Welcome to the age of zero-sum politics

Opinion Data PointsWelcome to the age of zero-sum politicsA stalled economic conveyor belt is behind the rise of anti-system, anti-growth parties on both the right and leftJohn Burn-MurdochAdd to myFTGet instant alerts for this topicManage your delivery channels hereRemove from myFTZohran Mamdani, who won the New York mayoral election this year, and US President Donald Trump © FT montage/Getty ImagesWelcome to the age of zero-sum politics on x (opens in a new window)Welcome to the age of zero-sum politics on facebook (opens in a new window)Welcome to the age of zero-sum politics on linkedin (opens in a new window)Welcome to the age of zero-sum politics on whatsapp (opens in a new window) Save Welcome to the age of zero-sum politics on x (opens in a new window)Welcome to the age of zero-sum politics on facebook (opens in a new window)Welcome to the age of zero-sum politics on linkedin (opens in a new window)Welcome to the age of zero-sum politics on whatsapp (opens in a new window) Save John Burn-MurdochPublishedDecember 19 2025Jump to comments sectionPrint this pageUnlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldFor the past decade, the dominant political narrative across much of the developed world has been the rise of the populist right. Brexit, Donald Trump’s first victory and the emergence of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) as a substantial force in German politics all emerged in 2016. Similar parties and politicians have attained or approached power in Italy, the Netherlands and France, while anti-immigrant attitudes in many countries have hardened and border restrictions tightened.But that one-dimensional story has since become more complicated. Last year saw swings against incumbent parties with gains on both extreme flanks. And this year has seen big strides for what we might call the populist left, from Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York mayoral contest to Die Linke’s surge in the German election and the Greens’ brief rise to second place in one recent poll in the UK, amid calls for wealth taxes and rent control.The deviation from a uniform story of populist rightwing insurgence may reassure some readers. However, upon closer inspection these apparently disparate shifts are all part of a coherent and perhaps even more troubling trend: the emergence and solidification of a politics that is anti-system, anti-growth and fundamentally premised on the idea that we live in a zero-sum world.Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.Extending work by Harvard economist Stefanie Stantcheva and others, my analysis of polling by More in Common finds that in the US, UK, France and Germany zero-sum beliefs on the left (eg people only get rich by making others poor) and the right (eg immigrants succeed at the expense of the native-born) are related expressions of the same underlying worldview. Namely that there is only so much to go around and we must therefore use restrictions, exactions and preferential treatment to redress the balance between winners and losers.Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.Such attitudes are divisive, adversarial and tend to have negative consequences for both economy and society. But far from being irrational or concocted by devious political entrepreneurs, the emergence of these beliefs in different countries and political systems points to their being grounded in a shared reality.When economic growth is weak, upward mobility becomes limited, meaning gains really are more likely to come at another’s expense. This describes the past two decades almost perfectly. Per capita economic growth across the west has averaged less than 1 per cent a year since the financial crisis, down from more than double that in the previous three decades and triple before that. The conveyor belt of generation-on-generation economic progress has slowed to a crawl and everyone is looking accusingly at the person a few steps ahead or the one joining the line half way along.Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.This helps to explain the paradox of why concern about inequality has risen during a period when the gaps between top and bottom in the UK have generally been shrinking. Other people’s relative success is less irksome when everyone is moving onwards and upwards.And the importance of upward mobility to the formation of zero-sum beliefs solves another apparent puzzle: why socialist and New York mayor-elect Mamdani had particular success with high-earning young professionals. In the 1980s, almost three-quarters of thirtysomething New Yorkers earning the equivalent of $100,000 in today’s money owned their own home. Today that figure is less than half. New York’s six-figure socialists are not play-acting; by the most salient marker of socio-economic success we have (home ownership) they are empirically a downwardly mobile group, turning to radical anti-market measures out of desperation.Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.The housing crisis is just one of many reasons that it should come as no surprise to see young people holding the strongest zero-sum attitudes. Recent years have seen steadily increasing economic transfers from young to old as pensions in many countries have become more generous while taxes and other deductions from the young have mounted alongside climbing housing costs. Rent often passes directly from young adults to their parents’ generation.More than half of young voters now back zero-sum parties of the right or left in the US, UK, France and Germany. Without urgent action to restore upward mobility both on the housing ladder and in the economy more broadly, we risk getting stuck in a doom loop of low-growth societies breeding adversarial and anti-growth policies.john.burn-murdoch@ft.com, @jburnmurdochData sources and methodologyZero-sum attitudes were measured across four domains by agreement/disagreement with the following statements:If one income class becomes wealthier, it is at the expense of others⁠If non-citizens do better economically, this is at the expense of citizens⁠If an ethnic group becomes richer, this comes at the expense of other groupsIn international trade, if one country makes more money, then the other makes lessFollowing Chinoy et al (2025), the four measures are combined into a single score using principal component analysis, and scaled from 0 (least zero-sum) to 100 (most zero-sum).Reuse this content (opens in new window) CommentsJump to comments sectionPromoted Content Follow the topics in this article John Burn-Murdoch Add to myFT Data Points Add to myFT Global Economy Add to myFT Populism Add to myFT Zohran Mamdani Add to myFT Comments