Word: strata
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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MODIGLIANI defines socio-economic status (SES) in terms of four variables--education, occupation, race, and standard of living. He found higher SES to be positively associated with a greater rejection of disengagement from Korea, while the lower socio-economic strata were distinctly more "dovish" in the sense of being more amenable to disengagement...
...negative, between SES and support for escalation, either in Korea or Vietnam. He points out that a desire for disengagement does not necessarily preclude a desire for escalation as a means to end the war quickly: the approval of military escalation is uniformly distributed among all socio-economic strata. Put simply, support for escalation and support for withdrawal are not mutually exclusive. This fact alone is enough to invalidate the assumption that political preferences can be organized along a simple hawk-dove continuum...
...motivate government officials and upper classes to support military interventions with remarkable regularity, what forces do contribute to the strong anti-Communist tendencies among many of the poor and uneducated? Clearly there is some justification to the conclusion of Seymour Martin Lipset and others that there exists in lower strata a general psychological predisposition to hostility and intolerance, which is often vented upon Communists and suspected Communists...
THAT STIMULUS must come from those sectors which support interventionist policies--namely, as the Modigliani study confirms, the upper socio-economic strata. Members of these classes, who generally have an economic, ideological, or psychological stake in American expansion, know fully well that this expansion cannot be sustained without mass support or at least mass acquiescence. It serves their manifold interests to paint for the benefit of the public a picture of Communism which is as menacing as possible, in order to defend and justify all kinds of American overseas forays...
...know, however, through studies such as Modigliani's that these manipulative efforts--which work through the media, schools, and churches--are only partially successful. Anti-Communism is deeply etched, but support for military engagement is not. The psychology of the lower socio-economic strata can be bent toward an irrational abhorrence of Communism in all its forms, but not toward a systematic, purposeful policy to combat...