THE PEASANTS ARE GETTING ANGRY: Joel Kotkin: The working classes are a volcano waiting to erupt: Workers across the world are being squeezed from all sides. They won’t put up with it forever. “Whatever the final outcome, the recent French elections have already revealed the comparative irrelevance of many elite concerns, from genderfluidity and racial injustice to the ever-present ‘climate catastrophe’. Instead, most voters in France and elsewhere are more concerned about soaring energy, food and housing costs. Many suspect that the cognitive elites, epitomised by President Emmanuel Macron, lack even the ambition to improve their living conditions. The French elections reflect the essential political conflict of our time. On one side, there is a powerful alliance between the corporate oligarchy and the regulatory clerisy. On the other, there are two beleaguered and angry classes – the small-business owners and artisans, and the vast, largely unorganised service class.”

Flashback: “To understand events around the world today, one must think in terms of the class struggle.”

Related: The rich and powerful thrived as the rest of us suffered in the year of lockdowns.

Also: America’s elites are waging class war on workers and small biz. “The gentry class is in firm control of most of the institutions in America, from big corporations, to media organizations, to, most especially, colleges and universities. The Democrats are the gentry class’ party, as the GOP increasingly becomes a diverse coalition of working-class and small-business people. And the gentry class is letting the working class have it.”