Despite platitudes about equal opportunity and the national mythology of bootstraps and log cabins, a quick glance at American office-holders demonstrates the truth about our democracy — overwhelmingly, the bosses are in charge. At all levels of government, from local city halls to the Capitol building, elected representatives are overwhelmingly business owners or elite professionals like lawyers.

In the United Kingdom, a country with a labor party, representation for working-class people in parliament has been better. But over time, as British unions lost much of their strength and the Labour Party drifted in a pro-market direction, with fewer and fewer blue-collar workers becoming MPs. This trend accelerated under Tony Blair’s New Labour in the 1990s and early 2000s, and it remains to be seen whether the post-Corbyn left within the party can arrest it.

We hope that they can. The data shows that it really does matter who sits in office. There are significant differences of opinion — about tax policy, welfare provision, and other issues — between workers and employers in the general public. And while the absence of large numbers of working-class elected representatives makes it hard to measure precisely, this difference in public opinion is mirrored by a difference of opinion among US state legislators from different economic backgrounds.