Yes, although in this day and age I would rather use the word progressive. ‘the left’ is both an economic stance and a cultural stance. Usually it includes an economic model where the rich pay their fair share and the poor or incapable are taken care of ( economic left). Cultural left also includes stuff like equal rights, caring for refugees, opposing benefits for religious groups, allowing woman abortion etc. I usually refer to economic left politics as ‘progressive’. Cultural and economic left are not always and everywhere a package. In Denmark the ruling party is economic left, but cultural right. In Holland the ruling party is economic right wing but cultural left. A progressive right wing party ( it’s not pretty ) Economic left leaning policies are bad for big capital. (Higher taxes) And cultural left is bad for business because it usually leads to more oversight, unionizing etc.

When a populace is adequately educated and has adequate means (housing, food etc) and have a fair and balanced media landscape, they almost automatically lean to progressive politics. Because, although a lot of people want you to think otherwise, humans are actually altruistic by nature. This is what happened in the nineties in Europe, and to a leaser extend in USA.

However they do not also lean to economic left politics, because people still vote with their wallet. Money and wealth have a sickening way of making people greedy up to a point where they start to act and vote against their self interest, regardless of political color. This is exploited by the ruling class to scare people. ( “If you vote for that socialist he will take all YOUR money!”, etc)

You understand that the call for higher taxes and policies to fix the climate, which really got going in the nineties were very bad for business, so the capital class started to shovel money into a truly tremendous political marketing campaign and propaganda machine that – through a staggering amount of inane bullshit messaging --somehow got the electorate believing that the world was on the verge of collapsing and scared the people shitless by telling them they would loose all their money ( and proving the point somewhat by ushering in a completely unnecessary and preventable financial crisis in 2008). Leading to fear and irrational voting ( people clearly and overwhelmingly voting against their own interest ) which lead to their lives getting worse. Rinse. Repeat. And that is how you end up with Fascism, which is actually very good for the oligarchs because it basically strips all rules and oversight.

Don’t let yourself be fooled into thinking that anything we see today was inevitable. It was carefully planned and payed for.