The Class Basis of Political Radicalism

Abstract

To the hard left, all this talk about a conflict between the New Class and the business class is meaningless because most of the New Class consists of liberals, and liberals aren’t really (in Steven Brint’s term) “oppositional.” When it comes right down to it, they are really pro-capitalist, as well as anti-Communist. Thomas Dye (1986, pp. 238–239) sums up the case by noting that the New Class sides with traditional business elites in favoring private enterprise rather than state socialism. Further, it supports the idea of “unequal incomes based on merit” and rejects an equal distribution of wealth, as well as favoring individualism and disproportionate rewards for the talented and creative.¹