Self-Employed Manual Workers:

This national study investigates whether self-employed manual work-ers foren an economic class and status group that is recognizably distinct from manual employees and whether the distinctions have political consequences. The findings show that manual proprietors area higher status group and earn demonstrably more than employees. Though political cleavages between pro-prietors and employees are small, along with other factors they may be large enough to destabilize working-class political loyalties. Scholars have long held that the social heterogeneity of American manual workers hampers their political solidarity (Lipset; Sombart). Though Marx-ists have predicted that workers in mature capitalist societies will eventu-ally unite politically, this prediction rests more on hope than on precise knowledge of working-class divisions (Currie). My long-term objective is to examine economic and social divisions within the working class and then ascertain whether these divisions have political consequences