianism/libertarianism, economic liberalism / conservatism can be explained this way. My point is simply that class can not explain every type of value orientation and that authoritarianism / libertarianism fig- ures prominently among the values it can not explain, notwithstanding the “Marxist lite” theories cited above that claim otherwise. Although I feel that in Marxist and non-Marxist sociology alike, the traditional domi- nance of a one-sided class approach to politics seriously impedes the social scientific understanding of cultural and political change over the past few decades, an equally enthusiastic embrace of a cultural approach can not satisfactorily solve political sociology’s problems in dealing with these processes either. As each has its merits, be it for the explanation of funda- mentally different types of political values, a dogmatic acceptance of one approach paired with a downright rejection of the other impedes an ade- quate theorizing of the complexities that underlie today’s changing pat- terns of voting behavior. This book has achieved its goal if it can convey these points to at least some of its readers. This book has benefited from the efforts of any number of people. First and foremost, the numerous colleagues who commented on some of its ideas over the past eight years or so, be it in positive, negative, or even downright destructive ways. Their reactions have convinced me that the book’s argument is empirically and theoretically sound and defensible. In a more general sense, the ideas and findings of all the authors listed in the References have been indispensable in developing my own position. Two of them should be mentioned by name because their work has so pro- foundly influenced this book, albeit in ways not easily discernible to the casual reader. The first is American neo-Marxist sociologist Erik Wright. He was one of my

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