Working-class authoritarianism conflicts with fascism’s lower-middle-class narrative

Evidence

It is easy to imagine a reconciliation of the two aspects of SES that seem to engender authoritarianism. Perhaps the feeling of marginality is the critical factor but feelings of marginality may be especially likely to arise at the lower end of the SES scale, among the working class. The latter part of this reconciliation does not sit well with the liberal intellectual since fascism is supposed to be a movement of the lower middle class rather than of the proletariat. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 640

Categorization

• XREF: Resonates with the class-based theories of fascism (e.g., Marxist accounts) and later debates over authoritarian working-class politics. — connects to: Bourgeois class behavior explains the subjective key to fascism — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1421; Authoritarian workers could transfer loyalty from socialism to Nazism — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 712; Contemporary right-wing populist followings lack the mass organization fascism required — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 32
• QUESTION: The empirical link between working-class status and ethnocentrism directly challenges the received fascism-is-petit-bourgeois narrative — worth chasing the data.