Some Elitist Views Are Pretty Popular

One popular narrative about Brexit is that it’s a rebellion of the masses against the elites. If you ask me, that seems like a strange way to characterize a vote that was 51 percent to 48 percent. But again and again I’ve read this take, in right-leaning magazines such as the National Review, business publications like Forbes, and left-leaning outlets like the American Prospect and Huffington Post. The most popular version of the argument is that elites have created a global economy that works for them, but not for the masses -- at least, in developed countries.

That’s certainly plausible. After all, during the past few decades, the benefits of global growth have gone mostly to poor countries and to the rich, leaving behind the middle classes in places like Europe and the U.S. And in places like Michigan, manufacturing job losses -- some of which were caused by trade with China -- are correlated with support for Republican Donald Trump, whose presidential candidacy is sometimes portrayed as an anti-elite uprising similar to the British vote to leave the European Union.