Why right-wing governments restrict market competition: a demographic theory

Recent scholarship on the evolution of neoliberalism points out that, despite free market discourse, right-wing rule has often resulted in re-regulation and further market concentration, to the advantage of large corporations. This article argues that such an outcome is not an inevitable result of right-wing incumbency. Instead, I identify an exogenous, demographic, change that prompts right-wing governments to increasingly embrace market concentration: the aging of the workforce, which has intensified the substitution of capital for labor, and as a result, somewhat paradoxically, reduced the amount of pure profits that can be distributed to wealthy households. In response, right-wing governments restrict competition to shore up pure profits. Drawing on data from 14 to 20 OECD countries, I show that as workforce aging intensifies, right partisanship becomes increasingly associated with more regulatory restrictions on competition, greater market concentration, and a greater pure profit share of income.