ONE of the biggest ideas to hit the political world in recent years is that politics is increasingly defined by the division between open and closed, rather than left and right. Openness means support for both economic openness (welcoming immigration and free trade) and the cultural sort (embracing ethnic and sexual minorities). Closedness means the opposite.

This argument, which The Economist explored in a cover article a couple of years ago, has recently been reinforced by the launch of a new think-tank, Global Future. Global Future marked its arrival with an opinion poll which suggests not only that the open-closed division is the most salient one in British politics, but that “open” has time on its side. There is a 51-percentage-point difference between the under-45s and the over-45s on the question of whether immigration is a force for good, for example.

Open v closed clearly matters. Donald Trump won by promising to put America first. But Bagehot is reluctant to give it the same force as the old distinction between left and right. The division is too self-serving for comfort. It looks more like ammunition for a political war than dispassionate analysis, and thereby contributes to the polarisation that it claims to diagnose. There are also too many facts that don’t fit.

Consider Brexit. Remainers regard it as the quintessential revolt against the open society. Yet some of the most prominent Leavers, such as Daniel Hannan and Douglas Carswell, are classical liberals who regard the European Union as a protectionist bloc that is bent on subsidising inefficient industries. It is true that the UK Independence Party thrived on fears of immigration. But at the height of its popularity it received only 4m votes, whereas 17m voted to leave. A poll of 12,000 Leavers found that their main motive, cited by 49%, was democratic self-government. By their own lights they were voting against a closed elite in favour of open and accountable government.

The most obvious problem with the open-closed theory is that the divide is so slippery. Few people support entirely open societies—it would be perverse to allow Ebola victims to cross borders unimpeded. By the same token, few people advocate becoming a hermit kingdom like North Korea. Nor are open and closed necessarily opposites. Having a strong border can make people more open, by giving them a sense that they can manage openness. Historically, most of the world’s great centres of commerce have been walled cities. Constantinople, the crossroads between east and west, boasted not just a formidable wall but an outer and inner harbour.

And different forms of openness and closedness don’t always go together. Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, is open when it comes to transgender rights and immigration, but closed when it comes to foreign companies owning British utilities, or trade unions operating closed shops. Many Brexiteers are the opposite.

The biggest problem with the open-closed divide, however, is that open people often aren’t as open as they think—indeed, they are open in so far as it serves their interests and no further. The young cosmopolitans celebrated by Global Future are closed when it comes to giving a fair hearing to social conservatives. Try opposing gay marriage in a college bar and you will discover the meaning of Herbert Marcuse’s phrase “repressive tolerance”.

This is even clearer in economics, where open people cluster in industries that have been less affected by globalisation than manufacturing. Steelworkers have been upended by competition from China. Public-sector bureaucrats have not been touched. Supposedly open people have also protected themselves from competition by constructing a wall of licences, restrictions and other barriers to entry. The post-1979 deregulation of the economy was one-sided. Working-class closed shops, such as that of the printworkers, were broken, while professional closed shops, notably for barristers, were left to thrive.

Academics like to think of themselves as open to their core. But academia is rife with restrictive practices. The most highly prized commodity in academic life is tenure—that is, the right to an income for life whatever happens to the world. University towns have some of the strictest planning laws around, so that insiders see the value of their most important asset soar. Academic publishers make their profits by rolling several sorts of rent-seeking together. They get free content because academics have to publish to get tenure, and a guaranteed market because academic libraries have to buy their books and journals. Bankers have similar double standards. Critics rightly point out that they are arch-globalists when the market is on the up, but then turn to national governments when it crashes. But the problem runs deeper. Like other industries, finance is rigged from the inside by firms that invest in lobbyists and hire ex-politicians who still wield influence.

The real divide

There is a better explanation of political polarisation than the open-closed split. It is the gap between exam-passers and exam-flunkers. Qualifications grant access to a world that is protected from the downside of globalisation. You can get a job with a superstar company that has constructed moats and drawbridges to protect itself, or with a middle-class guild that provides job security, or with the state bureaucracy. Failing exams casts you down into an unpredictable world of cut-throat competition.

Exam-passers combine a common ability to manage the downside of globalisation with a common outlook—call it narcissistic cosmopolitanism—that binds them together and legitimises their disdain for rival tribes. Exam-flunkers, meanwhile, are united by anger at the elitists who claim to be open as long as their jobs are protected. They are increasingly willing to bring the system crashing down. Talking about open v closed is a double error. It obscures the deeper forces dividing the world, and spares winners by playing down the legitimate concerns of losers.