To my surprise, nobody seemed to comment on the stagnation and decline in the wages of non-college workers. Nor was there any discussion of how inequality between residents of small cities and large metropolitan areas had surged. Instead, commentator after commentator talked about gender inequality, racial inequality, and inequality affecting sexual minorities. These are all important topics, of course, but if our aim was to understand the surge in inequality at the aggregate level, much of the story was about jobs and opportunities for Americans without college education.
It was only later that I realized how rare such an event had become, where I spoke to somebody with a very different education profile, occupation, and interests from mine. This made me consider what would have happened if, on my other side at the bar, there had been somebody with a Ph.D. and an occupation similar to mine (academic, financier, consultant, lawyer, etc.). Whom would I have chosen to initiate a conversation with? Whom would the participants in the workshop I attended have chosen? The answer seemed almost too obvious, and not completely unrelated to why the plight of manual workers was less than top of mind for many college-educated policymakers, activists, and civil servants.
There is nothing natural about the educational segregation that has emerged in the United States. But it has become a reality, with far-reaching consequences for postindustrial politics. It is emblematic of weakening ties within communities—and within the nation. It may explain how, as they became more politically influential and assertive, the well-educated became less understanding of the woes of those with lower levels of education. It is a big part of the story of how left-leaning, well-educated liberal elites started deviating from the premises of liberalism that had generated its past success.
Cultural politics, promoted from both left and right, has further alienated the working class.
Excerpted with permission from What Happened to Liberal Democracy: Remaking a Politics of Shared Prosperity by Daron Acemoglu, published by Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright (c) 2026 by Daron Acemoglu.
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