Not necessarily the far left. Let's take a look at the SDAI POPINTEL PYRAMID&#0153:

The enlightened left has more sheer numbers than the intellectual conservative capitalists. NYT best sellers on the left side of the political spectrum have an advantage. When the politically neutral who may lean slightly left are added, you have a best seller. FOr conservatives the deck is stacked against them. The default conservatives and liberals are not readers and so the conservatives are even more subject to the whim of the politically neutral who may lean slightly right for sales.

Add the institutional bias against conservative rhetoric in 95% of the publishing industry and you will see why most NYT bestsellers lean left and are read by more liberal than conservatives.

The enlightened left is at that first stage of human emergence. They realize the injustices, inequalities of the world and have a kneejerk reaction against them. Eventually they, if they pursue their depth of understanding, will morph again, still carrying their enlightened caring nature with them, but realizing that salvation is can't be mandated by a government program without a prosperous capitalist underpinning. All that feel-good stuff means nothing when your state is bankrupt and can't provide diddly. The richest states can provide the most benefits to their citizenry. They also soon realize the damage done by fostering dependency and kneejerk reactionism.

The enlightened left soon realizes that their view of capitalism was too narrow and the absolute necessity of such a system becomes paramount in their minds. When this finally occurs to them they morph to the top tier of the pyramid - libertarian capitalist intellectuals. They perhaps represent 1/4 of 1% of the US population. Maybe 750,000 people.

Conservative capitalist intellectuals are a bit more finite in their views of social and individual liberties but equally see the same need for a capitalist underpinning to the US and the rest of the world. Some of them at one time were enlightened liberal types, but the majority probably emerge directly from the members of the politically neutral who pursued intense education. This politically neutral group is also where the enlightened liberals emerge from, as well as from either of the default core groups.

Default liberals are the urban and suburban poor, illegal immigrants, second generation legalized foreigners.
Default conservatives are primarily the rural poor & lower middle and middle middle class.

So, to sum up, yes the left has more readers it can pull from at any time. This does not mean that the pinnacle of intellectual development is embodied by the left.

;-)