Anurag’s Reviews > Relative deprivation and social justice: A study of attitudes to social inequality in twentieth-century England, > Status Update

Comparative reference groups are not chosen in accordance with the facts of inequality.

They confirms the finding that self-reported middle-class identity (self-rating) is tied with the support for the Conservative party.

Runciman warns that social attitudes to inequality cannot be claimed to be caused by the choice of a normative reference group.

The survey relies on asking consumers to suggest what they would mean by people like themselves.

Runciman considers the manual/non-manual distinction relevant in the context of England.

One cannot after all ask the consumer what her comparative, normative and membership reference groups are.

Runciman argues that the role of subjective evaluation of one's prospects may be disregarded in the way assignment to a class is recorded in the surveys.

Weber/Marx consider class-identity as the reference group - not pertaining to the social identity - but in a means-of-production sense.