Class War? What Americans Really think about Economic Inequality

by David Watkins

Over the Summer, I'll offer brief reviews of recent books of interest to students of American Politics. I begin with a short but important book about public opinion regarding economic inequality in the United States. Class War? What Americans Really think about Economic Inequality by Ben Page and Lawrence Jacobs, provides an overview of 'the data' on public opinion. They review existing polls on the subject over the last several decades, and commissioned a major poll of their own (conducted in 2007; interestingly, the public opinion they measure is prior to the current economic crisis).The central finding is one that many who’ve followed public opinion closely have long known—that substantial majorities of American have favored a number of policies that reduce economic inequalities and threaten opportunities, and they express a willingness to pay for these policies as well. In addition to this startling and direct finding, their analysis of the data reveals three other significant features about American public opinion on economic inequality:

Agreement. For those of us who follow politics closely, the fact that Republicans and Democrats largely agree on most issues regarding economic inequality will probably come as something of a surprise. Certainly, this fact often seems to have little effect on the behavior of Republican politicians, and would seem foreign to those who interact primarily with Republican Party activists and movement conservatives. But on question after question, over time, Republicans are generally only slightly less likely than Americans overall to support measures to reduce economic inequality and increase economic opportunity. A few examples: 72% of Americans affirmed the statement that “Differences in income in America are too large”—as did 56% of Republicans (pg. 44). 64% of Americans said they were willing to pay more taxes to support funding for early childhood education in kindergarten and pre-school, as did 57% of Republicans (pg. 59). Should the federal government see to it that everyone who wants to work can find a job? 67% of all Americans and 60% of Republicans say yes (pg. 62). Is it the task of government to see to it that no one is without food, clothing, or shelter? 68% of Americans and 61% of Republicans say yes (pg. 72). This pattern repeats itself with High-income Americans, who respond in a similar fashion to Republicans. There is little widespread disagreement amongst American voters on these issues, at least along the traditional cleavages where we’d expect to find it. 

Knowledge. A number of survey questions in chapter two indicate that Americans are actually quite knowledgeable about economic inequality. Many might find it inconsistent that a solid majority of American agree with the statement “In order to get people to work hard, large differences in pay are necessary” (pg. 33) while at the same time supporting measures to reduce inequality. But it’s not necessarily inconsistent at all. One can support inequality—even large amounts of it—and still recognize that we currently have too much, and more than is necessary for any socially beneficial consequences of inequality. On inequality issues, American public opinion is more knowledgeable than is often assumed. 

Complexity. What I’ve presented here is fairly straightforward, but Page and Jacobs introduce an important twist in understanding American public opinion on inequality. We are, in an important sense, philosophically conservative. Americans want work, effort and talent to be well-rewarded. They want actions and choices to have consequences, positive and negative. They remain suspicious that governments will spend our money well. But when our questioning moves from the realm of abstractions to specifics—health care, education, taxation, and the like, they seemingly abandon this conservatism and support action to reduce inequality. Page and Jacobs call this operational liberalism, which combined with philosophical conservatism yields a result they call ‘conservative egalitarianism.’  

These three features—agreement, knowledge and complexity, suggest a very different picture of American public opinion than we are often presented with in contemporary political discourse. But this analysis raises an obvious question—if there is so much agreement on these matters, why is there such tepid support for substantial inequality-reducing reforms? Page and Jacobs don’t tackle this difficult question until the end of the book. There are many possible answers, I think, and the ones they prefer—inaction due to the structure of American politics and, more importantly, interest group politics resulting in the overrepresentation of elite interests and perspectives in government, seem as plausible as any. Nevertheless, the book, while succeeding admirably at presenting a more accurate picture of American politics than is typically presented, left me wanting a more thorough discussion and investigation of the gap between political preferences and policy. This book is an excellent beginning to this discussion. 

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