A century ago there was some thing in this. There is far less now. The spread of education has been accompanied by an equally dramatic increase in wealth. The average Briton's income has quintupled in real terms since the beginning of the century. The average West German's has more than quadrupled in the past half- century alone.
Bigger incomes bring bigger savings, so more people own houses or shares or whatever.
And the rising totals have been accompanied by a more even distribution of prosperity. We are all middle- class now. The democracies must therefore apply to themselves the argument they used to direct against the communists. As people get richer and better educated, a democrat would admonishingly tell a communist, they will no longer be willing to let a handful of men in the Politburo take all the decisions that govern a country's life. The same must now be said, with adjustment for scale, about the workings of democracy.