Class Politics and Status Politics
An excerpt from a classic text on the rise of Prohibition distinguishing class politics from the symbolic, expressive movements of status politics.
The following is an excerpt from sociologist Joseph R. Gusfield’s Symbolic Crusade, a book from 1963 about Prohibition in the United States. As Matt Karp and others have pointed out, our current juncture is not dissimilar to the Gilded Age—a confused political time that saw bitter partisan rivalry, class dealignment, and momentous culture wars, resultin…
