Are there classes in Sweden today? For many journalists and participants in the public debate, the answer seems to be an obvious “no.” Classes were something that belonged to the old industrial society; in a modern service-based knowledge society, there can certainly be no talk of classes, right? Perhaps of people who are better or worse educated? For most researchers in the social sciences, the answer is just as obviously “yes.” That is because for us, class is not a question of whether a person works with making things or produces service; nor is it about their education, but rather about what position a person has in society’s division of labour.

But that is where our consensus ends. Social scientific terms are often disputed. Moreover, debates on current issues and political discussions are continuously “leaking” into social science research, threatening to transform the meaning of these terms. Class is no exception – rather, it is among one of the most hotly debated terms – and there are a number of different ways to use the word.

One meaning of class is that it is a kind of overarching term for all of society’s material inequalities. This way of using the term class has probably been most common in American social science research. Prominent researchers who use the term this way include Stanford sociologist David Grusky and NYU sociologist Dalton Conley. Conley argues self-deprecatingly that this may turn the notion of class into a kitchen-sink concept, but he thinks that there are good reasons to use the term precisely in this way. The advantage is that one winds up close to the common use of the word: when people in general talk about “class,” that is probably what they mean. Grusky adds to this, noting that by using the term class this way, interesting questions are raised about what kind of categorisations and divisions best capture class: is it through a narrow division of occupations, or by measuring people’s life-time incomes or their level of education that we can best capture the structure of inequality in society?

Other researchers, like the Oxford sociologist John Goldthorpe, argue that this way of using the word class is far too comprehensive and imprecise. For Goldthorpe and the many researchers who have adopted his position, class means something more specific. It is a term for the employment relations that characterise various positions in the division of labour markets. Occupations and work tasks differ, in terms of how specific the knowledge and skills needed are and how difficult they are for a person to attain in order to carry out the tasks, as well as in terms of how easy or difficult it is to determine their content and supervise all the details. Occupations and work tasks that do not require specialist skills and are easy to supervise every detail of are found in the working class.

Occupations and work tasks that require advanced specialist knowledge and can only be performed after years of university studies, and are moreover difficult to supervise the details of, are found in the service class. Working class occupations typically involve fewer career opportunities, and pay is given for specific efforts (like piece-work rates or hourly wages). Service class occupations tend instead to have built-in career paths and a pay system determined by long-term performance.

The British sociologist John Scott largely accepts Goldthorpe’s concept of class but argues that, in order for us to talk about classes, groups with similar employment relations must also be social categories. It is only if people have many friends or marry people with similar employment relations, for instance, that we can talk about classes.

Scott’s position is a kind of middle course between Goldthorpe’s “minimalist” definition of class and more “communitarian” definitions. Those who favour the second sense believe that class is a subjective concept: people who see themselves as part of a common group with common interests regarding material well-being are a class. If they do not share interests and identities, they are not a class. Class is something that people do together, not something that researchers or others can ascribe to the group.

Despite the rather broadly varying meanings given to class, there is still a shared core. Class relations are based on the division of labour and material conditions; class is about what we do or have access to for a livelihood. So it is not meaningful to call immigrants or women or young people, for instance, “classes.” However, it is interesting to consider how ethnicity, sex and age interact with class relations.

How class relations are structured and what significance they have for the rest of society and for people’s living conditions depend on the political contexts that, so to speak, embed class relations. Political contexts involve how institutions in society function and how political parties and other organised interests argue and act. There is an interesting paradox here. The countries that are most equal, that is, where actual class differences in terms of income, educational choices, labour relations and health are smallest, are at the same time the ones where class differences in views and voting are greatest. That is because they are also countries where the distribution processes have been politicised most and where people talk most about distribution issues in politics. Then there is a greater chance of people seeing themselves as members of a class collective with similar interests and values, and then class differences in views and values increase.

Such class differences in views are often expressed as differences in class voting patterns. But what does the relation between class, politics and voting really look like? Politics is essentially about what kind of society we want to have. Sometimes this is described as a question of whether we are in favour of freedom or equality. Yet in actuality, equality and freedom refer to two distinct, fundamental dimensions in society and politics.

In the social sciences, people have long analysed what these two dimensions mean with regard to attitudes and political action. The dimensions have been given various names. Sometimes there is talk of the “socio-economic” and “socio-cultural” dimension, sometimes the “capitalist-socialist” and “libertarian-authoritarian” dimension or the “distribution” and “conformism” dimension.

In general, however, these are considered purely semantic differences. People mean basically the same thing and identify basically the same kind of issues as being central in the different dimensions. In the first dimension, equality is the fundamental value. At one end, we find those who think that an equal distribution is the good and fair one. They thus want a policy that distributes and redistributes money and other benefits to as great an extent as possible so that everyone gets the same amount. At the other end, we find those who believe that people’s different talents, efforts and other achievements should result in some getting a lot and some a little. Inequality here is seen as fair because it reflects the value of the efforts we have made in different respects.

In the second dimension, where the value being fought over is freedom, the ends are different. At one end, we find those who think that everyone has a right to live the way they want; there are no given values that say one way of living is better or finer than another. At the other end, we find those who think that authority – regardless of whether it is to be found with God, tradition, conventions or simply the majority – determines what is a good or acceptable way of living.

There are in all likelihood very few people found at either end of these dimensions. Few people want everyone to have exactly the same amount as everyone else, regardless of whether a person has worked hard or what a person actually wants, just as few people no doubt want every (dis)ability – including handicaps at birth – to have an impact on how the good of society is distributed. In actuality, few are willing to accept every lifestyle and way of living as equally valuable, just as few believe that authority and tradition should exclude all individual choice and variation in terms of how a person lives. But as people, or political actors, we still tend toward one end or the other in our values and our actions.

It has often been taken for granted that workers (manual labourers) are to the left in politics. And that is also true if we consider the first political dimension. To a greater extent than white collar workers and entrepreneurs, manual labourers tend to advocate narrow differences in wages, political control rather than free markets, and state redistribution of wealth, and in general terms see what is equal as being what is fair. But if we consider the other political dimension, it becomes more complicated. That is because workers also tend to be more sceptical about or hostile to gays and lesbians, immigrants and other minority groups. They have a more repressive approach to criminals and others who break norms and on the whole assign greater value to being “normal” than white collar workers do. Manual labourers are thus to the right here – or what one traditionally has considered “right” in this dimension.

It also seems as though there are largely different mechanisms that create these class differences in both dimensions. In the first dimension, it is mainly the weak market position of manual labourers, where there are discernible risks of unemployment, work injuries and problems maintaining a livelihood, which create support for equality. This does not necessarily mean that people think purely in selfish terms: concern about those seen as one’s equals is probably also a fairly important factor. In the second dimension, it is mainly the issue of higher education and more generally access to what is usually called “cultural capital” that determine class patterns. Those who have little education and no interest in high culture are the ones who are authoritarian/conformist, and because these people are overrepresented in the working class, this class accordingly becomes more “rightist” in this dimension than other classes.

Depending on which of the two dimensions is dominant in politics, it is possible to find vastly different ways in which class and politics are linked. To grossly simplify: where politics is dominated by questions of equality and wealth distribution, manual workers vote for the left; where it is dominated by moral and lifestyle issues, they vote for the right. Sweden, in a way that is unparalleled, has been completely dominated by the first dimension, to such an extent that these issues have come to define the left-right dimension. It has only been in recent years that the second dimension has even appeared on the agenda, and it is still secondary compared to the first. Manual labourers still vote for the left to a larger extent than white collar workers do.

So even though Sweden has been and still is dominated by “socio-economic” left-right issues, where wealth distribution is key, there is a great deal suggesting that the “socio-cultural” dimension has increased in importance. If one studies the Social Democrats’ party platform to see how they emphasise these two dimensions, one sees that there has been a long but steady shift to the middle in the distribution dimension ever since the 1970s. Alongside this, there has also been somewhat greater emphasis on socio-cultural issues, even though the platform is still dominated by socio-economic issues.

It should be added that the Conservatives under Reinfeldt as party leader and prior to the last election made a sharp turn to the left on distribution issues and have now approached the middle from the other end of the political spectrum. The distance between the two parties in their rhetorical appeals and programme proposals has thus narrowed considerably in the socio-economic dimension.

For voters, it is thus becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between the parties based on their positions in the socio-economic dimension, that is, what has traditionally been considered the left-right dimension. All the parties are stepping on each other’s toes in the fight for voters in the middle. In order to still make a choice, people are being forced more and more to look at other issues besides distribution issues: what do the parties think about immigration, crime, feminism, the EU?

That in turn increases the incentive for parties to raise their profile in this dimension, becoming a little tougher on crime, a little tougher (or more generous) on refugees, or taking a position for or against citizenship tests for immigrants, gay marriage, school discipline or any of the many issues that could possibly turn up in the socio-cultural dimension. If the shift from socio-economic to socio-cultural issues picks up enough speed, the political debate will gradually be less and less about issues of wealth distribution and more and more about recognising or censuring minorities, lifestyles, moral views, belonging and exclusion.

This is the political reality today in many countries in continental European, as well as Denmark and Norway. Here, workers frequently vote for the right, albeit not the market-liberal but the right-populist ones. What has spared Sweden so far is the lack of a credible rightist-populist alternative – but for how much longer?

The relation between class and politics is thus determined to a large extent by how policies are formulated and implemented. Those who do not think that rightist-populist success in politics is desirable have reason to ask how this can be fought. One strategy that has been tested but does not work is to be almost as rightist-populist as the rightist-populists. According to this essentially flawed idea, one can pull the rug out from under rightist-populism by taking its issues and adopting its perspective as one’s own. Apart from the fact that this produces a politics that should be loathsome to any democratic party worthy of the name, it does not work in purely tactical terms either. One instead helps to legitimise parties on the extreme right – and why choose a pale copy when one can get the original in full colour? People have attempted to beat rightist-populism on its own turf in France, the Netherlands and Denmark. They have failed – even though they have achieved short-term electoral success in exploiting rightist-populist issues.

While no established party in Sweden has even come near to taking over the rightist-populist perspective as its own, one can still see that the temptation of authoritarianism lies close at hand. That is because setting demands is often popular – especially when those demands are levelled at someone else. A political shift can be seen especially in the Swedish Liberal Party’s arguments in favour of a harder line against criminals, a language test for immigrants and more discipline in schools, which clearly position the party as a “party of demands and discipline” – undoubtedly a delicate change in position for a liberal party.

A similar shift can be discerned with the Swedish Conservatives, where the party’s once pronounced neoliberalism has given way to catchphrases like responsibility and providing for oneself and where the fight against social welfare cheats has become a defining issue. This approach of setting demands can easily win support deep in the Social Democrats’ base, especially if the Social Democrats are seen as being unclear on wealth distribution issues. At the same time, it paves the way for a socio-cultural shift that leaves more room for a more open and brutal rightist-populism. All that is left is to give the welfare cheat or unruly pupil an ethnic profile.

A much more appealing strategy, but one that does not really work either, has been to join the battle on socio-cultural issues. On with the fight for GLBTs and multiculturalism, down with repression and normalisation – meet the new right on its own territory. In some parts of the Swedish left, these are the issues people are passionate about. But once again, one is playing on the opponent’s terms. Counter-mobilisation, in fact, helps to turn politics even further away from socio-economic issues, which creates more room for rightist-populist parties.

So for anyone who wants to prevent the success of the rightist-populists, the key is still in the distribution issues of the socio-economic dimension. Equality, the welfare state and full employment have strong support among Swedes. Fifty years of successful levelling policies has left patterns of attitudes in the population based on equality. The Conservatives have now realised this and adapted. Quite rightly, they were rewarded for their flexibility with an electoral victory.

New oppositions in distribution issues are exactly what Sweden needs – then the polarisation in the socio-economic dimension is preserved, and socio-cultural issues will once again take more of a backseat position. Politics may become a bit grey and compromise-oriented but – be honest – do we really want exciting politics? Where the tone is shrill, where politics is about exclusion in life and death, where hatred and contempt are key driving forces? Citizens of countries that have had really exciting politics would probably say no.