October 2018

Progressive politics & populism

Josie's op ed in the Dominion Post:

"As economist Simon Wren-Lewis wrote in October, the interests of people who have what economists call 'human capital' (that is, knowledge, or education) are different from the interests of financial capital and people with no capital at all. They are more likely to want to replace traditional class-based networks and replace them with meritocracies. Because education generates an income, they will be less supportive of tax-based redistribution than workers.

It's no accident that when Progressives Activists are asked what they are willing to compromise on, they are more likely to nominate taxes than identity issues.

If parties of the left become less interested in representing working people, it becomes easier for parties of the right to capture the working class vote, especially when those voters feel exhausted by strident polarisation, a culture of outrage and offence-taking, and inability to compromise.

The only way to beat that appeal is to rediscover economic policies that help working people."

Read more here.