by Yael Tamir
staring at each other across a political chasm.”6 Similar com-
ments were made in Israel, France, Spain, Turkey, Germany, and
more, reflecting the enormous changes that separate nations into
different social classes that do not share a common fate.
As the following maps demonstrate, election results in differ-
ent countries give this phenomenon a visual expression: two
nations geographically divided, culturally dissimilar, economi-
cally disjointed, and politically opposed. The mega cities and
shores constitute islands of progressive liberal democratic vot-
ers set in a vast right- wing, nationalist, and conservative ocean.
The coastal periphery looks beyond state boundaries and
wants to be emancipated; the heartland, the home of what has
been termed the new reactionary class, looks around in anger
and frustration and wants to be saved. In this sense countries
as different as Turkey and the United States are very similar.
One of the most interesting lessons to emerge from these
maps is that in the age of Globalization 2.0 and 3.0, class differ-
ences allow us to predict individual behavior more than national
affiliations. As social crisis moves in, moving out of a poverty-
stricken neighborhood or town to a more affluent one is harder
than emigrating. The result is social and economic stagnation.
“The probability of ending where you start has gone up, and the
probability of moving up from where you start has gone down.”7
Reaching the top ranks is tougher as the rungs of the social lad-
der have grown further apart. To borrow an overused feminist
Figure 2. The Turkish referendum map, 2017.
Figure 3. The American elections map, 2016.
One Nation, Divided, under Stress • 107
idiom, it seems as if the rich and the poor inhabit two different
planets.
Class divisions are no longer simply a matter of ownership
over the means of production. The complexity of markets makes
exploitation harder to define, and the relationships between the
input of a worker’s labor and the value of a product quite impos-
sible to trace. Rather than being grounded merely in the distri-
bution of means of production or wealth, the new definition of
class reflects the scheme of risks and opportunities individuals
face.8 Individuals belong to the same class if they share a similar
set of opportunities and risks and a related cluster of hopes
and fears that influence their evaluation of their life chances.
This evaluation directs them to endorse certain social, political,
and economic policies that will minimize their risks and expand
their opportunities.
Consequently, poor and rich across the globe endorse politi-
cal perceptions that reflect their economic positions and place
themselves at different points along the Global (G)– National
(N) continuum. For the few who can make it, the move to Glo-
balization 2.0 and 3.0 is emancipating; for the many who are less
capable of competing in the global marketplace, it induces
helplessness and nihilism. To the disappointment of many,
class, rather than norms, values, or levels of moral development,
differentiate globalists from nationalists.
15
The Elephant in the Room
Although the breakdown of social cohesion did not escape public
attention, the magnitude of the phenomenon went unnoticed.
Data show that in the 1980s, just when liberals were celebrating
their ideological victory, social and economic gaps started build-
ing up. It took over twenty years for the process to be seen not as
a coincidence but as a major social and economic change. Even
then, its profound consequences remained unclear.
In her eye- opening book Living in Denial, Kari Marie Nor-
gaard tel s a local story with a universal message. The story is
located in Bygdaby, a small Norwegian town that has experienced
the brutal outcomes of climate change. Norgaard discovered that
for the highly educated and politically savvy residents of the
town, global warming is both common knowledge and unimagi-
nable at the same time; every year there is an “exceptionally
warm winter,” and they keep waiting for it to be colder the
following year. Norgaard carefully traces the development of
socially organized ways of thinking that allow individuals to
collectively distance themselves from information that threat-
ens their worldview. Understanding the links among denial,
cognitive dissonance, and privilege, she argues, “affords us
another important view through the kaleidoscope. Situating
cognitive dissonance and denial in the context of privilege
underscores the relationships among individual emotions, cul-
ture and social structure.”1
The Elephant in the Room • 109
Like the residents of Bygdaby, the liberal progressive elites of
the West knew that something was going terribly wrong: social
and economic gaps were growing rapidly, unprecedented wealth
was being concentrated in the hands of a few, social mobility was
slowing down, and social trust was eroded. As a result of automa-
tization, globalization, and free trade, many honest working
people found out that they could not make a decent living. Last
but not least, demographic changes were creating new political
and social realities that were raising social discontent. More and
more people were starting to feel insecure about their futures.
In the national age social changes were mediated, presented as
a means of achieving widely accepted shared goals. In the post-
national period changes happened and individuals were left to
deal with their consequences on their own. Like other social
changes, Globalization 2.0 and 3.0 were unplanned and their out-
comes unintended. Liberalism’s initial intention was to secure
justice and liberty for all, but in seeing freedom through an eco-
nomic prism, giving priority to the free market over other kinds
of freedom, liberalism lost its balance.
In this process globalism turned from an instrument of the
state to its rival. It is now difficult to remember that in its early
days, globalism was seen as another tool of colonialism— a way
of allowing the developed world to exploit the developing world
without bearing the costs of conquest and domination. The elites
of the West believed that globalization would turn the world into
their playground, allowing them to invent and invest using the
whole world as the sphere of their entrepreneurship. They en-
visioned bringing together human capital trained in one conti-
nent, financial capital accumulated in another, and cheap labor
inhabiting a third in order to develop new economic oppor-
tunities. The global free market was supposed to allow them
to enjoy the fruits of their skills and resources regardless of
110 • Chapter
15
national borders or civic affiliations. Indeed, workers in the de-
veloped world were losing their jobs, and major industries
; were transferred to the East, but there was an influx of cheap
commodities and new occupational opportunities that seemed
to compensate for the loss of other, less attractive, jobs. Some
social thinkers did warn that globalism would hit “working peo-
ple in the United States who may be losing their jobs, farmers
maneuvered off their land, city dwellers who may have to accom-
modate waves of landless immigrants.”2 Yet the loss was ex-
pected to be compensated by excessive consumerism. Even when
you earned less, you could still have much more, and the com-
modities you purchased would make you feel richer than ever.
In the developed world in general and the United States in
particular people believed that they would permanently be on
the winning side of globalism. According to Peter Berger:
The term globalization has come to be emotionally charged in pub-
lic discourse. For some it implies the promise of an international
civil society, conducive to a new era of peace and democratization.
For others, it implies the threat of an American economic and
political hegemony, with its cultural consequences being a homog-
enized world resembling a sort of metastasized Disneyland.3
If you were on the right side— namely, the American (Western)
side— it was assumed that, forever, you would be on the win-
ning side of a world that speaks your language and produces
commodities that serve the American way of life. Consequently,
most objections to the process of globalization centered on the
victimization of developing countries. There was some truth to
these descriptions (and there is still much to be said about the
abuse of workers and national resources in developing econo-
mies); yet, critics failed to see that at the same time, in many
parts of the developing world globalization created incentives
The Elephant in the Room • 111
not only to consume and supply cheap labor but also to create
local industrial infrastructure and to cultivate human capital. East
Asian states infused efforts in planning and funding national
education systems that boost human skil s. The results of such
investments are reflected in the ranking offered by the interna-
tional comparative tests. In the 2006 PISA (Programme for In-
ternational Student Assessment) exam,4 the top of the list was
occupied by peripheral (except for Canada) Western states
(Finland, Estonia, Australia) and signaled the emergence of new
educational empires, all belonging to the Eastern Hemisphere:
Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and China.
It suddenly became clear that the process of globalization was
leading to unexpected consequences. It was no longer Western
colonialism with an economic face— namely, a way to control
and exploit markets and individuals unable to strike back. Rather,
it created a global sphere where power traveled in different di-
rections. Consequently, markets previously seen solely through
the prism of economic opportunities began to be seen as a potential
threat. The developed world discovered that it can be out- competed
and that others can produce qualified, well- educated human
capital that has an advantage not only over manual workers on
the assembly lines or in call centers but also over doctors, engi-
neers, and computer scientists. A new kind of competition
evolved that touches the heart of the educated middle class.
A growing number of educated people in the East, equal in
quality, much larger in quantity, and cheaper to employ, started
undermining the competitive powers of the West. By the end of
the twentieth century, it became clear that globalization em-
bodies a threat to a wide range of social classes; from the poor,
uneducated working class to middle- class college graduates,
no one could be assured of remaining on the winning side of
globalism.
112 • Chapter
15
The future of the developed world thus seemed far less glam-
orous. Members of the middle classes— who grow up believing
that if they acquire a proper education they can expect to have a
respectable job and be better off than their parents— now realize
that despite their education, they too are exposed to the risks of
the lower classes: unemployment, poverty, and homelessness.
Even those who find a job are losing their ability to acquire the
luxuries that during the last century had turned into necessities.
In the West, the new class of the educated poor keeps growing;
even when employed, they hold part- time jobs or jobs that do
not suit their qualifications. Not only do they earn less than they
expected but less than what is necessary to maintain the kind of
lifestyle they have experienced growing up.5 In the last half cen-
tury, processes of automation and computerization replaced,
among others, receptionists, computer analysts, and doctors.
The value of jobs demanding academic qualifications dimin-
ished, working conditions deteriorated, and the class of the
educated poor expanded. In short, the global tsunami has
reached the shores of the middle classes and swept them away.
The opposite process is taking place in Asian countries, where
the middle classes are growing at a quicker pace than ever. The
economy has moved from relying on unskilled cheap labor to
focusing on highly skil ed professional industries. Consequently,
Asian economies offer an attractive combination of an un-
skil ed, semiskilled, and a skilled workforce that attracts global
investors. They are expanding their education in general and
higher education in particular and establishing world- class re-
search institutions that are out- competing their Western equiv-
alents. It has been predicted that by the year 2050 the top Asian
universities will be among the best in the world. The free
world met the planned world and found out that it is losing
its grip on excel ence.6
The Elephant in the Room • 113
The growing awareness that globalism is giving rise to more
complex forms of competition and exploitation, creating a mul-
titude of power centers whose members are qualified to play
different roles— investors and inventors, business people, pro-
fessionals and manual workers alike— transforms the picture of
the future for those who used to consider their social position
protected. A rift is being created between a thin elite secured in
its privileged position and the middle classes for whom poverty
is no longer a remote fear. It is this loss of personal security that
motivates people to adopt a more national pattern of thinking:
realizing they may not be able to do it on their own, they hope
“we can do it together.”
Their frustration is not the result of a manic state of mind or
a misunderstanding of their interests; on the contrary, it is sup-
ported by hard evidence. The “Elephant Chart,” based on data
accumulated by the economist Branko Milanović, shows the dis-
tribution of
global income growth between 1988 and 2008, a pe-
riod that overlaps with the spread of Globalization 2.0 and 3.0.
During this period the situation of the poor in developing
countries improved, while the situation of the middle classes in
developed countries deteriorated. Their future opportunities,
and especially the opportunities of their children, are diminish-
ing, becoming much less attractive. Without reading the recent
McKinsey report, members of the middle classes already know
that their children will be poorer than their parents.7
For some (a very small group of citizens of the developing
countries) this is the best of times; for others it is the worst of
times (at least in comparison to their experience and expecta-
tions in the previous thirty years). The most fortunate and the
most vulnerable are citizens of the same countries. No wonder
they have grown apart, with each class now holding its own map
of future risks and opportunities that leads to a different reading
114 • Chapter
15
Global income growth, 1988-2008
90%
80%
Booming
70%
global elite
Rising incomes in
60%
emerging economies,
mainly China
50%
40%
Decline of
30%
developed-world
middle class
Real income growth 20%
Very poorest
10%
locked out
of growth
0
-10% 5
15
25
35
45
55
65
75
85
95
Poorest
Percentile of global income distribution
Richest
Figure 4. Global income growth. The American Prospect using data provided by Branko Milanović. Miles Corak, “The Winners and Losers of Globalization:
Branko Milanović’s New Book on Inequality Answers Two Important Questions,”
American Prospect, May 18, 2016.
of the future. The assumption that “we are in it together,” which
keeps social frameworks intact, is no longer credible. This is a
global phenomenon. An international survey showed that
between 65 and 70 percent of households in 25 advanced econo-
mies, the equivalent of 540 to 580 mil ion people, were in segments