Chris Dillow: Centrists' failure

Chris Dillow writes about Centrists' failure.

Corbyn is popular – insofar as he is – not because he is a political genius (he’s not) nor because many of us have become antisemites or have lost our minds. His popularity – especially with young graduates – rests upon material economic conditions. The degradation of professional occupations and huge gap between the top 1% and others have radicalized young people in erstwhile middle-class jobs; financialization has made housing unaffordable for youngsters; and a decade of stagnant real wages – the product of inequality and the financial crisis - has increased demands for change.

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Dillow recognises that the Marxist credo that politics follow material conditions. He also says that such material conditions do not always lead to a leftward shift in political thinking.

You might also object that politics is about more than economics, and that the battleground now is about culture and identity rather than a few quid here or there. This misses the point. The great virtue of economic growth, as Ben Friedman showed, is that it creates a climate in which toleration and openness can thrive. Stagnation, by contrast, gives us closed minds, intolerance and fanaticism. If centrists are sincere in wanting a more civilized and tolerant politics, they must create the material conditions for these. In fact, in office they did the opposite.

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Abundance gives us tolerance; scarcity gives us intolerance. The economic insecurity makes people fearful of the others taking money and benefits away, and this fear allows politicians to play the protector by keeping the others away.

The very people who created the harsh economic conditions that give rise to intolerance are the ones who use intolerance to keep power. These people have no incentive to change the system that keeps them in power.