One of the great failures of classical Marxism has been the lack of development of class solidarity. Marx expected the working class to become more conscious of its common interests and thus develop into a powerful political force.But this never happened to the extent that Marxists hoped.
Why not? One possible reason lies in reference group theory. This says that individuals compare themselves to their own social circle rather than to everyone, with the result that we envy colleagues and former classmates who have done slightly better than us rather than the super-rich. This erodes class solidarity.
Some laboratory experiments (pdf) by Philip Grossman and Mana Komai have shown how common such in-group envy is, and how damaging it can be.
They split subjects randomly into two groups - rich and poor, with the rich given a higher endowment and the chance to invest at higher returns than the poor. After a while of investing, and increasing class inequality, subjects were then given the opportunity to spend some money in order to destroy part of another's wealth.
If people were free of envy, they'd never take up this offer as it always impoverished them. But in fact, such choices were quite common. In total, subjects chose to destroy part of another's wealth in almost a quarter of the instances in which they could; 2346 times out of 9600 choices.
However, attacks by the poor on the rich were only a minority of all attacks - 619 of the 2346. Almost as often (509 times), the poor class attacked their fellow poor, with most of those attacks being upon people poorer than themselves. And most of the attacks upon the rich came from other rich folk.
This tells us that there is indeed some inequality aversion; people will pay money to reduce inequality. But this is only part of the story. Folk are also concerned with their individual relative status. So they'll pay money to hold down people who are slightly worse off than themselves, and to bring those slightly above them down a peg or two.
Of course, there are countless real world analogies to this behaviour. Old money sneering at new money, the rich complaining about the super-rich, "white trash" being racist and "strivers" attacking "shirkers" are all examples of within-class conflict. What's striking about this experiment is that such behaviour emerges so easily, without the aid of ideology or media manipulation.This suggests that the lack of development of class solidarity has some deeper-rooted causes than ideology alone.
For a Marxist, this is depressing stuff. But it should also concern any liberal or democrat.It suggests that people might support policies that hurt other poor people - for example, welfare cuts or immigration controls - even if they themselves are harmed by such policies. In this sense, people's preferences aren't necessarily the same as their narrow material interests.
Re "What's striking about this experiment is that such behaviour emerges so easily, without the aid of ideology ..."
But in another context, say a gift economy, this behaviour does not easily emerge. In fact, the opposite (in the sense of actions that minimise or mitigate inequalities) happens.
Of course, gift economies presume a far narrower spread of wealth (or surplus). The economy in the quoted model presumes a more rigid class hierarchy and greater inequality across all classes.
Given that both behaviours appear to arise "naturally", I'd suggest that ideology is still at work. Stripped away, we are left with divide and rule.
Posted by: FromArseToElbow | May 27, 2013 at 08:18 PM
To build on FATE's comment and head off a little tangentially...
This is one of the major blind spots of political science (economics is so blind on this, you can't even call it a spot):
The default assumption is that preferences arise "naturally" - there's next to no study of how preferences change and are changed, both by structure and by ideology and propaganda and more...
Posted by: Metatone | May 27, 2013 at 09:20 PM
To some extent relative wealth positions matter a great deal, and rationally. With great wealth differences come large power differences and the ability to abuse them. Especially in pay-per-play politics like in the USA.
Companies in the marketplace often have strategies meant to hurt competitors at no profit to themselves, because competitors with less cash and other resources are better for those companies.
Posted by: Blissex | May 27, 2013 at 09:25 PM
Does this idea shed light on other areas? Eg gay marriage "Gay marriage means I can't look down on gays anymore.'"
I'm sure there are better examples.
Posted by: Luke | May 27, 2013 at 09:29 PM
This plainly highlights that large scale immigration is a tool of the elite to keep the poor from reaching class consciousness. Stop immigration now!
Posted by: Steve | May 28, 2013 at 12:13 AM
"But in another context, say a gift economy, this behaviour does not easily emerge."
Yes it does. We have a gift economy now - one with unemployment benefit and other welfare benefits that require no reciprocation particularly if you have children.
And they are resented by their peers.
Posted by: Neil Wilson | May 28, 2013 at 08:01 AM
@Neil Wilson, You're obviously misusing the term "gift economy" in applying it to the UK today. We're not a subsistence economy dealing with occasional surpluses through formalised redistribution.
The resentment you note is the product of structural features (the persistence of unemployment and low wages) and compensatory ideology, rather than anything innate.
Posted by: FromArseToElbow | May 28, 2013 at 12:05 PM
The limitation with this kind of game is exactly that ideology or psychological mechanisms may be innate or determined and we do not know which or when they are at work.
How do we explain charitable giving in this framework? How do we think about the standard model of rational maximization if people sacrifice gains to inflict harm? It is necessary to give up utilitarian ideas for some other set of status markers and social differentiation as motivating frameworks.
Posted by: Keith | May 28, 2013 at 01:47 PM
thanks for the paper reference, given we all have limited social groups and the associated intimate knowledge of other peoples lives reference group theory seems like common sense.
For liberals and democrats i wonder whether expanding our context of other peoples lives, in a way that is intimate and human rather than removed, could build solidarity within class groups.
Posted by: Marcus | May 31, 2013 at 12:23 PM
I am always very skeptical about experiments of this kind.
But if we were to take it seriously, then it suggests 'top down' social engineering is the way to go. I.e. the Soviet model. Though I would argue that capitalist states engage in this social engineering to a large extent.
I am personally a libertarian socialist at heart, but I do think Marx and Engels were never entirely clear about their position, I certainly think they had their 'Stalinist' tendencies. Engels even claimed that population control would be easier under a socialist society then a capitalist one!
Posted by: SteveH | June 03, 2013 at 06:52 PM