IMHO, McGrath, you erroneously conflate "folk" with "traditional", but I would rather not at this stage revisit "what is folk", since the wilful ignorance of many on ha ttopic is so offensive.   Let me however point out that while, say, O'Carolan's music might have been written for the ruling classes of his land and time, since they could afford to pay him, its status if any as folk music comes from its adoption by those who cold not afford to pay him.

Folk song, however, is antithetical to the artifice of "culture" and "sensibility" of the aspirational classes. It may tell of the doings of the aristocracy, but can you really suppose that they sang those songs? In short, rifleman, I suggest you are ignorant of what you speak.

Folk song then did (and in its modern American usage does) however provide a means of expression to those who are, as we see the modern media evolve, deprived of other mainstream means of expression as indeed they were bereft of effective means expression in previous times. Have you forgotten the struggles to enfranchise the electorate? Can you show a realistic avenue to audience for the dispossessed then?

Do you not see the analogue now?