George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) explores the thesis that poor people would support progressive policies except that they don’t like the people who argue for progressive ideas. I am not sure he was right or that the same diagnosis applies today, but it’s worth considering.
Part I of the book is journalism: Orwell embeds himself in Northern English working-class homes, visits coal mines, and documents the degradation and suffering of poor British people during the Depression.
In Part II, Orwell tells how he came to do this kind of reporting as a child of the “lower-upper-middle-class” who had done a stint on the British colonial police in Burma. He identifies as a socialist but in a very vague and broad-church way. At one point (p. 154), he defines socialism as the premise that “The world is a raft sailing through space with, potentially, plenty of provisions for everybody.” That leads to the conclusion “that we must all cooperate and see to it that every-one does his fair share of the work and gets his fair share of the provisions.” Later (p. 200), he writes that “The real Socialist is one who wishes–not merely conceives it as desirable, but actively wishes–to see tyranny overthrown.” These sentiments may be compatible with US-style liberalism as well as social democracy, especially since Orwell is more of an anti-authoritarian than an egalitarian throughout the book.
The question he sets himself is why “Socialism has failed in its appeal.” He perceives the left as rapidly losing support to fascism, particularly among the poor.
Orwell observes that many people who could vote for the left think, “I don’t object to Socialism, but I do object to Socialists.” He writes, “Logically it is a poor argument, but it carries weight with many people. As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents” (p. 156.)
So what did working-class voters have against the socialists of 1937? One part of Orwell’s diagnosis involves technology. He observes that advocates of socialism tend to be enthusiastic about machines, predicting that technology will liberate us from drudgery so that we can devote our lives to art and nature. They extoll the scientific progress of the USSR: tractors, rural electrification, and the Dnieper Dam. Orwell’s own view is that technological progress is inevitable but problematic, since the valuable parts of life involve work, which is being replaced by tools. “The machine has got to be accepted, but it is probably better to accept it rather as one accepts a drug–that is, grudgingly and suspiciously. Like a drug, the machine is useful, dangerous, and habit-forming” (p. 184).
This all seems sensible and relevant in our time, but the ideological polarity has switched. Today, the most blatant enthusiasts of machines are right-wing tech bros, and much of the skepticism comes from the left. This means that working-class hostility to progressives probably doesn’t involve attitudes toward technology.
Another part of Orwell’s diagnosis involves the cultural choices of self-appointed advocates for socialism. “One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ’Socialism’ and ’Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ’Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England” (p. 157).
I think he has two concerns. One is that socialists are preachy and quick to dismiss the everyday pleasures of workers. Presumably, it’s fine to drink fruit juice if you want, but Orwell is worried about the kind of person who preaches its advantages over a pint at the pub–“that dreary tribe of high-minded women and sandal-wearers and bearded fruit-juice drinkers who come nocking towards the smell of ’progress’ like bluebottles to a dead cat” (p. 165).
A person might even acknowledge that we will all drink fruit juice instead of beer some day, because that will be better for us; but this fate “must be staved off as long as possible” by voting against socialists.
Of course, as I have suggested already, it is not strictly fair to judge a movement by its adherents; but the point is that people invariably do so, and that the popular conception of Socialism is coloured by the conception of a Socialist as a dull or disagreeable person. ’Socialism’ is pictured as a state of affairs in which our more vocal Socialists would feel thoroughly at home. This does great harm to the cause. The ordinary man may not flinch from a dictatorship of the proletariat, if you offer it tactfully; offer him a dictatorship of the prigs, and he gets ready to fight (p. 165)
His other concern is that left-wing intellectuals’ choices are simply unusual. Orwell says, “I have here a prospectus from another summer school which states its terms per week and then asks me to say ’whether my diet is ordinary or vegetarian’. They take it for granted, you see, that it is necessary to ask this question. This kind of thing is by itself sufficient to alienate plenty of decent people” (p. 157).
I think it’s good to be a vegetarian (and obligatory to accommodate vegetarians), but their number has grown a great deal since 1937. Besides, Orwell assumes that vegetarians are motivated by health alone, “for the food-crank is by definition a person willing to cut himself off from human society in hopes of adding five years on to the life of his carcase” (pp. 157-8). In other words, in 1937, eating plants and drinking juice was not about saving the planet or animals but extending one’s own life, and that came across as sanctimonious as well as questionable on the merits.
The enduring challenge is that people who are critical of the existing social order (as Orwell is) appropriately adopt views that are currently unpopular. Orwell, for example, mentions “feminism,” and, although I am not sure how he would define that word, thoughtful and critical people should gravitate to what I would call feminist ideas even if those ideas are not broadly popular. However, there is a risk that progressivism writ large will become identified with unpopular causes. This danger is worse when progressive leaders adopt a tone of disrespect for most people’s folkways, and worse still if these leaders rarely come from working-class communities.
I think that current working-class objections to the left–not only in the USA but in most wealthy democracies–have many explanations. We should consider, among other factors, the actual limitations of leftish proposals for addressing economic distress, the erosion of organizations like unions and genuine parties, and the impact of media. Among these causes, the lifestyles of self-appointed progressive advocates may not be particularly important. Nevertheless, Orwell’s method is worth considering. As he says,
[It] is no use writing off the current distaste for Socialism as the product of stupidity or corrupt motives. If you want to remove that distaste you have got to understand it, which means getting inside the mind of the ordinary objector to Socialism, or at least regarding his viewpoint sympathetically. No case is really answered until it has had a fair hearing. Therefore, rather paradoxically, in order to defend Socialism it is necessary to start by attacking it (p. 155).
See also: why “liberal” can sound like “upper-class”; a conversation with Farah Stockman about American Made: What Happens to People When Work Disappears; encouraging working class candidates; the social class inversion as a threat to democracy; Where have lower-educated voters moved right? (a look at 102 countries over 35 years) etc.