Middle Class Support for Welfare Goes Up When They Feel at Risk Themselves!

Three researchers from Yale and Ohio State University, Philipp Rehm (Ohio State), Jacob S Hacker and Mark Schlesinger (Yale) examined attitudes to welfare policies within the US and across 13 other countries. The researchers surveyed people’s support for unemployment insurance across 13 nations (Portugal, Switzerland, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Finland, Ireland, Germany, Australia, United Kingdom, United States). They then surveyed US residents alone on their support for specific social policies within the United States and asked people to assess major economic risks—both their level of worry about them and their level of expectation that they themselves would experience them. Rehm said:

We also probed their attitudes about spending on existing programs, the role of government relative to the private sector in providing economic security, and hypothetical social programs that could be created to deal with major economic risks. Our research all produced highly consistent results across nations and within the US.

They found that support for welfare policies goes up when economic difficulties strike higher up the social scale. Popular support gets broader and opinion less polarized. Where the risk of unemployment or other misfortune threatens mainly people already on low incomes and at the bottom of the social scale, opposition to the welfare state among the generally better off is strongest. When, in times of widespread recession, that threat begins to climb the social ladder, support for welfare policies tends also to migrate up the ladder and to widen out among a larger proportion of the population.

Economic events that make better off people feel insecure are likely to reduce their traditional opposition to welfare. This has the effect of raising a nation’s average support for welfare intervention as those who normally perceive themselves as self sufficient feel at greater risk of losing jobs, homes and other major fundamentals of life.

Conversely, when economic hardships strike only those who are generally on low incomes most of the time, opposition to the welfare state remains strong higher up the social scale. It takes a more widespread misfortune, such as national or global recession, to shift attitudes. The paper says:

To create cross class coalitions—that is, a wider proportion of the population supporting the welfare state—risks have to broaden in reach, not just deepen in impact on the already disadvantaged.

The conclusion is that a broad coalition of support across the social divide is necessary for welfare states to survive:

There seems little question that welfare states cannot long swim in a sea of public hostility, that widespread support is a necessary condition for their sustenance.

It seems a patently obvious conclusion, but says nothing about why people should be so opposed to welfare when the research shows they turn to supporting it when they themselves feel insecure. Welfare is a security net! Remove the net and it is missing when you need it. In other words, it is common sense to want to have a security net, and there is no time better than the present to prove it.

The middle classes, for the first time in several generations, are beginning to realize that they too can feel the need for security when the ruling class starts to pull the snug rug of middle class complacency from beneath them, for the smug rug includes the safety net. For that reason the agents of the ruling class, supposedly democratically elected governments of get rich quick opportunists, will squeeze the blood from the underclasses before they will squeeze anything from the middle class.

The point of Rawls's “Veil of Ignorance” is to put everyone in the situation of not knowing where in society you will end up. If you know you are wealthy and are complacent about your position in society, then you will not care a hoot what happens to your neighbours. If you consider that you might end up poor or disabled, whether by misfortune or bad judgment, then you will insist upon society providing the welfare safety net that you will need to keep you alive and perhaps sane. Quit apart from that, though, which is still an argument from self interest, people in putatively Christian societies ought to have sufficient compassion for the poor and disadvantaged to want to have them protected.

There is a final reason for welfare, another selfish reason for the middle classes, and that is the need for everyone to have some money to spend. In a hierarchical society like western societies, money has to be injected at the base. It is then inevitably spent by the poor on their necessities, and someone has to supply those needs—small shopkeepers and services, or people employed at the lowest level of supermarkets and service industries. That money therefore moves up. The “trickle down” idea is manifestly nonsense, because the rich spend their money wherever in the world they like, and mostly not in western supermarkets!

It is therefore in the best interests of everyone to support the welfare state. Any of us not at the top of the heap might need it, and all of us do need it for society to work properly. It also ensures that we are doing the most honorable thing, and that is caring for the welfare of the least in our society. That alone ought to be sufficient when people like to claim to be Christian.

The Upper Classes are More Dishonest—Official!

A series of studies conducted by psychologists at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Toronto in Canada and reported by the NSF reveal something the well off may not want to hear. Those who are relatively high in social class are more likely to engage in unethical behavior. Lead researcher Paul Piff of UC Berkeley said:

Our studies suggest that more positive attitudes toward greed and the pursuit of self-interest among upper class individuals, in part, drive their tendencies toward increased unethical behavior.

Relative to the lower class, the upper class are more likely to break the law while driving, more likely to exhibit unethical decision-making tendencies, more likely to take valued goods from others, more likely to lie in a negotiation, more likely to cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize and more likely to endorse unethical behavior at work.

Piff explained:

The relative privilege and security enjoyed by upper class individuals give rise to independence from others and a prioritization of the self and one’s own welfare over the welfare of others—what we call greed. This is likely to cause someone to be more inclined to break the rules in his or her favor, or to perceive themselves as, in a sense, being “above the law”.

They therefore become more likely to committing unethical behavior.

Procedures

Piff and colleagues conducted seven survey, experimental and naturalistic studies to determine which social class is more likely to behave in unethical ways—to engage in behaviors that have important consequences for society such as cheating, deception or breaking the law.

In two naturalistic field studies that examined unethical behavior on the road, researchers were surprised by the differences between upper and lower class people, finding upper class drivers were significantly more likely to pursue their own self-interests and break the law while driving than were lower-class drivers. In these studies, the researchers defined social class by an observable cultural symbol of social class—namely, their car. Drivers of higher-end automobiles were four times more likely to cut off other vehicles before waiting their turn at a busy, four way intersection with stop signs on all sides. In addition, they found upper class drivers were significantly more likely to drive through a crosswalk without yielding to a waiting pedestrian.

In another laboratory study, the upper classes were more likely to cheat to improve their chances of winning a cash prize. Piff and colleagues first measured social class using the MacArthur scale of subjective socioeconomic status, where participants rank themselves on a 10-rung ladder relative to others in society in terms of their wealth, education and the prestige of their jobs. Participants then played a “game of chance” in which a computer presented them “randomly” with one side of a six-sided die on five separate rolls. Participants were told higher rolls would increase their chances of winning a cash prize, and were asked to report their total score at the end of the game. In fact, die rolls were predetermined to sum up to 12. The extent to which participants reported a total exceeding 12 was a direct measure of their cheating. The researchers concluded greed was a “robust determinant of unethical behavior”.

Plato and Aristotle deemed greed to be at the root of personal immorality, arguing that greed drives desires for material gain at the expense of ethical standards.

Due to their more favorable beliefs about greed, upper class people are more willing to deceive and cheat others for personal gain.

Study 4 sought to provide experimental evidence that the experience of higher social class has a causal effect on unethical decision-making and behavior. It was the only study in which researchers manipulated participants into temporarily feeling either higher or lower in social class rank to test whether these feelings actually caused people to behave more or less unethically.

At the end of the study, the experimenter presented participants with a jar of individually wrapped candies, ostensibly for children in a nearby laboratory, but informed them that they could take some if they wanted. This task served as a measure of unethical behavior because taking candy would reduce the amount that would otherwise be given to children. People in this study, who were made to feel higher in social class rank, took approximately two times as much candy from children than did people who were made to feel lower in social class rank. Piff concluded:

Across all seven studies, the general pattern we find is that as a person’s social class increases, his or her tendency to behave unethically also increases.