Out-of-Touch Elites, Another View

Keying off the same Peggy Noonan column I commented upon last Friday, R. R. Reno adds some good thoughts to the aggregation in a column for First Things. Reno starts with a so-called "elephant chart" by Milanovic showing globalism helping elites in the developed nations and middle classes in the developing world, while hurting middle classes in the developed nations. The truly poor seem beyond help.

Elites now have a strong interest in weakening the nation-state, and thus diminishing the power of the voters to whom they are accountable. A radical ideology of open borders is one way to do that. Another way is to increase the power of international human rights tribunals.

A global mission provides reasons to discount the concerns of non-elites in America. Convenient theories about the inherent racism of ordinary people nicely discredit their opinions. (snip) Ordinary people feel abandoned and frustration builds, driving today’s populism.

The decoupling of the leaders and the led is “something big.” The economic forces driving this decoupling are powerful. The ideological supports—a morally superior cosmopolitanism, a flexible multi-culturalism, and now dominant utilitarian thinking—are strong. As I’ve written elsewhere, odds are good that the democratic era will come to an end. The elephant chart suggests the future will be one of empire.

Here again is the cosmopolitanism we noted earlier today. Somewhere the ghost of Robert K. Merton cackles merrily in the purgatory sociologists infest.