Class and left-wing radicalism

Ce travail tente d'examiner la relation entre la classe sociale, l'appartenance syndicale, l'expérience du chîomage, l'ethnicité, l'affiliation religieuse et le radicalisme de gauche dans un secteur de Winnipeg. Les données démontrent que le gauchisme a ses origines dans la classe sociale et la conception marxiste de classe sociale a plus d'importance que la conception sociologique traditionnelle. Ce travail démontre aussi que ni l'ethnicité ni l'affiliation religieuse ne contribuent beaucoup à la compréhension des attitudes politiques de gauche que détiennent les résidents du Nord de Winnipeg.
This paper attempts to examine the relationship between social class, union membership, un-employement experience, ethnicity, religious affiliation, and left-wing radicalism in a part of Winnipeg. The resultant data show that leftism is rooted in social class, with the Marxian view of class being of greater import than the traditional sociological view. In this study, neither ethnicity nor religious affiliation contributes much to our understanding of left-wing political views adhered to by the people of Winnipeg North.     

Some Questions About the Reverse Tariff

Summary The modified version of the reverse tariff theory, developedby Pauline Hardiker, claims that a matrix combining risk andneed is implicit in the recommendations made to courts by probationofficers. This version of the theory is criticized on threecounts. (i) A number of counter-examples are examined: someof them imply factors other than risk and need which probationofficers take into account; others illustrate types of recommendationwhich, relative to the theory, have an anomalous form; (ii)it is suggested that, in any event, Hardiker does not have anadequate theory of how ‘need’ and ‘risk’are combined; (iii) it is argued that, given the evidence onwhich it is based, the reverse tariff model cannot have thestatus which Hardiker appears to claim for it.     

UNCERTAINTY AND STICKY-DOWNWARD BUT UPWARD-MOBILE WAGES

The usual search models of unemployment hold that firms do not offer wage cuts to employees in time of slack demand because the employees have alternatives open to them at wages higher than the reduced wage that would be required to maintain full employment. This paper extends these models by considering employees as choosing in conditions of uncertainty and showing that refusal to accept a wage cut is often rational in the absence of a higher alternative wage. Additional implications are derived for union behavior and simultaneous inflation and unemployment.     

CONCERN FOR GOD AND CONCERN FOR SOCIETY: RELIGIOSITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

This paper adds to the integration of sociology of religion and social stratification by bringing together work in social justice from sociology of religion and economic issues from social stratification. The research focuses on the narrower topic of attitudes toward economic justice. Specifically, it focuses on the contributions of both religiosity and religious affiliation to such attitudes. The contributions of the religious components are assessed independent of other factors identified to be important in the two areas. Using data from the 1987 panel of the General Social Survey, multiple analyses of variance reveals relatively strong structural effects but no relationship between religiosity and attitudes toward economic justice. Religious affiliation is statistically significant, but of sufficiently limited “captured variance” that substantive interpretation must wait future research.