Picture the scene: it’s 1990 and you’re in a British pub. Over your shoulder, you hear someone telling a racially insensitive joke to their friend. A moment later, that friend gloats about the lengthy sentence recently handed down to a local youth for possession of cannabis. The third member of their party then says they wish Britain still had the death penalty.
Listening to their conversation, it would be easy to gauge their social values. But working out how much they earn would be significantly harder: 30 years ago, the British Social Attitudes Survey reveals virtually no difference in average earnings between social conservatives and progressives, authoritarians and libertarians.
Today, however, the task would be much easier. By my calculations, in 2019, Britons with xenophobic leanings earned around a third less than peers with liberal views on race, traditionalists earned half as much as liberals, and proponents of the death penalty earned half as much those who supported continued abolition.