There has been a centuries-long trend of growth in the share
of the population having a serious say in the way things run. Significant
exceptions are easy to find and there have been terrible reversals, but still
it is a big picture trend. I will call the agents behind reallocation of power
from smaller to larger social groups “the left,” conceding that this is an
oversimplification as well as anachronism, the “left/right” terminology arising
only with the French Estates General.