A Class of Rich People — Gallup Goes Marxist

June 10, 2018
Posted by Jay Livingston

Gallup asked “Do You Think the United States Benefits From Having a Class of Rich People, or Not?” Here are the results.

Gallup’s lede is that Democrats have grown more skeptical about the rich while Independents and Republicans haven’t changed their views. The other obvious conclusions from the survey is that Republicans think far more favorably of the rich and that Independents are closer to Democrats than to Republicans. (The Gallup summary is here.)

What surprised me is that Republicans would agree to even answer the question given that it was about “a class of rich people.” The true conservative would tell the Gallup interviewer, “There are no classes in America. We have only individuals; some of them get rich.” But overall, only 3% of the 1500 people surveyed refused to answer, though Gallup does not provide data on the political affiliation of these refuseniks.

Most of the time, when Americans talk about “class” they really mean “social status” – a scale based mostly on money which, therefore, has infinite gradations. A person with $100,000 is higher on the scale than is a person with $90,000. But “class” in the Gallup question implies a more Marxian definition — a group of people who share common economic interests and who act to secure those interests against the interests of other classes.

Unfortunately, we don’t know what Gallup’s respondents had in mind when they heard the question. Maybe Republicans, Independents, and Democrats interpreted the question differently.

What else could Gallup have asked?

“Does the US benefit from policies that allow some people to get very rich?” frames wealth as an individual matter with America as the land of unlimited opportunity.  A question like this would probably draw higher rates of agreement across the board.

“Do Americans in general benefit from policies that benefit the rich?” treats the rich more as a true class. It implies that some policies benefit one class, the rich, even though they might not benefit most people. This question might have fewer people agreeing.

I wonder what the results would be if Gallup asked both these questions.