Can you tell us a bit about how focus groups came to be?

At every turn, focus groups have been developed or further perfected to bridge a vast divide between a group of elites and the people they want to convince. We find this just as much with left-wing elites as with our current depraved ruling class.

In fact, the focus group was developed during Red Vienna, a period when the city, despite a very conservative national government, was run by socialists. The Viennese socialist leadership was very much a cultural elite — they were the intellectuals, the psychoanalysts. They had ideas about what socialism should be but were very out of touch with the working class. These elites held a lot of socially conservative views, like the working class shouldn’t have sex outside of marriage or drink, they should play team sports and listen to classical music. The working class wasn’t particularly interested in those ideas, so there was this disconnect.

Read the full interview at Jacobin.