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One of the more striking phenomena since the 1990s is the manner in which leftists have grown to be perceived as a new dishonest and cynical “elite” by a substantial part of the general population. This contrasts with the self-image of many leftists, who have generally thought of themselves as precisely opposed to elites.
Being “against the elite” is a universal cry in modern politics, but it’s an ambiguous one. Which elite? There is the Techno-Money Elite that derives from capital, technology, and commerce, and their focus is on efficiency, scale, market disruption, and economic liberty. Elon Musk’s power is his control of companies and vast wealth. Then there is the Cultural-Managerial Elite that derives power from influence, credentials, and narrative control. Their focus is on discourse, morality, aesthetics, and social progress. These people can very much be found in Humanities or Critical Studies departments of universities.
To understand today’s political divisions, we need to look back to 18th century Europe, just as monarchies were fading. At that time, a new educated middle class emerged and opposed an older conservative elite that was often more interested in science, technology, and commerce. In Germany, this culturally-focused class was called the Bildungsbürgertum. They prized humanist education, philosophy, and the arts. They saw themselves as a refined alternative to both the old aristocracy and the new industrialists, which established a fundamental split that still echoes today: a cultural elite versus a techno-money elite.
This historical divide might seem distant, but it helps explain a striking modern phenomenon: the way left-leaning individuals, who see themselves as champions of the common person, are now widely perceived as an out-of-touch “elite.” This perception, which emerged in the early 1990s, is a core driver of populist movements on the right
The centuries-old two-elite model would be complexified in peculiar ways after World War II when leftist anti-establishment ideas were gradually absorbed into the mainstream liberal order. The economic “hardware” (markets, finance) remained largely conservative, while the cultural “software” (art, media, academia) became increasingly left-coded. This created a powerful left-liberal alliance that dominated cultural institutions while still retaining its anti-establishment self-image.
But the fusion of leftism and liberalism is contradictory. We are talking about two historical strands of thought that were originally opposed
1. Classical Liberalism is primarily concerned with economic liberty – free markets, free trade, and individual economic rights whose modern descendants are neoliberals and libertarians.
2. Leftism is primarily concerned with equality and social justice – workers’ rights, redistributing wealth, and challenging hierarchical power structures.
For over a century, these two were opposing forces. The left fought the capitalist class that classical liberalism empowered. The greatest shift happened in the latter half of the 20th century. As the outright socialist threat faded in the West, the existing liberal capitalist order began to absorb and neutralize leftist energy by channeling it away from economics and into culture.
The system maintained its core economic hardware – the rules of the market, finance, and property – largely unchanged and still dominated by pro-market, conservative thinking. This is the realm of the techno money elite. In exchange, it granted dominance over the cultural software – universities, mainstream media, publishing, and the arts – to the left, which is the realm of the cultural-managerial elite.
These developments created the modern “left liberal alliance,” whereby a Silicon Valley CEO (techno money elite) can fund a climate change initiative and pride himself on his company’s diversity quotas (cultural goals), while simultaneously opposing corporate taxation and unionization (economic realities). It means that they support the cultural agenda of the left while upholding the economic status quo.
One can criticize “woke capitalism” as a cynical bargain: the capitalist class buys moral legitimacy from the cultural class without actually redistributing power or wealth. The cultural elite gets to feel that it’s changing the world, while the techno-money elite continues to run it. All that remains of leftism is an anti-establishment “vibe”: left liberals, although they largely dictate culture, continue to feel as though they are in the opposition to power.
The original leftist counter-elite was expected to “think differently” – to champion ideas like global integration and the elimination of borders. But while progressive, these ideas often aligned with the interests of capital, facilitating the delocalization of industries. This is a key reason for the backlash: from
the perspective of many working class voters, the left-liberal elite isn’t fighting the system; it is the system. It’s seen as the “deep state” – a corrupt class of bureaucrats, media personalities, and academics. This is the narrative Donald Trump mastered, casting himself as an outsider battling a corrupt establishment.
All this is baffling to the left liberal elite itself. Don’t they fight against corporate greed and for the common good? Their main concerns are often the integrity of institutions like the Federal Reserve or the Securities and Exchange Commission – the very watchdogs designed to prevent crony capitalism.
The cultural elite is disoriented and increasingly aware of its own contradictions. However, the anti elite finds itself entangled in even greater paradoxes. The resentment of those who identify as “non-elite” is directed toward left-liberal cultural intellectuals. They rarely challenge the actions of the billionaire techno elite. This anti-elite shows little interest in class politics or in confronting the plutocratic actors who exploit them. Adam Smith, Hegel, or Marx would have seen this as a kind of social schizophrenia. But thinkers like Thorstein Veblen and Georg Simmel already recognized that capitalism is not fundamentally about scarcity and needs – it is driven by an economy of extravagance. This is where the key to the puzzle lies: the issue is aesthetic.
The gulf between the left and “the people” has never been wider. A central reason is that the left itself functions as a cultural elite whose tastes and values have drifted far from those of the working class. In part, this remains a class issue, but today “class” is more tightly bound to aesthetics than ever before. This aestheticization is complex and multilayered, as the following discussion will show.
Think about the last time you judged someone’s taste. Why does one person see a sleek, minimalist apartment as “sophisticated,” while another sees it as “cold and uninviting”? Why is a floral patterned couch or a patriotic themed painting dismissed as “tacky” or “kitsch” by coastal critics but loved in heartland homes?
The traditional cultural elite, that is, the Bildungsbürgertum and its modern descendants, developed an aesthetic that values abstraction, irony, and challenges conventions. They see kitsch as fake or emotionally manipulative. A great American example is Pop Art. When Andy Warhol painted Campbell’s soup cans, the cultural elite saw a brilliant critique of consumerism. But for many “regular” people, it was baffling: “Why is a soup can in a museum? That’s not art!” The avant garde, which once fought the elite, has become the elite, and its tastes feel alien to much of the public.
While in the past, the avantgarde fought the conservative taste of the ruling elite (which was often kitsch), in the twenty-first century the avantgarde is the ruling elite. Taste is a silent class marker, as we know since Piere Bourdieu. However, the “cultural capital” that Bourdieu had designated in the twentieth century as decisive for social ascent is now an aesthetic capital of abstraction and irony and is no longer the capital that the masses desire. In their eyes, this capital is toxic.
The fact that a former anti elite is perceived as a cynical elite can be observed in many places. “Postmodernism” started out as an anti-elitist movement fighting the differences between high and low art. Postmodern architecture rejected the bland glass boxes of modernism. It saw itself as democratic. Robert Venturi, the champion of early postmodernism suggested to simply accept that “Main Street is Almost Alright.” The problem is that “Main Street” did not understand postmodern architecture at all and found it weird. Postmodernism mixed historical elements in unexpected ways and became too playful and ironic. Think of a building with a giant classical column next to a bright pink wall, or a roof that looks like it’s melting. To architects, it’s witty and clever. To many bystanders, it can look just plain outlandish and incomprehensible – another elite fad. The original intent of being “woke” was a virtuous one: to be aware of social injustices. However, critics argue that it has morphed into an elitist formalism.
The same pattern can be applied to wokeness. The original intent of being “woke” was a virtuous one: to be aware of social injustices. However, critics argue that it has morphed into an elitist formalism. The principle shifts from “everyone should have a voice” to “speech that harms marginalized groups must be silenced.” The debate over “deplatforming” speakers on college campuses is a classic example. The left-liberal elite sees it as preventing harm; their opponents see it as a new elite using the language of victimhood to shut down debate and enforce ideological conformity.
Here is another emblematic example. The Paris Olympics opening ceremony in 2024 was a mixture of burlesque, artistic experimentation, and provocative pop. It was a bold, avant-garde spectacle, featuring theatrical performances on the Seine River, artistic representations that blurred national lines, and pop music acts that pushed boundaries. To the global cultural elite, it was a thrilling celebration of art over tradition. To many viewers who expected a more straightforward, respectful celebration of sport and national pride (like the stirring flyovers and patriotic anthems common in American ceremonies), it felt odd, disrespectful, or emblematic of the moral relativism they associate with the leftist elite. It became a lightning rod for this very culture clash.
The left-liberal elite is often accused of focusing on issues that seem abstract or unimportant to the daily struggles of many, such as intense debates over transgender bathroom access. While fought with conviction, these issues can feel like luxuries to people worried about making rent. These issues are not “real.”
But many other things have become unreal, too. We’ve shifted from producing physical things (cars, steel) to producing immaterial things: information, software, branding, and financial instruments. Again, this plays to the strengths of the cultural elite, but it also creates a deep anxiety in other parts of the population. Or take “bullshit jobs,” an idea from anthropologist David Graeber, who argued that a huge number of people in modern economies, particularly in administration, feel their jobs are meaningless – that they don’t actually produce anything of obvious value. Their day concerns coordinators, consultants, and middle managers; their work mainly involves sending emails and attending meetings to manage processes rather than create tangible products. This production of “non-material work” fuels a sense that the economy is not based on real, tangible value but on perceived value.
Today one can stream music on YouTube at no cost. Is this a “real” economy? On social media, people labor intensely for “likes,” engaging in a form of self-exploitation that can only be understood as an extreme expression of Veblen’s aesthetic economy of extravagance and prestige.
The middle class (formerly called in Europe Bildungsbürgertum), though definitely vulnerable, is not trying to retrieve the real either and instead enjoys what Marx had called “false consciousness”: they manage their inherited property and buy bitcoins. When financial capitalism creates capital that even the middle class finds mysterious, reality is definitely lost. What is the left doing, apart from enjoying an “anti-establishment vibe”? Further, the proletariat itself has ceased being a fact: in the globalized and outsourcing neoliberal economy, the proletariat no longer exists as an identifiable group of individuals.
The people who feel left behind by this new economy – the ageing factory workers in a shuttered industrial town – are plunged into this “unreal” world. Unable to grasp its abstract logic, they often fill the void with conspiracy theories (another form of immaterial production) and are drawn to strongman leaders like Trump who promise to bring back a simpler, more tangible reality of factories, borders, and national pride.
Few people want to reinstall a monarchy, but what the masses apparently desire is the eighteenth century type of aristocrat who is rich and conservative in terms of taste and aesthetics. Their hero is the oligarch, who can be considered the fusion of the aristocrat and the proletarian. Nothing is more opposed to the Bildungsbürger than the oligarch.
The election of Trump II represents a shift, because the former “anti-elite” is now the ruling elite.
Despite this, there is room for moderate optimism. The election of Trump II represents a shift, because the former “anti-elite” is now the ruling elite. This means left-liberals are logically pushed back into the opposition, which is a chance for them to reconnect with reality. If they can focus less on the cultural battles that feel abstract to so many and more on the tangible economic problems – the power of multinational cartels, the corruption of crony capitalism, the plight of those left behind by the immaterial economy – they may become a true critical counter-power again. They may become the modern Bildungsbürgertum: a cultured class not defined by its obscure tastes, but by its commitment to critiquing power and fighting for a reality that works for everyone. The task is to leave the desert of the unreal and engage with the world as it is. “the people” have also made a choice: they prefer to remain on the side of the unreal.
Yet any optimism must remain cautious, because “the people” have also made a choice: they prefer to remain on the side of the unreal. What could be more unreal than fantasizing about an economy of extravagance while living in poverty? They rarely focus on concrete issues such as health, the environment, or climate. For their leaders, they have not chosen the cultural elite but the techno-money elite.
It is an aesthetic choice. It resembles our fascination with movie villains: we know they are harmful, yet we find them compelling because they defy the system. In films, of course, we clearly distinguish between aesthetic fiction and real life; we would never want such figures governing our actual world. The anti-elite, however, blurs this boundary and confuses the real with the unreal. The task is to leave the desert of the unreal and engage with the world as it is.
Thorstein Veblen’s classic theory of conspicuous consumption (1899) identifies prestige as the primary driver of economic behavior. Observing debt-burdened American sharecroppers, Veblen noted how members of the lower classes often placed the pursuit of superficial social prestige above genuine economic improvement. Veblen speaks of emulation – the attempt to look rich – whereas today’s populism is often less about emulation than about despising the specific forms of cultural capital claimed by the cultural elite. Veblen’s observations apply to the regular petty-bourgeois, but the contemporary American working class is another species. It does not emulate the moneyed or techno elite, but it still affirms its aesthetic values: kitsch, ostentation, and flamboyance.
In this respect, the phenomenon aligns more closely with W.E.B. Du Bois’s observations of Black Americans than with Veblen’s. Writing nine years earlier than Veblen (in 1890), Du Bois remarked: “Probably few poor nations waste more money by thoughtless and unreasonable expenditure than the American Negro, and especially those living in the large cities. Thousands of dollars are annually wasted … in amusements of various kinds, and in miscellaneous ornaments and gewgaws.” Thomas Sowell cites this passage in his discussion of American redneck culture.
There are ethical elements contained in this panoply of alternative culture in the form of honor codes and dignity that are framed as modes of cultural resistance. Yet, once again – much like Afro-American “coolness” – these values function primarily as spectacles. They do not alter economic realities, they are not “real” in a material sense but performed and enacted. But while black coolness received at least some recognition from the cultural elite, demolition derbies won’t.
J. D. Vance, in his Hillbilly Elegy, foregrounds honor, loyalty, and toughness as defining traits of the white working class – values that are ethical as much as aesthetic. It is through the aesthetic that Trump and Vance, the money-elite and the anti-elite, can converge.
For Veblen, the shift towards the aesthetic was an inevitable outcome of an increasingly affluent industrial society – and he regarded it as moderately positive. In earlier times, ordinary people were bound by the economic virtues of thrift, while unproductive consumption was the privilege of the elite. Industrialization, however, allowed common people to begin “dreaming.” What happens in the post-industrial era? As industry declines, new unreal phenomena emerge: the rise of “bullshit jobs,” or the curious tendency of the poor to align themselves with the wealthy techno-money elite without ever receiving any real economic benefit in return. In this context, Veblen’s concept has evolved.
What can be done? “The people” desire prestige and recognition, yet it is precisely the cultural elite that hesitates to grant it. They refuse to descend into relativism by declaring kitsch to be art or by transforming the Kennedy Center into a venue for wrestling matches instead of opera. If the post-industrial era can restore values such as finance, real work, and community… there is hope for a reconnection with the real.
Education is part of the solution – specifically aesthetic education in the humanities, not merely technical training. But of course, not everyone can become a Bildungsbürger. Beneath these aesthetic issues lie economic ones.
Veblen observed an aesthetization of life at a time when industrial power was rising. Today we witness an even deeper aesthetization, driven not by industrial expansion but by deindustrialization. During Veblen’s industrializing period, society still had real finances, real classes, and real communities. The economy was still connected to ordinary people, whether by offering opportunities for social mobility or by exploiting their labor.
Trump understands this partly and promises reindustrialization – a project that is not only economic but also cultural. If the post-industrial era can restore values such as finance, real work, and community (and not merely Trumpian values of borders and nationalism), there is hope for a reconnection with the real. That reconnection is something all actors – elite and non-elite alike – must ultimately accept.