One of the forces driving the populist dynamic is the gradual sapping of the social categories which used to form the basis of the middle classes. In France, Britain, the Netherlands, Austria and the US the same people – blue- and white-collar workers, intermediate occupations and farmers – are joining the populist revolt. Moreover, this movement started long ago. Support for Trump is rooted in the rise of financial capitalism which started during the Clinton era. Brexit goes back to the rollback of industry initiated by Thatcher. In France, the (far-right) Front National (FN) began gaining momentum when heavy industry went into decline in the 1980s.
So does this mean that the globalised model is not working? Not at all, but it is absurd to look at the global economy in binary terms, for or against. For or against neoliberalism. The truth is that this model, primarily based on an international division of labour, creates substantial wealth but does nothing to bond society as a whole. The job market has become deeply polarised and mainly concentrated in big cities, squeezing out the middle classes. For the first time in history, working people no longer live in the places where jobs and wealth are created. [...]
All over the developed world the populist vote is gathering strength outside the big cities, in small and middling towns, and the countryside. In France these “peripheral” territories are driving the FN dynamic. In the US, the peripheral states put Trump in power, much as Brexit prevailed thanks to peripheral areas of the UK. In Austria support for Norbert Hofer, the far-right candidate in the recent presidential contest, comes from similar places. They are home to the majority of the working classes, disconnected and increasingly sedentary. Such territorial dynamics gather momentum as more mobile groups – the higher social classes, immigrants and minorities – concentrate in the cities. In this way the new social geography renews the old divide between sedentary and nomadic.
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