How the left lost the working class — and how it can win it back

In 2016 two major political events sent ripples through the West: the United Kingdom’s vote to exit the European Union and Donald Trump’s election to the presidency of the United States. Both were unexpected. They defied the polls and for many observers were beyond imaginable — until they happened. While they were distinct phenomena — a vote to leave a supranational union of countries and a presidential election — both represented a triumph of populist, nationalist far-right politics. As such, they meant not only a failure of traditional conservative right-wing politics, but a dismal failure of progressive left-wing politics. Left-wing politics was in crisis.

The crisis is not restricted to Anglo-American politics. Across Europe, populist and nationalist far-right parties and movements have been gaining ground for quite some time. Perhaps the most alarming is the rise of the National Front, now the third major political party in France. The candidate of the French Socialist Party, Benoît Hamon, is unlikely to make it to the second round of the presidential election in 2017, and the leader of the National Front, Marine Le Pen, has an outside chance of winning the presidency. In Germany, in the wake of the country’s intake of over a million Syrian refugees, a new far-right nationalist party, Alternative for Germany (AFD), has been successful in capitalising on discontent with big gains in state elections. This is telling for Germany, which since the Second World War had always prided itself on having no party in parliament farther to the right of the centre-right coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU).

Far-right populist or nationalist parties have similarly been successful elsewhere in Europe, and several now enjoy support that rivals that for mainstream left-wing parties. In the Netherlands, it is the Party for Freedom; in Sweden, the Sweden Democrats; in Finland, the Finns Party; in Denmark, the Danish People’s Party; in Greece, Golden Dawn. In Austria, the candidate for the far-right Freedom Party was only narrowly beaten by the Green Party candidate in a recent run-off for the presidency, from which the social-democratic party was excluded. In Italy, populist and nationalist parties Five-Star Movement and Liga Nord hijacked a referendum on constitutional reform, leading to the resignation of left-of-centre Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. In Poland and Hungary, power is already in the hands of xenophobic ultranationalist parties Law and Justice and Fidesz. And even in Australia, the nationalist party One Nation, once thought gone for good, has returned to parliament. It is perhaps only in Canada, with the recent election of and still significant public support for Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party, that mainstream left-wing politics appear alive and well in the West.

In the wake of Brexit and Trump, the left has responded with a combination of despair, anger, disgust, arrogance and rejection. Despair, because the unfathomable had happened and heralded dark times ahead. Anger, because party leaders had not done a good job of promoting the status quo. Disgust, because they no longer recognised their compatriots, labelled racists, xenophobes and bigots. Hillary Clinton’s concession speech was telling: ‘America is more deeply divided than we thought’. Arrogance, because Brexit and Trump voters were apparently ignorant of the benefits of the status quo: the economic gains of the EU single market, of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), of Obama’s health care, or of immigration in general. Trump’s supporters had been deluded and misinformed by the right-wing media, by fake news, by ‘echo chambers’ on Facebook. And rejection, in the US with the ‘Not my president’ protests, the vote recount and accusations of Russian meddling; in the UK, with the requirement approve the vote by parliament, the suggestion that it did not actually mean Brexit, or even proposals to redo the vote entirely.

Likely causes

Voting results and other data regarding the Brexit vote (1) and the Trump election(2) indicate that a particular demographic drove the upset in both cases: the working class,(3) in particular the white male working class. White working-class men deserted the Democratic Party in droves in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — states that had voted Democrat for decades. ‘Leave’ votes in the UK overwhelmingly came from less educated, low-income voters, and were particularly strong in northern England — formerly a working-class bastion of the ‘Remain’-vote backing Labour left. And yet such support was not observed in other demographics such as Hispanics, blacks or Asians, nor with women, or among educated middle- and upper-classes living in large cities, who predominantly voted for Clinton or for ‘Remain’.

In continental Europe, recent elections show a similar trend. Predominantly less educated working class men have turned to the National Front in large numbers in France.(4) Many of these had traditionally voted for the Socialist Party — or even parties further to the left — a prominent example being the coal mine workers of Calais in the north. Results of regional state elections in Germany and other data show that support for the AFD is similarly highest among working-class or unemployed men with low levels of education, many of whom had previously voted for the Social Democratic Party (SPD).(5)

What caused the working class to abandon the left with such impetus? In the case of Brexit and the Trump election, misinformation and incompetence of party leaders are partly to blame: misleading or dishonest information abounded in the run-up to both votes, whether it be on American jobs lost to China or the money sent to the EU that would instead be reinvested in the NHS; Clinton probably could have made a more convincing case for optimism about the direction the United States was heading; and Jeremy Corbyn probably could have made a stronger case for remaining in the EU. Further, some commentators have highlighted a ‘whitelash’ in the US: a backlash of some white working class voters seeking to re-establish the predominance of whites in power.

It would be amiss, though, to suggest that working class voters were entirely ignorant or misinformed by the media, or to reduce them to vengeful racists. Such factors are important, but they are eclipsed by a more fundamental long-term change: the slow disenfranchisement of the working class with left-wing politics. The mainstream left has morphed into something which the working class no longer feels represented by — it has left them behind.

I believe there are three main interconnected but distinct ways in which the mainstream left has evolved in the West in a way that has alienated itself from the working class, and in particular the white male working class. First, it has embraced the free-market ideology of neoliberalism. Second, it has failed to provide a convincing alternative narrative on immigration and diversity. And third, it has become a party of the elite transfixed by identity politics at the expense of broad societal progress. I will explore these three major changes with a focus mainly on the US and UK, combined with reference to developments in France, Germany, Australia and Canada to illustrate similarities and contrasts where relevant.

Embrace of neoliberalism

Neoliberalism is the doctrine that holds that government should not do anything that the market can do and that the market should be as unfettered as possible by regulation. In other words, it argues for a rebalancing away from the visible hand of government provision and regulation to the invisible hand of market processes, via deregulation, liberalisation and privatisation.(6) While the theory of neoliberalism had already gained traction prior to the 1980s — thanks to the works of Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman — it flourished in practice in the US and UK under Reagan and Thatcher. Implementation of the doctrine involved considerable income tax reductions, broad liberalisation of trade, sweeping deregulation of the economy, privatisation of state-owned industries, and the radical dismantling of trade unions.

Such policies disproportionately impacted the working class: stark increases in inequality, job loss from offshoring and the closure of factories, mines and plants, weaker political representation and wage stagnation. Despite this, after so many years out of power, and following the demise of the main ideological opposition to neoliberalism in the Soviet bloc, it became expedient for the Democratic Party and the Labour Party to reform, to ‘get with the times’, and move towards the centre. Tony Blair with New Labour and Bill Clinton, with his rising party faction the ‘New Democrats’, were elected on platforms that emulated the neoliberalism of Thatcher and Reagan, albeit with a more socially progressive agenda.

The Blairite and Clintonite new left thus did little to renounce the neoliberal policies that had harmed the working class. They were convinced of the merits of a more interconnected, interdependent and global economy. Free trade was seen as the best way to both further global peace and generate economic growth. Despite significant backlash from the working class that had voted him into power, Clinton signed NAFTA, America’s most substantial free trade agreement, heralding further displacement of manufacturing jobs to cheaper Mexico. Blair pursued ever closer economic integration of the UK in the EU’s single market, putting pressure on British industries, in particular manufacturing, to either become competitive or relocate. Both leaders sought to renew ties with business and continue the market deregulation of Thatcher and Reagan — in the US in particular with Clinton’s repealing of the Glass-Steagall Act separating commercial and investment banks — as well as the privatisation of national industries and services. Both portrayed globalisation, meaning ever-greater trade liberalisation and economic integration, as an inevitable and irreversible natural process from which all stood to gain. It was Thatcher’s ‘There Is No Alternative’ reborn and Francis Fukuyama’s ‘End of History’. And there was little angst that the working class would veer to the even more market fundamentalist right; as Clinton said, they had “nowhere else to go”.

When the financial crisis hit in 2008, some of the left declared the failure of neoliberalism and the end of the honeymoon. Kevin Rudd, then Australia’s prime minister and leader of the Labor Party, proclaimed the Washington Consensus over. In Obama’s inaugural address in 2009 he hinted that the age of neoliberalism might soon be at an end. Yet his administration largely continued to pursue the market globalist doctrine ingrained in the policies of the Bush administration. Discussions to lay the foundations for some of the deepest and most comprehensive free trade agreements, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the EU and Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with Pacific rim nations, were launched. The failings of unbridled deregulated markets were obvious, a groundswell of public outrage against the financial industry had emerged, and thousands of working class people out of a job demanded fairness and justice. But beyond brave words, the American and British left did little to change course. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Obama resisted demands for stronger global regulatory controls from French President Sarkozy and German Chancellor Merkel, instead preferring stimulus packages and modest reforms conferring no new enforcement powers.

With massive public opposition to Wall Street banks and Democratic control of both houses of government, a unique opportunity emerged to pass radical legislation to settle the score. Yet the Obama administration failed to initiate prosecution of Wall Street bankers.(7) In the UK, not one senior banker was put on trial for bank failure. In the years following the crisis, in which a wealthy elite recovered almost unscathed and the working class scraped to make ends meet, it became clear that the system was ‘rigged’.(8)

Continental Europe was largely spared emulations of Thatcherism and Reaganomics in the 1980s, so European social-democratic parties remained largely true to their traditions into the early 1990s. Yet by the turn of the century, consensus on the primacy of the market led the left of Western Europe to also adopt the neoliberal agenda. Notable examples include French Prime Ministers Pierre Beregovoy and Lionel Jospin, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi. The mainstream left joined the right in praising the economic advantages of a borderless EU for people, goods, services and capital. The number of bilateral free trade agreements between the EU and other countries multiplied. And the European left accepted the stringent market liberalisation requirements under the EU’s Lisbon Strategy and the continuous EU-driven demands for austerity in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Indeed by the late 2000s and early 2010s, the European left bore scarcely a different view on the market from the right. This is notably exemplified by the ‘Grand Coalition’ of the SPD and CDU in Germany. But we are also witnessing the ‘death of the left’ in France, with the Socialist Party, led by possibly the most unloved president in French history, François Hollande, teetering on the brink of irrelevance.

Failure to provide an alternative narrative on immigration and diversity

The left’s embrace of neoliberalism explains why the working class became broadly disaffected. But as to why white working-class men so acutely abandoned the left: other factors are at hand. One is the left’s failure to put forward an alternative narrative on migrants and diversity grounded in effective management of immigration and serious integration.

Its roots in the US and the UK again took hold during the Clinton and Blair years. In contrast to their neoconservative predecessors, the new left saw the economic and cultural benefits of immigration and diversity. Their support for immigration embodied a renunciation of the nationalistic tendencies of the Reagan and Thatcher era and a cosmopolitan worldview whereby people were as much citizens of the world as they were of their countries. This fitted well with the market globalist agenda of ever-closer interconnectedness and interdependency of countries.

Consequently, in the 1990s increasingly more South Asians turned to the UK, as did Poles in the 2000s, capitalising on the benefits of the EU single market. In the US ever more Mexicans emigrated north eager to earn the US minimum wage. A similar process occurred at various periods in France with North Africans and Germany with Turks. Yet the predominantly less skilled men entering the labour market put further pressure on men’s working-class jobs and wages, compounding the significant job loss from industrial relocation and offshoring precipitated by trade liberalisation.

Being predominantly of small means, immigrants settled into poorer urban neighbourhoods where rent was low. They thus competed directly with the native-born white working class for housing and employment. As new migrants flocked to areas with established networks, some neighbourhoods increasingly segregated along racial lines. When combined with high unemployment and lax integration efforts from government, a feeling of ‘them-and-us’ between migrant communities and the white working class was sown. White working class men perceived their jobs to be taken by immigrants willing to work longer for less; they perceived immigrants to be receiving better treatment — more welfare benefits or better access to housing; they perceived themselves to be outnumbered. And such perceptions were further fuelled by the right-wing media. It didn’t matter that the migrants had often fled much greater hardship; it didn’t matter that they often had a shared sense of deprivation and disempowerment. The notion of white male privilege was altogether alien to them — nonsensical as it was for someone who worked two minimum-wage jobs to scrape by. (9)

As animosity between the communities reached new heights, the far right’s core message that immigration was the cause of all social ills and had to be stopped was increasingly appealing. Yet it was taboo for the left to speak of immigration as something that should be managed. Educated middle- and upper-class cosmopolitans similarly praised the cultural and economic benefits of immigration — never mind that their skilled jobs were under no threat and their well-to-do neighbourhoods would see little upheaval. The left did little to rebut the right-wing media’s accusations of immigration’s negative impacts or to correct false perceptions of immigrants receiving better treatment, despite the growing body of evidence that immigrants contribute substantially more in taxes than they ‘take’ and that they are no more likely than native-borns to commit crime.(10) The white working class thus lost confidence that the left would be able or willing to manage the numbers of newcomers and became convinced that only the far right could do so.

Particularly in Western Europe, the left has done little in the way of proactive multiculturalist policies to integrate immigrants, despite clear signs of ghettoisation and clashes with white working-class communities. France’s Socialist Party has deviated little from the French Republican model of assimilationism that strictly enforces secularism (laïcité), in particular by banning headscarves and offering little recognition to ethnic minorities, thus contributing to cultural exclusion and alienation of Muslims in the troubled outer suburbs, the banlieues. In Germany, despite consistent demands from Turkish communities for greater moves toward multiculturalism, the SPD has not unconditionally supported a policy of ethnic pluralism. It has retained the ‘guest-worker’ thinking of the 1950s hindering the adoption of real multiculturalist policies, in particular by making it difficult to obtain German citizenship and still impossible to obtain dual German-Turkish citizenship. And the UK’s New Labour has often seen multiculturalism as the problem, rather than the solution, to inter-ethnic problems.

In the 2010s both UK Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that multiculturalism had ‘failed’. But serious multiculturalist policies, for example to combat ethnic disadvantage, to foster community cohesion, had never really been tried, particularly in Germany. Yet the left largely capitulated to the narrative of failed multiculturalism, and after the recent triumphs of the populists in Europe, in some countries it has even begun to appropriate the hardline message of the far right. The upshot is a left that is not only silent on managing immigration and on its benefits, but also that offers scarcely much different in the way of integration policy. It is no wonder, then, that the narrative of the far right — that immigrants are the main cause of the people’s ills — has been so successful in swaying large proportions of the native-born white working class.(11)

Abandonment of broad societal progress in favour of an elitist identity politics

The other factor that has caused the disenfranchisement of the working class, and especially white men, is the left’s abandonment of the cause of broad societal progress, particularly with regard to reducing socioeconomic inequality and redressing the power imbalances between the haves and the have-nots. An elitist focus on identity politics, i.e. a politics of catering to the interests of specific social demographics rather than to society as a whole, has emerged in its place.

Again, the roots of this change in the UK and the US can be seen in the Blairite and Clintonite new left agenda. In line with the ‘Third Way’, Blair promised an end to the traditional politics of class warfare and Clinton signalled the end of the ‘era of big government’. It was not only that jettisoning the class struggle was politically expedient following the collapse of the Soviet Union, but that under the neoliberal model social class did not exist. Everyone had a fighting chance of making it by their own efforts in the market. Failure to succeed was not the fault of the state or the market, but the individual. The state had thus exonerated itself of responsibility for citizens’ failure to rise up the social ladder. Both Blair and Clinton overhauled existing welfare systems into ‘welfare-to-work’ or ‘workfare’ systems. They did little to revive the trade unions dismantled by Thatcher and Reagan. In essence, both leaders helped consolidate, rather than fight, existing structures of inequality. The new left had gobbled up the lies that were Thatcher’s ‘There is no such thing as society’; ‘meritocracy’ — that everyone got what they deserved; and the American Dream — that everyone could succeed if they tried hard enough. Similar changes to the left occurred elsewhere in the West: a case in point is Germany under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s sweeping Agenda 2010 reforms, whose cuts in the welfare state alienated many traditional SPD voters.

Little progress was thus made under left-wing governments of the West in reversing the trend of rising inequality, dispossession and disempowerment of the working class. In the US, for example, real wages have been relatively stagnant for over thirty years despite large increases in GDP and productivity.(12) And real wages in manufacturing in several countries have declined.(13) The many white working-class men who once had lifelong jobs in manufacturing paying enough to support their families were hardest hit. And while the Democrats under Obama enacted some policies that went against the neoliberal grain — the Affordable Care Act, raising the minimum wage — these were aimed at the poor, not the working class.(14) Likewise, while Obama stated that inequality was ‘the defining challenge of our time’, he did very little to actually combat it.(15)

A change in the leaders and party representatives of the left undergirded the change in policy focus. They no longer came from the working class. Instead they were a highly educated elite professional class, fixated on power and overcome by technocracy and the lure of ‘governance’. The Clinton dynasty went to Yale law school and myriad Harvard law graduates filled the Obama administration. Blair went to posh Fettes College and Oxford and spoke in an upper-class accent. And in France, Sciences Po and Ecole Nationale d’Administration graduates swelled the ranks of the Socialist Party, François Hollande and Ségolène Royal being prime examples.(16) As an expression of the elitism one need look no further than Hillary Clinton’s demonisation of Trump’s supporters, who belonged ‘in a basket of deplorables’. In Australia, in insisting that voters ‘got it wrong’ in the 1996 election that ousted Labor from power for ten years, and that what voters continue to want today is an ‘open, competitive, cosmopolitan’ country, former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating showed a profound misunderstanding of the ordinary Australian.

With the notion of social class banished, failure to succeed the exclusive fault of the individual, and elitist leaders far removed from the common man, the new left instead took to identity politics and championed the cause of marginalised groups. It combated discrimination, whether in terms of race, sex, nationality, sexual orientation, disability or consumer vulnerability. This fitted nicely with the ideology of neoliberalism and cosmopolitanism, as it meant supporting everyone’s right to participate in the global borderless market on equal footing. And, especially in the US, it took sides in the battle of ‘values’: pro-choice, anti-gun, pro-climate change and anti-creationist.

But it was if the left had surrendered the great war, instead resorting to skirmishes and consensus-building, forgetting that redressing power imbalances and fighting broad socioeconomic inequality would also serve the cause of the marginalised. Hillary Clinton’s concession speech was telling in that it was not the likely widening of the cleft between the rich and poor under Trump that she found so terrible, but that the American electorate had failed to select its first female president, that the toughest glass ceiling of all had not been broken. Similarly, it seems likely that the Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal’s loss to Nicolas Sarkozy in the French presidential election of 2007 was in part due to a much more visible image of an upper-middle-class woman with an elite education standing for the rights of other upper- and middle-class women as opposed to broader society.

The left had thus transformed itself from a party of the people into an elite, professional, technocratic, self-serving and self-satisfied party of the marginalised. The white, male working class perceived that the left had abandoned them in favour of marginalised minorities. Not only was the notion of working class losing its meaning, but other social entities had gained in prominence: there was ‘affirmative action’ for blacks and Hispanics, preferential right to housing for refugees, quotas for representation in parliament or on boards of directors for women, equal rights to marriage for gays and lesbians. They perceived that that the left had betrayed them, that marginalised groups were receiving better treatment. They were nostalgic about the days of good secure jobs, when they were what mattered to the left. They perceived that they had lost the standard of living, the status, the power they once had. It didn’t matter that such marginalised groups had suffered decades or even centuries of discrimination and hardship, or that the left was trying to right some of the great wrongs of the past. From their perspective, they were being discriminated against, they were unjustly treated — in essence, they were the new minority.(17)

Potential solutions

Legitimisation of working-class concerns

The left’s transformation has not only led the working class astray, but has also laid the groundwork for the far right to exploit their plight. The relative importance of factors pushing the working class to far-right parties differs from country to country. Exit polls indicated concerns about economic insecurity and job loss may have been the most important factors driving Trump supporters,(18) whereas concerns about immigration mainly drove supporters of Brexit and far-right parties in Europe.(19) This is congruent with US cultural identity being built on immigration, while European cultural identity is more ingrained in longstanding traditions and ethnicity. This also fits with the more comprehensive social welfare systems and safety nets in Europe that would mitigate negative impacts of globalisation and restrain inequality, as opposed to more precarious labour markets in the US. So the left’s embrace of neoliberalism probably played a more prominent role in the disenfranchisement of the working class in the US, whereas its failure to produce a convincing alternative narrative on immigration and diversity was more critical in Europe. The third factor though — a left-wing elite’s abandonment of broad societal progress in favour of marginalised groups — has played a decisive role in working class disenfranchisement across much of the West.

The rise of the far right is not new: already in the late 1990s and early 2000s far-right populist and nationalist parties had started to gain prominence in the West, exploiting the anxieties of the disaffected white working class and filling part of the political vacuum that the left had opened up. Examples include Pat Buchanan or the Tea Party in the US; the British National Party and UKIP in the UK; the National Front and Jean-Marie Le Pen’s breakthrough into the second round of the French presidential election in 2002; Jorg Haider of the Freedom Party in Austria; and Pauline Hanson of the One Nation Party in Australia.

At times the far right’s analysis of the causes of the working class’ ills has not been far amiss. For example, they are right that the excesses of globalisation has displaced working-class jobs. They are right that not all should have an unconditional right to immigrate to a country, particularly if this might negatively affect the welfare of its citizens. They are right that working-class communities have been destabilised by rapid change in their ethnic makeup. They are right that established elites have shaped policies at the national, supranational and intergovernmental levels in ways that have benefited the upper echelons of society over the working class. However their supposed ‘solutions’ — the re-establishment of borders and barriers to trade, the deportation or banning of immigrants, the exiting of supranational agreements or intergovernmental institutions — are either unrealistic, counterproductive or downright immoral.

Yet I do not believe it is chiefly on account of these policies that they have attracted the working class so readily. Ignorance, bigotry, xenophobia and a lack of compassion do exist within small pockets of the West’s working classes but these characteristics can be observed across the entire social strata and are not shared by most disenfranchised constituents. That a significant proportion of white working class people who voted for Trump also voted for Obama in 2012 and 2008 is a testament to this.(20) Indeed to think that all Trump, Brexit, or Le Pen voters are bigoted is itself a mark of bigotry. Yet the new left is wont to think and act so. Working class people who perceive better treatment of immigrants or refugees tend to be labelled by the left as racists or idiots, thus negating the substance of their arguments in one fell swoop. In essence, the ‘racist’ label has become a convenient way of artificially dismissing the problem and preventing further inquiry.

But it is this attitude that has played the working class further into the hands of the far right. Indeed it is the fact that the far right has listened to the working class and legitimised its concerns that is key. It has been there to say ‘we have heard you, we have understood you, and you are right to be angry’ where no other party has, and especially not the mainstream left. This is what first and foremost propelled Trump to the presidency and what caused the groundswell of support for the ‘Leave’ campaign. To most working-class Trump voters it didn’t matter that Trump’s policy platform was incoherent and that he would not actually ‘make America great again’ but instead make it worse off. It didn’t matter to most ‘Leave’ voters that simply exiting the European Union would be unlikely to address their woes and instead act to the country’s detriment. The point was that Trump and the ‘Leave’ campaign had listened to the working class, confirmed their right to be angry and provided a channel for their resentment.

So there is hope for the left to make headway towards healing the rift with the working class and regaining its traditional base. The working class may well have perceptions of injustice, but addressing them — regardless of their legitimacy— is a second step. The first step is to listen and legitimise their concerns. Doing so is a political act, not a policy act. Because to dismiss their concerns outright as illegitimate serves only to drive the working class further to the far right.

This does not, however, mean to go so far as to legitimise some of their views. Extremist views embedded in xenophobia and racism, for example, do not need to be normalised as reasonable stances and should always be rejected. But for those who harbour such views, the democratic right and fundamentally human need to be heard has to be acknowledged. This is particularly the case once we accept that such views may have come about as a result of the far right’s populist exploitation of anxieties and the undue influence of right-wing media. Accordingly, legitimising working-class concerns can be supported not only on political grounds but also on the democratic and humanist grounds of acknowledging working-class people as citizens and legitimate members of society.

Disavowal of neoliberalism and managing the impacts of globalisation

The more substantial step to take is to act against the main factors that have disenfranchised the working class from the left, while avoiding the pitfalls of populist demagoguery and remaining true to core left-wing values. First, this means disavowing the neoliberal consensus and its blind faith in market globalism and adopting a more critical view on trade policy. It means acknowledging that globalisation is not a force beyond our control, that it may have gone too far in some areas, and that it does not only create winners but many losers.

It is important, however, to avoid a populist narrative of the far right (and often far left) according to which multinational corporations of the global economy are the source of all the woes of the working class. Trade liberalisation and economic integration have brought undeniable economic benefits for consumers in terms of access to cheaper or more innovative goods and services as a result of countries’ complementary comparative advantage. They have also been major drivers of development in emerging markets, with foreign direct investment lifting millions out of poverty. And they have maintained and furthered ties between nations — a key example being the EU single market. A return to a world of high tariffs and quotas where most goods and services are produced nationally, as some on the far right would have it, would be destructive to global consumer welfare, global development and world peace. Moreover, evidence indicates that in the US the impact of trade liberalisation on traditionally working-class jobs, for example in manufacturing, is of a significantly lower order of magnitude than the impact of technological change (e.g. automation).(21) The left therefore needs to more vociferously voice the advantages of trade and economic integration to the working class, while better communicating evidence of the impacts of technological change versus trade liberalisation.

Yet a key problem with trade liberalisation and technological innovation is that while the gains are spread across the population, the losses are disproportionately concentrated on a small number of workers. Clearly many working-class jobs in the West have disappeared as a result of trade liberalisation and economic integration — NAFTA and China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation being prominent examples in relation to the US.(22) As Western consumer society is increasingly flooded with cheap goods, the working class likely places higher value on jobs that sustain their communities. Trade liberalisation has also contributed to exploitation of workers and environmental degradation in developing countries. And there is already a groundswell of public antipathy towards major trade agreements on the basis of social or environmental concerns — for example in Germany concerning TTIP. So there is good evidence to suggest not only that support for ever more trade liberalisation and economic integration among the working class is waning, but that the tide of public support is turning. The impacts of existing and planned trade agreements should therefore be subject to assessment that reflects distributional concerns and what matters most to the public, including the working class. This could well involve reconsidering the scope of existing trade agreements and possibly protectionist measures in some cases for limited adjustment periods, if these allow distributional impacts to be better managed.(23)

Nonetheless, often the gains of trade will be so large that there is no sense in shielding national firms from more specialised and efficient foreign ones or in preventing offshoring to countries where it can be done more efficiently. Technological innovation, which knows no borders, is now so swift that many manufacturing jobs will soon be obsolete, as well as more routine office jobs. There would have been no sense, for example, in maintaining the use of typewriters once more efficient personal computers were invented and ready for import, just as there is no sense now in maintaining — or, worse, trying to ‘bring back’ — coal mining or car manufacturing jobs when cleaner energy and automated cars are set to become increasingly prevalent in years to come.

Yet it is working-class jobs, particularly in manufacturing, that are disproportionately affected by this combination of comparative advantage and technological innovation. Economists, who almost unanimously support free trade, generally find that an appropriate remedy for those who lose out from trade liberalisation is to redistribute some of the overall gains to them. So the left should not oppose the job loss, but rather acknowledge that those whose jobs have been rendered comparatively less efficient or obsolete are, through no fault of their own, the unfortunate losers of globalisation. Second, it should advocate compensating them via tax transfers, such as targeted unemployment benefits, as well as training programs to reinsert them in the job market. Third, it should consider more systemic approaches to dealing with job loss arising from globalisation or technological innovation, such as a universal basic income or job guarantee program. Such are ideas that have gained significant currency in policy circles and governments of the West as of late.(24)

Inspiration for this approach can be seen in Justin Trudeau’s recently elected liberal government in Canada. It has emphasised the need to make globalisation work for society. It has underlined the importance of communication in conveying the benefits of trade to the public. It has also re-established the importance of domestic policy over multilateralism in trade policy — in particular in terms of considering the impacts of trade on the middle and working class, compensating globalisation losers, and maintaining the right to regulate on labour laws. Further, the Liberal Party government of Ontario aims to roll out a pilot for a universal basic income program in three cities in 2017.

Management of immigration combined with serious integration policies

Next, the left needs to manage immigration, and be seen to be doing so, while communicating its benefits and adopting serious integration policies. For too long the left has abdicated from the duty to deal with immigration head-on.

As with trade liberalisation, false perceptions about immigration must be corrected. This involves effectively communicating its very real benefits. The myth propagated by the right-wing media of the immigrant scrounging welfare benefits, taking jobs from native-borns or taking to crime needs to be wholly discredited. The left must communicate the evidence that immigrants are hard-working and law-abiding, that they pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits or transfers, that they — in contrast to popular belief — often have a positive effect on the number of jobs available and related wage levels, and even improve trade opportunities with the countries from which they come.(25) The cultural benefits of immigration and diversity, such as contributions to the arts or national cuisines, are even more compelling. At the same time the left should adapt the way it speaks to working-class voters on immigration to appeal to their sense of patriotism and national identity — in the US, for instance, by emphasising immigrants’ desire to be part of the American Dream.(26)

Still, abstract benefits will be little consolation to the sense that local immigrants are ‘getting a better deal’ than native-borns or outnumbering the local white working-class community and causing a loss of cultural identity. Where perceptions are false they should be vigorously challenged through effective communication. But to assume that immigration has no downsides is wrong. Indeed the impacts of immigration are similar to those of trade liberalisation in that the gains are spread across society, but the downsides concentrated on a small number of people. So it is arrogant of the left to suggest that rapid changes in the racial and cultural demographics of working-class neighbourhoods should not be unsettling (particularly if their own, wealthier neighbourhoods are not similarly destabilised). It is also wrong to suggest that cultural and national identity is not to some extent affected by immigration. National and cultural identity plays an important role in sustaining working-class people’s sense of pride — in contrast to middle and upper classes where professional identity is more significant. The left must know that the working class does not place the same value on cosmopolitanism as those who are better-off.(27)

The left has neglected that societies continue to be governed in the form of nation-states, with clear territorial boundaries, common values and common cultural and linguistic ties. Governments of democratic nation-states are elected to serve their citizens by furthering societal goals, which relate not only to standards of living, but also to a political and social culture. Beyond their moral duties and obligations under international law towards refugees or other nations and contributions to international development, it is not clear that the well-being of non-citizens should be as important to governments as that of citizens, let alone whether they have a mandate to ensure the welfare of non-citizens. At the least, it could be argued that governments should not put the interests of non-citizens before the poorest of citizens.

Such a narrow focus on the national interest is lamentable — a preference for humans on one side of a border but not on the other is a major impediment to global justice. Yet this is the current state of affairs. Even John Rawls, a most prominent liberal political philosopher, argued that a people has a ‘qualified’ right to limit immigration if it might conflict with other reasonable policy aims of that people, e.g. in relation to population size.(28) So migrants in some numbers have a definite beneficial impact, but there may be a point beyond which further immigration could reduce societal well-being. Reasons might include undermining the government’s ability to provide a high level of public services, to effectively integrate new migrants to the benefit of all or to maintain a culture that a majority of citizens enjoy.

The left can therefore legitimately affirm that it will manage immigration on the basis of egalitarian and utilitarian grounds, without recourse to the far right’s demonising or scapegoating of immigrants. And it needs to be seen to be managing immigration, with clear reference to notions of national and cultural identity that are important to the white working class. All governments must accept refugees fleeing war and persecution as much as humanly possible as to do so is both an obligation under international law and a moral imperative. But it is legitimate that immigration policy be selective with regard to non-refugees if it is based on clear and rational criteria that embody the reasonable policy aims of that society. For instance it might preference migrants whose skills are needed; who are unlikely to displace native-borns substantially from unskilled jobs (unless adequate compensatory and workplace reinsertion mechanisms exist); who show a willingness to contribute to society; and whose numbers are not such that they could hinder the state’s ability to cater to the well-being of its citizens. The latter refers not only to the state’s ability to provide high quality public services for all of its citizens, in particular for the poorest, but also to its ability to guarantee a high level of social cohesion and perhaps also a particular culture. Importantly, though, respecting the human rights of those whose right of abode has been refused on grounds of such criteria requires that they be treated humanely and provided with an explanation, possibly with guidance as to other avenues to pursue.

Yet migrant selection can and should only be managed to a certain extent — especially concerning intra-EU migration. A serious policy of integration to complement immigration policy and address working-class concerns about job loss or cultural and national identity while ensuring equal treatment of native-borns and immigrants is vital. In Western Europe multiculturalism has been misconceived as little more than tolerating diversity and expecting the peaceful coexistence of foreign cultures with a native culture, with responsibility for integration placed solely on the migrant communities themselves rather than also on government, civil society and society at large. When inter-ethnic tensions have broken out, particularly between white working class and migrant communities, the right has been quick to declare the failure of ‘multiculturalism’. But multiculturalism has always meant promoting cultural diversity and the expression of ethnic identity as well as redressing disadvantage between cultures and ethnicities and fostering social integration and cohesion. It has never entailed, as the right has often suggested, the condoning of all cultural practices, including those that violate human rights such as female genital mutilation or forced marriages. What is actually needed is more, not less, multiculturalism.(29)

But there may be little to be gained by expending precious communication resources trying to correct the white working class’ already very tarnished picture of multiculturalism. Rather, more could be gained in seriously enacting multiculturalist policies, in particular at the local level. This means on the one hand a role for government and civil society in promoting the benefits of diversity through the right communication channels at the local level. But it also means much greater efforts to combat inter-ethnic disadvantage and foster social cohesion. A key element is addressing relational issues, i.e. regarding the way different communities perceive and interact with each other. This could include, for instance, promoting or creating spaces for intercommunal interaction or forums for discussion of inter-ethnic issues as well as introducing local measures to address discrimination and correct damaging misconceptions about migrants, such as myths about their receiving better treatment. It could also mean policies to foster less segregated, more mixed communities, as research shows it is often the least diverse neighbourhoods that are most hostile to immigration.(30)

Importantly, these need to go hand-in-hand with policies addressing structural issues. Some of these are relevant specifically to migrant communities — such as language acquisition and education about social norms — but most, in particular access to housing, education, and employment opportunities, are relevant to native-born working class and migrant communities alike. This implies a fair allocation of resources to both native-born and migrant communities to alleviate structural disadvantage in problem areas. Addressing structural disadvantage across communities in a fair way is key to supplanting the damaging narrative of the far right that fuels inter-ethnic hostility — that immigrants get a better deal and are the source of all problems — with a narrative that unites the native-born white working class and migrant community against a common enemy. It needs to be clear to both communities that in reality they suffer the very same hardships, and that they need not focus their resentment at each other but instead at a system that perpetuates and reinforces inequalities and disempowerment in much of society.

Canada could again in some respects serve as a model for immigration and integration policy. The Canadian government adopted an official policy of multiculturalism under Pierre Trudeau in the 1970s that became the basis for its immigration and integration policy over the following decades, which has been successful thanks to a few core aspects: rational criteria as a basis for a points-based system for determining migrants’ eligibility to immigrate (as opposed to arbitrary criteria, for instance family reunification as applied in the US); substantial government efforts to integrate immigrants into society via language and job training programs (without going so far as to ‘force’ integration as with the French burqa ban); and persistent government communication efforts to promote the benefits of cultural and racial diversity and pluralism, which have enabled a general consensus on the ‘open society’ to be established.(31) In this respect, the concept of ‘interculturalism’ used in Quebec — which more readily embodies cross-cultural dialogue and integration within a host nation and is not burdened in the same way as multiculturalism by the false association with cultural relativism — could be better suited for public discourse on immigration and integration in European countries with longstanding cultural identities.

Renewal as the party of the people aiming for broad societal progress

A final element of reform of the left is all-encompassing: its renewal as a party of the people with broad societal progress as its core goal. By broad societal progress I mean defining reforms and movements that have bridged rifts in society, such as social democracy, Keynesianism, the welfare state, as well as human and civil rights, feminist and anti-war movements. As this has historically been the defining element setting the left from the right — which has tended to strive to maintain old traditions, institutions and hierarchies that divide society — I believe this aspect is most critical.

The overhaul would firstly involve discarding the elitism that has overcome many of the left-wing parties of the West. This does not mean to forgo or eschew experts, as the far right would have it, but instead to actively seek to recruit party representatives who have working-class backgrounds — whether by trade, upbringing or education — even those who are tempted to vote for far-right parties, to obtain a more diverse party representation that better reflects the social structure of society. It could also mean consistently seeking to consult and take into account the views of ‘ordinary’ people in policymaking processes, essentially amounting to more democracy in policymaking. Citizens’ juries and assemblies, i.e. small committees of randomly selected members of the public called to deliberate on specific policy issues, are a good way of doing this and have been highly successful in arriving at sound and useful conclusions for policy purposes in countries such as Australia and Canada.(32) The left should advocate their use within the framework of government policymaking, possibly operating alongside and in conjunction with the houses of parliament.(33) Such moves would thus not only work to counter working class hostility to an elite left-wing ‘establishment’ or self-serving professional class, but also to infuse greater democracy and civic responsibility in society.

The change also implies a shift in the main policy focus in relation to societal progress on the left: from an identity politics that promotes the rights and interests of marginalised groups to a politics of the people that promotes the interests of society as a whole — but in particular the downtrodden, dispossessed and disempowered. This is not to say that the left’s historical support for marginalised groups was misguided; in fact it has been critical to securing major achievements for marginalised groups in many countries in the West, in particular in terms of gender equality and women’s rights, racial equality and LGBT rights. Indeed, until about the 1970s arguably an overemphasis on class inequalities on the left had obscured an urgent need to redress inequalities in relation to gender, ethnicity and sexuality.

However, these gains stand in contrast to failures to deal with problems resulting from neoliberalism that a majority has felt and which affect almost all demographics except for the rich: rising inequality, stagnant wages and disempowerment. And while gender equality and LGBT rights have been important issues for the middle and upper classes, this is not so in many traditional working-class communities, in which white heterosexual men have been the main breadwinners of the family and where abundant jobs with decent wages were of primary importance. Yet this is not to say that addressing class inequalities is in any way contradictory with addressing inequalities suffered by marginalised groups; indeed acting on both fronts appears entirely complementary.

The key issue here is the forgotten notion of social class. As much as neoliberal ideology will pretend that class is no longer relevant, in much of the West where the rich have got ever richer while the middle and working classes have seen real incomes stagnate or decline, and where the wealth of one’s parents has become an increasingly better predictor of one’s own wealth, class has become all the more relevant. It is unquestionable progress that people in most of the West are no longer defined by the class they are born into, in particular in countries purporting to be ‘classless’ like the United States or Australia. But as long as social mobility is not perfect — that is, as long as the probability of rising up the social ladder is not independent of the socioeconomic status of one’s parents — then class continues to be relevant, and is all the more so the more imperfect social mobility is.(34)

Another reason why the notion of social class is still relevant is that it encapsulates not only differences in income, education and occupation but also in power and status. This is important because the working class in the West, in particular working-class men, has lost the power and status that it once had in society. Jobs in manufacturing in working-class communities historically tended to require only a high-school education and paid high enough wages for men to comfortably support their families, and provided a strong sense of community and purpose. In contrast, wage stagnation in unskilled working-class jobs over the last decades has, while not generally inducing poverty, contributed to the need for a second source of income in working-class households, either from women also joining the workforce or taking on a second low-wage job, and thus working-class men have no longer provided for their families as they once did. And those who lost their jobs lost not only an income but a bond within a tight-knit community. The rise in the cost of tertiary education in the last decades, in particular in the US, has compounded their plight by making it more expensive to receive an increasingly necessary tertiary education and forcing people to take on more debt. And the slow demise of trade unions, contributing to the wage stagnation, has also increasingly left them without a voice in the political arena. All of this has engendered a profound sense of loss of power and status among working-class men, made worse by the political focus of the left on marginalised groups.

For this reason it will not be enough to enact more progressive redistributive policies that focus purely on financial inequalities, such as further hand-outs and welfare benefits, which are mainly aimed at the poor. Most of the working class does not consider itself poor and does not wish to be stigmatised as poor or lazy. Indeed the sense of purpose and community derived from having a stable job is for the working class so significant that no amount of government subsidy could heal the sense of deprivation that comes with joblessness. Thus they also do not wish to bear the stigma of being dependent that comes with receiving unemployment benefits. This is why policies aimed at the poor and the unemployed are not of much relevance. This is also why in the US the working class sees no contradiction in voting for a president who will cut taxes on the rich, repeal affordable healthcare and further deregulate the economy. What the working class wants is dignified jobs paying decent wages that afford a good standard of living.(35)

Policies that bridge not only the divide in economic fortune between the working class and the elite, but also the divide in power and status are therefore critical. As mentioned, this is not to be achieved by ‘turning the clock back’ on globalisation. Instead, an initial move would be to first rehabilitate work and stress that all work, no matter how menial, is dignified. Next, considering that economic insecurity is more significant in the US than in continental Europe in explaining working class disenfranchisement from the left, a more redistributive tax system clearly should continue to be pursued. But tax transfers are not enough to ensure the working class has access to jobs paying decent wages. Thus the left should strive to guarantee working-class communities’ access to education and training adapted to the modern economy at an affordable cost. Further, the role of organised labour such as trade unions in representing the interests of the working class and contributing to policy processes should be reinstated. And finally, the potential for systemic reforms such as a universal basic income or job guarantee, as mentioned, as tools to address both socioeconomic inequality and power imbalances at a societal level needs to be strongly considered.

Conclusion and outlook

Progressive left-wing politics is in crisis in many Western democracies. This was blatantly illustrated in 2016 by the UK’s vote to leave the EU and Donald Trump’s election to the US presidency. But far-right populism and nationalism have been on the rise in Europe for quite some time. The root cause, in my view, is the slow disenfranchisement of the working class with the left side of politics. The causes of this disaffection appear threefold: first, the left’s embrace of neoliberalism; second, its failure to provide a convincing alternative narrative on immigration and diversity; and third, the abandonment of the goal of broad societal progress in favour of an elitist identity politics.

But the current crisis of left-wing politics could also be an opportunity rather than a threat, as it is often in opposition that political parties are most able to transform. If the left commits to legitimising working-class concerns, and reversing the transformations that have led it astray, i.e. disavowing neoliberalism and managing the negative impacts of globalisation; managing immigration and getting serious about integration; and renewing itself as the party of the people aiming for broad societal progress, then there is a chance that it could win back the working class.

These changes would signal a return to a traditional style of left-wing politics, albeit with the difference that they are based less on ideology and dogma — e.g. “the market is always bad” — and more on pragmatism — “let’s see where the market works and where it doesn’t”. With Bernie Sanders’ achievements in the Democratic Party primaries in the US and Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader in the UK, and possibly Benoit Hamon’s selection in the Socialist Party primaries as candidate for the French presidential election or Martin Schulz’s nomination as the SPD’s candidate for the chancellor of Germany, there are perhaps signs of a return to more traditional left-wing politics. If these party figures were to transform their parties in the ways described while resisting the temptation to be ideological and remaining pragmatic, then perhaps there is hope for a resurgence of left-wing politics in the West in 2017.

It will not be easy for the left to remain true to core left-wing values and stay committed to rational, necessarily complex policy proposals in such times of crisis, in which a lurch to the right and simplistic populist ‘solutions’ are all too tempting. Yet far-right populist nationalist demagoguery thrives on the false notions that the left-right divide is obsolete; that the mainstream left and right are now one and the same; that the new dichotomy is between a globalist elite establishment and the sovereign people; that both mainstream left and right will anyhow soon be copying the far right and voters will not be duped as to which is the real deal. So there is a real danger that the far right’s claims are vindicated if left-wing parties were to be further lured to the right. Thus, the left must now more than ever be the side of broad societal progress that unites rather than divides and continues to espouse equality, solidarity, human rights, fairness and social justice.

1 See e.g. https://www.buzzfeed.com/jamesball/heres-who-voted-for-brexit-and-who-didnt?utm_term=.acPkN02EA#.pxk1Byqx6 or http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/ or https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2016/jun/24/the-areas-and-demographics-where-the-brexit-vote-was-won

2 See e.g. http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37889032 and https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/election-exit-polls.html?_r=0

3 The boundaries of what is considered the working class is certainly not clear especially considering the changing nature of work, but I consider that the definition provided here is adequate: http://www.classmatters.org/working_definitions.php

4 See e.g. http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/politique/elections-regionales-2015/20151208.OBS0971/elections-regionales-qui-a-vote-fn.html or http://www.francetvinfo.fr/elections/regionales/regionales-a-quoi-ressemble-l-electeur-type-du-fn_1210597.html (in French).

5 See e.g. http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/wahl-berlin-2016-wer-die-afd-in-berlin-gewaehlt-hat-a-1112212.html or http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/landtagswahl-in-mecklenburg-vorpommern-der-afd-waehler-ist-maennlich-und-ungebildet-so-einfach-ist-es-nicht-1.3148548 (in German).

6 For a good overview of the history of neoliberalism see e.g. Manfred B. Steger and Ravi K. Roy, Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction, 2010.

7 See Thomas Frank, Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?, 2016 for a thorough analysis of how neoliberalism took hold in the Democratic Party in the US.

8 For a more recent account of the failings of the left in the US and the crisis of democracy, see https://newrepublic.com/article/140268/americas-new-opposition-left-resistance-trump

9 See Justin Gest, The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality, 2016 for a more detailed analysis of the evolution of white working class attitudes towards immigration in the US and UK.

10 See e.g. https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21631076-rather-lot-according-new-piece-research-what-have-immigrants-ever-done-us.

11 See Ali Rattansi, Multiculturalism: A Very Short Introduction, 2011 for a detailed overview of how multiculturalism has been implemented in different European countries.

12 See e.g. http://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ or http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/

13 In relation to the US, see e.g. http://www.nelp.org/content/uploads/2015/03/Manufacturing-Low-Pay-Declining-Wages-Jobs-Built-Middle-Class.pdf

14 See Joan C. Williams, What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class, 2016 at https://hbr.org/2016/11/what-so-many-people-dont-get-about-the-u-s-working-class for more discussion on how Democratic policies have been misguided in addressing working class concerns.

15 See e.g. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-income-inequality_us_5866836ce4b0de3a08f808dd

16 See e.g. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/liberte-inegalite-fraternite-is-french-elitism-holding-the-country-back-8621650.html for a discussion on elitism in the French Socialist Party.

17 In relation to the US and UK, see Justin Gest, The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality, 2016; concerning France, see Laurent Bouvet, L’insécurité culturelle, 2015 or e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/22/alienated-french-working-class-vote-far-right-claims-analyst; for a discussion concerning Germany, see e.g. http://www.politico.eu/article/the-fall-and-fall-of-german-social-democracy-german-regional-elections-spd-malu-dreyer-sigmar-gabriel/ or http://www.fr-online.de/politik/150-jahre-spd-die-arbeiterpartei-hat-ihre-basis-verloren,1472596,22791002.html (in German).

18 See e.g. http://edition.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls. However I concede that it is not clear that economic insecurity and anxiety has played as big a role in the USas exit polls might indicate, as some other commentators have pointed to racism playing a more important role: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/trump-and-brexit-why-its-again-not-the-economy-stupid/.

19 Concerning Brexit, see e.g. http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/. While it is tempting to see the rise of far-right populism in Europe as being almost totally unrelated to economics (see e.g. http://www.vox.com/world/2017/3/13/14698812/bernie-trump-corbyn-left-wing-populism), the data on profiles of Brexit, National Front and AFD voters as discussed above showing a consistent connection with low incomes and low education tend to contradict this.

20 See e.g. http://www.npr.org/2016/11/15/502032052/lots-of-people-voted-for-obama-and-trump-heres-where-in-3-charts

21 See e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/upshot/the-long-term-jobs-killer-is-not-china-its-automation.html?_r=0 or https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/1/24/14363148/trade-deals-nafta-wto-china-job-loss-trump. Nonetheless, the evidence is mixed; see e.g. http://www.nber.org/papers/w18938.

22 See e.g. https://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21707834-truth-and-myth-about-effects-openness-trade-coming-and-going

23 On this note see also https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/no-mourning-dead-trade-agreements-by-dani-rodrik-2016-12

24 See e.g. http://bruegel.org/2017/01/compensating-the-losers-of-globalisation/ for more discussion of approaches to compensate globalisation losers.

25 For an overview of recent studies on the economic impact of immigration see http://bruegel.org/2017/01/the-economic-effects-of-migration/. Concerning immigration’s effect on trade, see e.g. http://wol.iza.org/articles/impact-of-migration-on-trade.pdf

26 On this see https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/02/the-simple-psychological-trick-to-political-persuasion/515181/

27 On this point see again Joan C. Williams, What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class, 2016 at https://hbr.org/2016/11/what-so-many-people-dont-get-about-the-u-s-working-class

28 John Rawls, The Law of Peoples, 1993.

29 Again, for a detailed overview of misperceptions concerning multiculturalism, see Ali Rattansi, Multiculturalism: A Very Short Introduction, 2011. See also https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/oct/14/tonygiddens.

30 See e.g. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/positive-contact-or-white-flight-why-whites-in-diverse-places-are-more-tolerant-of-immigration/. The fact that the ‘Leave’ vote tended to be higher where immigration was lower also bears this out: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/voting-details-show-immigration-fears-were-paradoxical-but-decisive.

31 See e.g. http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21709305-it-uniquely-fortunate-many-waysbut-canada-still-holds-lessons-other-western for more discussion on the Canadian model.

32 See e.g. http://theconversation.com/democracy-is-due-for-an-overhaul-could-lawmaking-by-jury-be-the-answer-49037 or http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/sundayextra/citizens-jury-success-offers-fresh-hope-for-democratic-renewal/6589630

33 See Robin Brown, Could Accidental Politicians help limit Trumpification of Government?, 2017, at https://medium.com/@tidbinbilla/could-accidental-politicians-help-limit-trumpification-of-government-673e8569cf50#.h61ir59nw for an account of the results of the first Australian Citizens’ Parliament and suggestions as to how to fully incorporate a citizens’ parliament in policymaking.

34 For more discussion on rehabilitating the notion of class in Australia, see https://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/emma-dawson/2016/08/2016/1481173001/stop-skipping-class.

35 See e.g. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-sense-of-power-by-robert-j--shiller-2016-11 for more discussion on restoring workers’ economic power. See also https://hbr.org/2016/11/what-so-many-people-dont-get-about-the-u-s-working-class for more discussion the relationship of the US working class with the poor.