European democracy needs its middle class back

THE middle class has long been the backbone of democratic stability, fuelling economic growth, affirming institutional legitimacy and transmitting civic values. But in recent decades, the middle class has been disintegrating across the West.

Many citizens believe that hard work no longer pays off, social mobility is a pipe dream, and governing “elites” are detached from the needs of ordinary people.

From France to Britain to the American Rust Belt, the symptoms are the same: regions gutted of the industries that once sustained them, livelihoods upended by technological shifts, and families working more for less.