The salience of class in Britain and America: a comparative analysis

In this paper we provide a comparative analysis of the political and ideological salience of class in Britain and the USA, using the Comparative Project on Class Consciousness and Class Conflict dataset. We show that class divisions, however measured, are much more salient in British political choices. We then ask whether this difference results from the weaker cultural salience of class in the USA, or whether it reflects the distinctive nature of the American political system. We find that class is strongly salient in the USA, not in politics, but in the sphere of workplace and industrial relations. We conclude with a discussion of the meaning of these findings for British and American class research.