Why the right is eating the left s lunch – spiked
The Western world is experiencing the most dramatic political realignment since the rise of socialism over a century ago. The driving force then was the rise of the working class, created by the Industrial Revolution. Today, it is the shift to an economy dominated by information industries, technology, finance and media. This new economic order, just like that which arose a century ago, is creating a highly disruptive political dynamic and a shift in historic class allegiances.
The tech platforms, the financial giants and retail mega-corporations have formed a new economic oligarchy. In 2023, six of the world s eight most-valued companies were tech firms. Apple, which sits at the top of the list, became the first $3 trillion company last year. It has a market valuation just below the GDP of India and the UK, and larger than that of Italy, Russia or Canada.
The oligarchs tend to back the so-called progressive agenda on issues like climate change, culture and immigration. Yet, unlike the progressives of old, they they have little interest in achieving greater income equality or spreading prosperity more widely, as they have become the primary beneficiaries of an increasingly feudalised economy.
The oligarchic agenda also draws support from a portion of the middle and upper-middle classes those who either service the oligarchs in law or media, or who benefit from expanding government regulations and programmes. Indeed, under US president Joe Biden, most employment growth is now concentrated in government and in largely state-funded healthcare. Biden has also granted government apparatchiks their largest salary raises in half a century.
Joel Kotkin.
I generally agree with Kotkin’s analysis. I don’t quite see how the emerging democratic (small “D”) majority can fight back, except through the creaky and corrupt political institutions we still have. And prayer, of course. There’s always prayer.