TRAITORS OF THE CLASS

I have always wondered why “Progressive” movements are often occupied by people from the intellectual middle class and the supporters of the Right of Center ideology are often low-income workers. I had an “Aha!” moment when I read the report of a research done by an economist Thomas Piketty. It is about “Who voted for whom?” It shows that in the 1970’s majority of highest earning and well educated voters in the most of the western countries supported right of centre political party candidates like Christian Democrats in Germany, and Conservatives in the U.K., and Republicans in the U.S.A. Meanwhile, the lower earning and the people of lower income and lower education level, workers and laborers, voted for the left of center parties like the Democratic Pary in the U.S., the New Democratic Party in Canada, Labour Party in the U.K., and Social Democratic parties in Germany.

Forty years later in 2010 however, the same researcher found the rich stayed with the Right of Centre parties, but the well educated among them e.g. holders of graduate degrees have switched their support to the centre left parties. As for the less educated and the lower income earners, they have switched their support to the Right of Centre parties. They include farmers and laborers. They are the core supporters of the populist right-wing causes like Donald Trump and Brexit. Picketty calls the wealthy business class who remained with the Right of Centre parties, “Merchants Right,” and the educated who moved to the left, “Brahmins Left.” What happened during those forty years? The report does not say.

My guess as an amateur observer is that the “Brahmin Left” felt betrayed by the “Merchant Right.” The economic meltdown of 2008 had confirmed the suspicion that market is amoral. The banks exploited the gullible lower income public with products like sub-prime mortgage. Banks failed but were bailed out by the government because they were “too big to fail.” Meanwhile the average income earners lost their homes, pensions, and life savings. Even the Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, was appalled by the recklessness and amoral behaviours of the financial sector. “Merchant Right” chose profit rather than fairness. Nevertheless, the middle class youths who joined hippies and anti-war movements safely remained Middle Class.

I have a difficulty guessing what happened to the lower income and less educated masses who became Trump supporters and those voted for the Alberta’s United Conservative Party. It is possible that they have never embrased left-wing ideology. Their aspiration could always have been to join the rank of the rich. They might have felt betrayed when they lost the jobs and homes while the elitist Brahmin Left remained comfortably middle class in academia or in government bureaucracy. They might have concluded that the educated Left are hypocrites and traitors to their tribe.

As for those in the agricultural sector who had joined the Commonwealth Cooperative Federation (CCF) during the depression and the 1940’s in Canada, with the shift from small scale family farms to capital intensive mechanized big business, they joined the “Merchant Right.” If both Left and Right want to take back the lost ground, the Left must learn to talk to those who work with sweat and blood; and the Right must learn the way to appeal to the people who think.