Globalization seems to have brought about a significant surge in the number of middle class.
Chart from the Economist
As a political force, the role of the middle class has been transitioning from one of passivism into activism.
The Economist notes, (bold highlights mine)
In rich countries the humbling of governments has been largely a result of economic slowdown, combined with problems in controlling public finances. Emerging markets, in contrast, have kept growth going, while public spending is (mostly) under control. The explanation for their political woes must lie elsewhere. The most plausible one is that India and China—and possibly other emerging markets, too—are experiencing the early stirrings of political demands by the growing ranks of their middle classes…
Polling evidence says middle-class values are distinctive. In a survey of 13 emerging markets by the Pew Global Attitudes Project in Washington, DC, the middle classes consistently give more weight to free speech and fair elections than do the poor, who are more concerned than the middle class about freedom from poverty. These differences hardly come as a shock. But they still matter because they mean that as the middle class grows, abstract ideas about governance come to play a bigger role in politics.
For now their focus has mostly been in the politics of corruption (bold emphasis mine)
There is no single explanation for the new middle-class activism. Given the rise in their numbers, it was probably bound to happen at some point. The spread of micro-blogging services has surely made some difference. Sina Weibo claims 140m users, mostly from China’s urban middle class. They posted 10m messages about the rail crash within days. The emerging giants have lost some of their economic sizzle lately, which might have had an effect—not (as in the West) by cutting jobs and government services, but by casting doubts on the cult of growth. Some observers (including, it seems, the Chinese Communist Party) have even worried that demonstrators might be emboldened to copy the Arab spring, though that seems far-fetched.
In contrast to the unrest in Middle Eastern countries, the middle-class activism of India and China is not aimed at bringing governments down. Rather, a narrower concern animates them: corruption…
This focus on corruption suggests that, at the moment, middle-class activism is a protest movement rather than a political force in the broader sense. It is an attempt to reform the government, not replace it. But that could change. In most middle-income countries, corruption is more than just a matter of criminality; it is also the product of an old way of doing politics, one that is unaccountable, untransparent and undemocratic. Ashutosh Varshney, at the Institute of Social and Economic Change in Bangalore, also argues that richer Indians resent corruption less because of the money wasted—which they can afford—than because they want clean government for its own sake: “the middle class is asserting its citizenship right to get government services without a bribe.”
As wealth from globalization expands and diffuses, it is likely that the desire for political freedom would follow. Such dynamic appears to be epitomized by the seminal focus on free speech, ‘fair’ elections and corruption free governance.
Yet again, the internet (via the blogsphere) has been proving to be a potent force in influencing such changes.
As the great Ludwig von Mises wrote (Planning for Freedom p.38),
The idea that political freedom can be preserved in the absence of economic freedom, and vice versa, is an illusion. Political freedom is the corollary of economic freedom. It is no accident that the age of capitalism became also the age of government by the people. If individuals are not free to buy and to sell on the market, they turn into virtual slaves dependent on the good graces of the omnipotent government, whatever the wording of the constitution may be.
In my view, the trend towards Classical liberalism seem to be seguing from the fringes towards the mainstream.
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