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Modernization
Why Equality Is Likely to Make a Comeback
By Ronald Inglehart
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basis of support for the left has increasingly come from the
middle class, even as a substantial share of the working class
has shifted its support to the right.
In fact, by the 1990s, social-class voting in most democracies
was less than half as strong as it was a generation earlier. In
the United States, it had fallen so low that there was virtually
no room for further decline. Income and education had
become much weaker indicators of the American publics
political preferences than religiosity or ones stand on
abortion or same-sex marriage: by wide margins, those who
opposed abortion and same-sex marriage supported the
Republican presidential candidate over the Democratic
candidate. The electorate had shifted from class-based
polarization toward value-based polarization.
THE MACHINE AGE
In 1860, the majority of the U.S. work force was employed in
agriculture. By 2014, less than two percent was employed
there, with modern agricultural technology enabling a tiny
share of the population to produce even more food than
before. With the transition to an industrial society, jobs in the
agricultural sector virtually disappeared, but this didnt result
in widespread unemployment and poverty, because there was
a massive rise in industrial employment. By the twenty-first
century, automation and outsourcing had reduced the ranks
of industrial workers to 15 percent of the work forcebut this
too did not result in widespread unemployment and poverty,