Why workers vote for right-wing populists: An analysis of class and globalization

In Sunday's German state election in Saxony-Anhalt, the far-right AFD received 43.8 percent of the vote, more than twice as much as in the 2021 election. Support was strongest among workers, according to the polling station survey, 61 percent of them voted for the AFD.

The party's landslide victory makes an old European question urgent again: why do so many workers vote for right-wing populist parties and so many white-collar workers for the left? In recent decades, that question has been discussed almost non-stop on European cultural sites and seminars. They talk about anywheres and somewheres, about GAL (green, alternative, liberal) and TAN (traditional, authoritarian, nationalist), or, like the French economist Thomas Piketty, about the brahmin left and the merchant right.

Those who participate in these discussions usually belong to the previous group, i.e. left-wing civil servants. Like all other people, left-wing civil servants like to present themselves in the most flattering light possible. Therefore, we formulate the polarization as a matter of values. Some – highly educated metropolitans, meaning ourselves – value openness and diversity, justice and education. Others – low-educated people in small towns and rural areas, that is, the others – value tradition and hierarchies, security and stability.

The distinction is presented as neutral. But in fact it is hideously morally charged. Because it goes without saying that it is better to be liberal, open-minded and educated than authoritarian, narrow-minded and ignorant. And also so stupid that you undermine your own interests, in that as a worker you vote for the right.

But are the right-wing populist parties really that right? Not according to German political scientist Philip Manow, professor at the University of Siegen. In the recently published book "Spaltungslinien" ("Lines of Divide"), he argues that parties such as the German AFD and the French National Rally have moved economically towards classic left-wing positions. Or, to put it differently, because the concepts of "right" and "left" work poorly as analytical tools applied to the European party system, since the dominant conflicts are no longer formed along the historical right-left divides between labor and capital or state and church.

Manow is thus hardly a Marxist. Nevertheless, he is a materialist. He is interested in political economy, in structures, institutions and interests. Where and how are decisions made in modern European democracies? Who wins and loses from social development? How does one's position on the labor market affect one's political priorities?

It is no longer likely that most of the inhabitants of a country like Sweden will be born, die in and, in between, spend their entire lives within the nation's borders. Intra- and non-European immigration, international free trade agreements, the growing power of the EU vis-à-vis the national parliaments and the greatly increased opportunities to travel, work and study abroad have radically redrawn the map.

Almost no one thinks all these changes are good. The left is typically positive about immigration and cultural diversity, but skeptical about free trade and the faceless exercise of power by supranational institutions. The right likes the free exchange of goods and services, but wants the traveling workforce to go home when it has finished working.

The inexorable logic of globalization forces them both towards the middle. To maintain a generous immigration policy, the left must accept wage dumping and reduced government power over the economy. The right, for its part, has to chew on a shrinking commitment to the nuclear family and religion, because otherwise there will be no free enterprise.

The trade-offs are not as unpleasant as they may seem. The left's now urban, highly educated and cosmopolitan electorate belongs to those who benefit from the market economy and the deconsolidation of the nation-state. Whereas the Right really has no problem with same-sex marriage – consumer as consumer, after all.

The consequence will be over time that the established European parties crowd into the tiny space between New Labor and the Alliance. They are perceived by many as hypocrites, because what they claim about themselves does not quite add up. How can the Social Democrats keep up the wages of the LO collective when the construction industry is filled with workers who are paid half as much, or defend the welfare state when they pursue a neoliberal fiscal policy? Can the Christian Democrats be trusted to stand up for traditional values ​​when they even support the right to abortion?

Against this background, the right-wing populist parties appear to be the only alternative. They are genuinely socially conservative, and, according to Manow, also tend to move towards an increasingly nationalist ("left-wing") economic policy. Both the Italian Lega Nord, the Dutch Freedom Party and the Hungarian Fidesz started as market liberal EU friends. Today, everyone advocates increased government control over finances.

And why do they do it? Well, says Manow, because the combination of immigration criticism and welfare chauvinism responds to the economic interests of their voters. And it is above all the economic interest that explains people's choice patterns and position on either side of the dividing line. The conflict between somewheres and anywheres is not so much a matter of values ​​as of capital. Is your livelihood threatened by globalization, or are you one of those who study abroad, speak good English and can work anywhere there is wifi?

The question, however, is to what extent the right-wing populist parties have actually moved to the left. It is empirical, and Manow is annoyingly stingy with empiricism. When I read through the party program of the Sweden Democrats, I find it hard to see anything other than a fairly typical bourgeois party, marginally to the left of the Moderates in economic matters. And can't you call a populist like (admittedly non-European) Donald Trump particularly social democratic, despite the trade tariffs? After all, his entire political act is to make a small number of billionaires even richer.

The big win with the "Spaltungslinie" is instead the reminder of the permanence of class interest. Because Manow is right that it is easier to advocate free movement for those of us who benefit from it than for those who rarely have the opportunity to leave their place of origin. But it is certainly an unpleasant thought: that morality is in some sense something you buy.