Class Conflict in the Political Arena: Business versus Labor in the U.S. House

• In Event: 261 - Section on Political Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 08. Determinants of Congressional Voting and Legislation

Abstract

Dating back to Marx and Engels, social scientists have recognized the state as an important arena of class conflict. Although it is generally assumed that the corporate class prevails in the political realm, labor is nonetheless very politically active via political action committees (PACs) and lobbying. This leads to a legitimate question about the aforementioned assumption: Does the corporate class really prevail in the political realm? I use 16 years of data on corporate and labor PAC contributors and voting in the U.S. House to answer this question, statistically linking contributors with lawmaker’s voting patterns. Indeed, the corporate class has greater influence than labor over the period. But labor is not completely powerless—labor sometimes has influence, particularly when democrats are in control. Even when democrats are in control, however, labor still suffers major policy defeats and is matched in influence by the corporate class. I discuss the implications of these findings for class struggle and labor political strategy.

Author

• Clayton D. Peoples, University of Nevada, Reno