I firmly believe that if wealth distribution today was the same as it was in the 70s-90s, the culture wars would be significantly dampened or non existent. If people could still buy homes, afford to have kids and healthcare, we would all be able to talk about religion, sex, and politics without this extreme tribalism. It’s happening because there are way more “losers” in the economic game now, it’s become a life or death issue, and people are looking for who to blame.
Since the decision was made post GFC to bail out the banks and protect capital over the normal person that just wanted a house to live in, the position of the rentiers has been consolidated hugely. We have Rachel Reeves thinking we in the UK can build a growth strategy on the back of financial services (which generally means "rent-extraction services"). A rational system would separate the GDP from the real economy from the income from rent extraction, and seek to eliminate the latter.
To the common man, they see themselves working longer and harder than they used to and getting a smaller and smaller slice of the pie. It turns out when your real outputs have to support a sizeable portion of the population who have dedicated their lives to the art of rent extraction to live like kings, you don't see much of the gain.
I have many contemporaries that have gone into finance. A vast pool of intellectual capability, shuffling money around playing zero sum games, and ultimately protected from loss by the power of the state.
You’re right that people feel less secure, but that doesn’t mean that they are correct when they feel that.
By pretty much any measure, I believe that people in 2025 are far more secure than they were in 1975, 1985 or 1995.
Also by Jon Stewart on Crossfire in 2004: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE&t=310s
The critique about what passes for debate is as apt today as it was then.
However in the real world and 1:1 you can still have good discussions with smart people who disagree with you. And we need to have those.
will check this out, thanks for reading!
The missing ingredient is "intellectual honesty". It used to be the case that when you talked to people on the right they would
- refer to events that actually happened and true statements about the world
- accept them in the context of wider events (although there's always been a risk of making policy from one exeptional incident)
- make an argument that followed logically from those
This did end up in duelling statistics and arguments over what mattered, but that's a reasonable place for discussion. Nowadays it's much deeper into making wild arguments from conspiracy theories with no or highly questionable evidence. Pizzagate. Birtherism. And so on.