ABSTRACT
The period of Economic Crisis was marked by economic depression, the most extended and severe in the history. The Age of Affluence, after its poor beginning in the 1940s, may be said to commence in the 1950s, especially after the Korean fighting had stopped. The relationships between individual affluence and political attitudes are comparatively well known, but the relationships between communal affluence and political behavior are somewhat obscure. One of the fundamental attitudinal ingredients of successful democracies is a relatively widespread sense of interpersonal trust. In an Age of Affluence an increasing proportion of the working class achieve sufficient income and security to adopt middle class social and political patterns—but they nevertheless are likely to remain Democrats. Social class may have a weakening relationship to opinions about welfare state policies but not to opinions about labor unions. Racial cleavage, strife, and politics are different from class politics in the United States, and, indeed, everywhere.
