ABSTRACT
Lipset's article "Democracy and Working-Class Authoritarianism" (1959), published more than four decades ago, still plays a major role i n the dis cussion on the relation between class and political values. 1 It introduces the distinction between the two types of political values discussed in Chapter 1: economic liberalism /conservatism and authoritarianism/lib ertarianism. According to Lipset, the working class is at the liberal end of the former ideological dichotomy. Its members advocate economic redis tribution by the state and thus reject a distribution based on the free mar ket. Regarding the latter, pertaining to tolerance of nonconformity, acceptance of unconventional lifestyles, and respect for individual liberty, working-class liberalism is out of the question: "Economic liberalism refers to the conventional issues concerning redistribution of income, sta tus, and power among the classes. The poorer everywhere are more liberal or leftist on such issues On the other hand, when liberalism is defined i n non-economic terms-so as to support, for example, civi l rights for political dissidents, civi l rights for ethnic and racial minorities, interna tionalist foreign policies, and liberal immigration legislation-the relation is reversed" (1959:485).
