We Prefer to Be Ruled by Our Own

The Rise of Populism and the Search for Status

How our rulers look to us when they’re not our own. Source: DreamStudio AI

We prefer to be ruled by our own. “Our own” historically meant a shared ethnicity, religion, and culture. But if held strongly enough (especially if buttressed by deeper ties), then ideals, values, and ideologies can substitute for the primordial links of blood and tradition. A classic example of a unifying creed comes from the US Declaration of Independence, with its Enlightenment-inspired recitation of “self-evident truths.” The American creed may have been developed by men of the same background, but its incipient universalism (“all men are created equal”) allowed for an expansive sense of belonging. A less successful example comes from the utopian vision of Marxism-Leninism, which held together the Soviet Union until it fractured along national lines. But whatever their origin, whether rooted in ancestral inheritance or voluntary commitment, some powerful common ties must bind the ruler and the ruled in any functioning political order. When those ties don’t exist, or fray and are severed, the result may range from contested election to attempted secession, civil unrest to armed revolt.

Political theorist Isaiah Berlin attributes the desire to be ruled by our own to a search for status. He observes that “I may prefer, in my bitter longing for status, to be bullied or misgoverned by some member of my own race or social class, by who I am, nevertheless, recognized as a man and a rival—that is, as an equal—to being well and tolerantly treated by someone from some higher and more remote group.”¹ Both domestically and internationally, this “bitter longing for status” helps explain political behavior that would otherwise seem irrational. Very often, we would rather be exploited by a member of our “tribe” (literal or figurative) who shares our core identity, than be competently governed by a ruler we see as an outsider. Our collective pride in representation—whether based on immutable characteristics like ethnicity, adoptable allegiance to a worldview, or some combination of both—can be stronger than even our apparent self-interest.

Once You’re Post-Colonial, You Never Go Back

In 2020, after a massive explosion ripped through Beirut, over 60,000 Lebanese signed a petition calling for the return of French oversight to their country. The petition reads, “With a failing system, corruption, terrorism and militia, the country just drew its last breath. We believe Lebanon be placed back under a French mandate in order to establish clean and durable governance.” French President Emmanuel Macron rejected the idea, saying, “You can’t ask me to substitute for your leaders. It’s not possible.” But of course, such a substitution was possible when the French Empire spanned the globe—and, in a failed bid to instill imperial unity, colonial schoolchildren were taught to recite “Our ancestors, the Gauls." From a strict cost-benefit perspective, what is unusual is not that many Lebanese would pine for a return to colonial status, but how rare such sentiment is in post-colonial failed states.²

Nine of the ten poorest countries on the globe are former European colonies. (The outlier, Liberia, was founded as a homeland for freed African-American slaves.) Yet there are no mass movements in the developing world to return Burundi to the Germans, Chad to the French, or Malawi to the British. Burundi would surely be more prosperous if it were once again German East Africa, and made eligible to receive funding from the European Union. Chadians would undoubtedly enjoy more individual rights if subject to the French Constitution instead of a homegrown military dictatorship. But far from inviting back the colonial powers and requesting membership in the Eurozone, Chadians have protested the French military presence in their country, while Burundi has demanded billions in reparations from Germany for colonial rule.

The point is not that the prioritization of national independence over economic prosperity is irrational. Rather, it’s that humans have other, greater desires than material well-being and even personal freedom. If Malawi were to become a British Overseas Territory, like Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands, individual Malawians would gain in riches and rights. But Malawians as a whole would lose in status, and individuals, after all, define themselves as part of a whole. As Berlin writes, “Although I may not get liberty at the hands of members of my own society, yet they are members of my own group; they understand me; and this understanding creates within me the sense of being somebody in the world.” For most of us, in post-colonial Africa and beyond, the sense of being somebody in the world is worth a drop in GDP.

Globalist Anywheres and Deplorable Somewheres

Even in American domestic politics, the search for status drives voting patterns more than economics. As summarized by George Packer, “One party supports unions, the child tax credit, and some form of universal health care, while the other party does everything in its power to defeat them. . . . Yet polls since 2016 have shown Republicans closing the gap with Democrats on which party is perceived to care more about poor Americans, middle-class Americans, and ‘people like me.’” The working class may be materially better off under a Democratic administration, but it is increasingly aligned with the Republicans because the Democrats are seen as the party of an unpopular elite. While the working class is accused by many of those same elites of voting against its interests, those interests are not purely, or even primarily, economically defined. Inflation is undoubtedly hurting the Democrats’ poll numbers, but the perception that the party “cares less about people like me” cuts deeper than economics alone.

As Packer observes, “Social issues aren’t manufactured by power-hungry politicians to divide the masses. They matter—that’s why they’re so polarizing.” Polarization has led to two separate tribes in one nominally United States, and an increased inability to feel represented by the other side. Donald Trump's unwillingness to accept the 2020 election results may be motivated by ego, but his followers' willingness to go along with him is driven by collective identification. They feel recognized and represented by him such that they see a loss in his status as a loss of their own. In Trump’s telling, “In the end, they’re not after me. They’re after you. I just happened to be standing in their way.” While his followers may be duped by a demagogue, they are right to see the other party—increasingly associated with what Packer calls “the excesses and failures of a professional-class social-justice movement” (contrast slogans like “No human is illegal” with overwhelmed border towns)—as not sharing many of their fundamental values.³

The political division in the US is mirrored by the rise of populism globally. For example, David Goodhart attributes Brexit to “the emergence in the past generation of two big value clusters: the educated, mobile people who see the world from ‘Anywhere’ and who value autonomy and fluidity, versus the more rooted, generally less well-educated people who see the world from ‘Somewhere’ and prioritise group attachments and security.” In the US, the “Anywheres” are derided by the “Somewheres” as unpatriotic, godless globalists. The “Somewheres” are condemned by the “Anywheres” as, in the words of leading Democrats, “deplorables” who “cling to guns and religion." The issues associated with this divide—open borders vs build the wall, free trade vs buy America, defund the police vs blue lives matter—are important, but the divide is ultimately rooted in identity and status. In Packer’s words, “All of it—wages, migrants, police, guns, classrooms, trade, the price of gas, the meaning of the flag—can be a source of chaos or of dignity.” Voters are attracted to candidates who offer them dignity, or at least channel their hunger to receive it.

Anywhere but Lebanon

Regardless of the economic and political risks, British “Somewheres” supported Brexit because they preferred to be ruled by their own. (The Brexit slogan was “Take back control,” which effectively conveyed the message that the British were currently not in control.) And Goodhart’s analysis of the elitist instincts of the British “liberal tribe”—”the far greater concern for suffering in distant lands than just around the corner, the blank incomprehension of religious or national feeling and the disdain for the ordinary people we were meant to champion”—holds equally true for a US elite that has spurred its own populist revolt. According to an Ipsos survey, 69% of Americans agree that “the political and economic elite don't care about hardworking people.” A common religious or national feeling, shared cultural touchstones and values, a sense of linked fate: if none of these bind the ruler and the ruled, the professional and the working classes, then the political order falls apart. Economic incentives, absent social cohesion, cannot make the center hold.

We prefer to be ruled by our own, but the definition of “our own” can change. Americans were content to be ruled by the British when they considered each other one people. Democrats were formerly the party of the working class, and the Republicans the party of the elite, but the two are presently trading places. Perhaps the “Anywheres,” after enough electoral losses, will rediscover their roots and demonstrate solidarity with the “Somewheres.”⁴ Maybe the “Somewheres” will grow disillusioned with demagogues’ false promises. After all, a majority of Britons now consider Brexit a failure. A new center could form after mutual exhaustion with ideological extremes: a more nationalist liberalism and a more cosmopolitan conservatism. Lebanon, with its dysfunctional government, sectarian paralysis, and independent militias, provides a cautionary tale. Humans may prefer status to prosperity and collective representation to individual liberties, but a country can still be so dysfunctional that it would invite back foreign rule. “Anywhere” works up to a point, but there are some places in the world we’d just not rather be.

1. The Berlin quotations are from “The Search for Status” in his 2000 essay collection The Power of Ideas.

2. Of note, France has traditionally positioned itself as the benefactor of Lebanon’s large Christian population, and many of the petition’s signatories were likely Christian.

3. Ruy Teixeira provides a comprehensive list of “Brahmin Left” beliefs that the working class largely doesn’t share.

4. Goodhart, for example, calls for “a more mature and emotionally intelligent liberalism that sees that there really is such a thing as society and one that functions well is based on habits of co-operation and trust and bonds of language, history and culture.”