Democrats or Republicans #3

Class conflict in a capitalist society

A third answer to the question “who is Republican and who Democrat,” and why, is often seen as obvious and simple.  The great divide in Western industrial societies has been economic.  Political scientists tell us that the two main groups in a market based industrial system, the workers and the bosses, have traditionally allied themselves with the two major political parties in their societies and expected them to support their interests.  It gave voters a clear alternative.  Voting studies generally support this explanation, although more so in Europe than the United States.

The rationale behind this view is rather simple.  Government policies structure economic activity. Control, that is, over government decisions can put a foot on the scale, moving government action either for or against specific economic interests.  While many government decisions have been largely positive for both labor and ownership—i.e. laws providing and enforcing property rights, creating infrastructure, and regulating banking systems, that have secured and facilitated economic prosperity, they have also supported policies that put a substantial wealth in the pockets of the people who provided the capital for productive enterprises and their top executives, i.e. “the bosses.” 

Those that work for them on the shop floor have had to settle for less – or accept not having a job.  I’m not saying, necessarily, that this has been wrong, but I think it is a true statement of reality.  Not only was the pie being created and enlarged, but the slices were being distributed in ways that reflected who controlled the government. 

And, as one might expect, the pendulum swung.,    

For, government policies, when the labor party controlled government, set limits on low wages, required safe working conditions, and protected the right of workers to bargain collectively with employers.

Fundamentally, the conflict has been over who deserves and who gets (different questions) the surplus (the profit) from market transactions. 

This is a very rough outline, but I think one gets the main idea.  Government is not neutral.  Perhaps all policies shift the dial from one side to the other.  Therefore, influence over the economic policies of government are a chief prize of partisan conflict.

Whether or not this will continue to be the case in the future, in a post-modern world, where other issues, like global health and safety, become the greater concerns, will have to be seen.  Technology is both challenging traditional notions of “necessary poverty,” and substantially reducing the role of men and women in the manufacturing and social service industries.  Rather than a social order of employed and employer, we are continuing to see what David Apter foresaw 50 or more years ago, societies divided into three groups, the technologically essential, the technologically insecure and the technologically superfluous.

We might also point to a widening division between a growing cosmopolitan elite and the parochial majority—a conflict over cultural values, the bases of self-respect and personal effectiveness--where one political party becomes the political expression of highly educated, technically able citizens who have settled in favored urban areas and are attuned to global policy questions and post-Christian moral issues and the other party supporting the “great in-between,” the intercoastal, “heartland” America.

Many, however, would dispute this “elite” version of American politics and point out that a “rent-seeking” wealthy elite, exercising ever larger monopoly power over the drivers of economic growth, are the new “robber barons” of this second “gilded age,” benefiting from government policies that they support, and that the old distinction, owners and workers remains intact.   

A “party of the left,” and a “party of the right.” The employer and the employed.  The battle of the workplace and the bank accounts.  Democrats and Republicans.