The brahmin left, the merchant right and the bloc bourgeois

In a recent paper, Piketty (2018) argues that the vote for the left in France, the UK and the USA tends increasingly to be associated with a high education level whereas a traditional class-or income-based divide separated left from right individuals in the 1950s and 1960s. The current situation would be characterized by a dominance of “elites” in left and right constituencies: financially rich elites vote for the right (merchant right), high-education elites vote for the left (Brahmin left). Using ISSP data for 17 countries, this paper tests the influence of income and education inequalities on political leaning and a variety of policy preferences: the support for redistribution, for investment in public education, for globalisation and immigration. Results show that income levels are still relevant for the left-right divide, but the influence differs across education levels. Our findings also point to a certain convergence of opinion among the Brahmin left and the merchant right,