Communism, Capitalism, and Images of Class: Reference Groups, Reality, and Regime (43 Nations, 110,000 Individuals)

• In Event: 411 - Section on Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 12. Politics and Inequality.

Abstract

Throughout the world people differ vastly in how much social inequality they perceive. Some see a small elite at the top of their society, negligible middle classes, and an impoverished mass at the bottom. Others perceive their society as egalitarian and prosperous with the largest classes in the middle. Some of this reflects actual differences in inequality. But much reflects perceptual distortions. People of high socioeconomic status project their circumstances, and the similar circumstances of friends and relatives, onto society at large; those in prosperous nations do the same. More reflects political history: Communism was correctly perceived as egalitarian but after its fall new inequality combined with enduring poverty created an overwhelmingly inegalitarian image, one perceptually exaggerated by Communism's betrayal of its egalitarian ideology. In sharp contrast to this diversity, people everywhere share similar ideals about what society ought to be like, preferring a prosperous egalitarian society with the large majority in the middle; this creates a systematic gap between preference and perceived reality. Data are from the ISSP's 1987, 1992, 1999 and 2009 surveys and the World Inequality Study, providing representative national samples from 92 surveys in 43 nations with over 100,000 respondents. Analysis is by multi-level methods.

Author

• Mariah Debra Evans, University of Nevada, Reno