more on the rhetoric of class politics: "I'm not concerned with the very poor," says Romney.

Mitt Romney indicates in a February 1, 2012 interview with CNN, the Americans he would not be concerned with helping should he become president (see top clip). Newt Gingrich seizes the moment later that day and declares he is "fed-up" with  Romney, and other politicians, such as Obama, "dividing Americans against each other" (see middle clip). Two days later, Romney retracts his statements, claiming he "misspoke."  Note: In the Republican debate during the New Hampshire primary in early January, 2012, Rick Santorum denies the existence of social class in the U.S. altogether, actually declaring "There are no classes in America" (see bottom clip).

the declining significance of "class"

With exception of the term middle class, television newscasters largely fail to employ the word class, according to a recent content analysis by Jay Livingston in the Montclair SocioBlog. While approximately as many Americans self-identify as working class as middle class, they are mentioned far less often, and virtually devoid from public conversation are stories using terms to describe the extremes: upper class and lower class.  Rather than class, discussion is now framed in the news in terms of income levels. Livingston implies that this failure to recognize classes other than the middle class is consistent with the desire to avoid the specter of class conflict.    

Cross-posted at Sociological Images.   

The Communist Manifesto: a multimedia introduction

Political Affairs has published an informative overview and interpretation of the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels. For a text of their famous polemic, see http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html.