Left-ward Ho?

Okay, DGL sent me this column by Niall Ferguson (about whom, I'll add a few minutes after the fact, I am generally suspicious though largely ignorant) the other day, and originally I was just going to email him with some off-the-cuff remarks and say I was too busy with grading, etc, to do a blog post, but instead I've decided to just do a hasty post; enjoy.

Now Ferguson 'cautions' readers of a 'left turn,' citing a few recent and/or upcoming events:
First he mentions the decision by newly elected Bolivian President Evo Morales — predicted in this column Feb. 13 — to nationalize his country's energy sector.

But the swing to the left is not a purely Latin American story. The left won last month's Italian elections. The French government recently caved in to street protests by trade unions and leftist students. And in the United States, the Democrats are poised to make gains in the November midterm elections.

The contributing factors he mentions include 1) wealth disparity--Income distribution in the U.S. has not been this unequal since before World War II — the last time that the top 1% of earners accounted for more than 14% of all income (excluding capital gains). The average pay for a chief executive in the U.S. increased 27% last year to more than $11 million. By contrast, the average wage earner took home less than $45,000 in 2004, up roughly 3% from the year before.

He also mentions 2) xenophobia: You might think rising immigration would lead to a backlash on the right, not the left, and you'd be right. But the net effect of xenophobia — which is most likely to be felt by blue-collar, indigenous voters — is often to benefit the left because it tends to split the right.

Sadly, Ferguson seems right about xenophobia, so I'll focus on the more interesting economic issue. Something should be done, and I'd like to see Democrats seize on this issue (though of course they probably won't, out of fear of engaging in 'class warfare'--I say engage!)

Now I personally find myself in a state of guarded enthusiasm about Morales--nationalization such as Bolivia has enacted, in which the state will own 51% of the energy sector (more or less), strikes me as an excellent way of ensuring that the country's wealth will benefit its citizens, and of that I approve.

In the past, I have been accused of having a naïve attachment to left-leaning populists. Morales seems like a good guy to me, but what do you, reader, think of him?

One last note: it seems very odd to me that Ferguson associates the Democrats of the US with folk like Morales. Surely it is misleading to suggest that the Democrats have much in common with true leftists like Morales or Italy's Romano Prodi. I am sure that if our Democrats ran for election in Italy or Bolivia, they would, alas, be seen as a right-wing party. . . .