Rethinking “post-materialistic” values

A critic of Inglehart's theory

Abstract

In his well-known thesis of post-materialism, Ronald Inglehart offers a theory to explain opinion cleavage and political action in modern industrialized democracies. Inglehart has applied the thesis to value change as it affect voting choice and new social movements in Western democracies. While others have considered it in Japan. Since 1971, Inglehart has offered substantial, if sometimes conditional empirical evidence from Western countries in support of a post-materialist phenomenon. But some scholars have challenged the theory on empilical and theoretical grounds. The object of this paper is to summarize the critical arguments and then to condisider whether the theory of Inglehart still works well for or not.