I just linked to this Joseph Heath essay on populism but I want to give it more attention:
An unfortunately large number of writers on populism were wrongfooted by the decision, made early on, to treat populism as a type of political ideology, along the lines of socialism or liberalism. This gave rise to an immediate puzzle, because populism seems to be compatible with a large number of other conventional political ideologies. In particular, it comes in both left-wing (e.g. Chavez) and right-wing (e.g. Bolsonaro) variants. So if populism is a political ideology, it’s a strange sort of ideology, because it doesn’t seem to exclude other views in the way that a conventional ideology does. . . .
The solution that many people have settled on is to accept a watered-down version of the first view, treating populism as an ideology, but only a “thin” one. The most commonly cited definition is from Cas Mudde:
I define populism as an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite,” and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people.
The major problem with this definition is that it needs to be so minimal, in order to accommodate the fact that populism comes in both left-wing and right-wing flavours, but as a result it is simply too minimal to explain many of the specific features of populist movements. For example, why are “the people” always conceptualized as a culturally homogeneous mass, even in the context of societies that are quite pluralistic (which forces the introduction of additional constructs, such as la France profonde, or “real Americans”)? Furthermore, reading the definition, it would seem as though the left should be able to get significant mileage out of populism, and yet throughout Europe the rise of populism has almost uniformly benefited the right.
A clue to the solution can be found in a further specification that is often made, with respect to this definition, which is that the “general will” of the people is not for any old thing, but takes the specific form of what is called “common sense.” The crucial feature of common sense, as Frank Luntz helpfully observed, is that it “doesn’t requires any fancy theories; it is self-evidently correct.” One can think of this as the primary point of demarcation between the people and the elites – the people have “common sense,” whereas elites subscribe to “fancy theories.”
I say, exactly. This explains why rage against "elites" usually focuses more on professors than billionaires. It also explains the disgust of populists with Clinton/Obama liberalism, which specialized in gigantic, red-tape besotted systems that no ordinary person understands. A paradigmatic left-wing populist once said to me that Obamacare was "bullshit. If you need a doctor, that should just be free."
How we can manage our fragile and extremely complex world in the face of empowered populism, I do not fully see.
3 comments:
Furthermore, reading the definition, it would seem as though the left should be able to get significant mileage out of populism, and yet throughout Europe the rise of populism has almost uniformly benefited the right.
This is an utterly wild thing to say, given all the historical examples of liberal populism from the French Revolution through to the Communist Revolution.
A paradigmatic left-wing populist once said to me that Obamacare was "bullshit. If you need a doctor, that should just be free."
You mean the way it effectively works in every other wealthy nation on the planet? That specific complaint isn't "Populism", that's just recognizing our broken system for what it is, and expecting the people who run things to do better.
Ordinary people want their lives to be simple. Yes, actually running many aspects of society smoothly is difficult, but there ARE solutions for things like healthcare which take most of the complexity out of the equation for the common person, and make it the responsibility of healthcare industry professionals and civil servants.
That's all most people want - a smooth end user experience. When you take your car to the mechanic to get an oil change, you don't have to fill out a bunch of paperwork, specify the exact technical details of everything using specialized technical jargon, et cetera. You just say "I need an oil change", and the professionals take it from there.
That's what people want in healthcare. They want to walk in and get treated. They want all the complexity and confusion to be handled by specialists for them. They understand that it's more complicated than they care to think about. That's why they're even there! They just want to go to the experts and trust that things will be handled.
But they can't trust that - because we all know that we have a hostile predatory system of "insurance" which is built from the ground up to make the process as cumbersome as possible for people, so that the insurance companies can have every excuse possible to refuse care to people in order to pad their own bank accounts and please their investors. "Delay, Deny, Defend" and so on. The entire point is to prevent people to receiving care in a timely manner (or sometimes even at all), because then that leaves more money in the pockets of the insurers. It's a fucking scam, and everyone knows it.
Please don't confuse people being intolerant of such crooked business practices with "Populism". It's possible your "paradigmatic left-wing" individual was a Populist, for other reasons... but criticizing Obamacare (which was, let's remember, the product of massive concessions made to the obstructionist Right and insurance industry lobbyists) is not Populist in the least.
How we can manage our fragile and extremely complex world in the face of empowered populism, I do not fully see.
The only solution is education. The realities of the modern world demand it. Or rather... the only solution which preserves freedom and democracy... is education. The alternative is the historical one - educated elites ruling over ignorant masses through a combination of force and manipulation.
The weakness of Democracy has always been the need for an educated, principled, politically active populace.
When the people making the decisions in society do so based on ignorance, injustice, and apathy... you get bad governance. This is true whether only a small handful of elites are making the decisions, or whether you give the entire population the power to decide via a vote. If you're going to have a system where everybody gets to help shape decisions, then you need to have a culture and society which ensures everybody is worthy of said power to decide, and will use it sagaciously and responsibly; not just in pursuit of their own interests, but for the good of everyone.
If not, then Populism reigns at best, or the system falls apart at worst.
1 Populism is much more complex than that 2 Of course there is strong left populism in History, you just need to remember China and Russia and North Korea and Cuba and Venezuela as cases of triumphant left populism, and for example Portugal after 25 April 1974 as a case of defeated dangerous left populism. These days now the left populism lost all arguments for one thing: all cases of triumphant left populism are terrible regimes, they act like demotivating. Right wing populism has been growing in Europe and had victories in Brazil, Argentina and the USA, but the final balance, the evaluation of its success, is still uncertain. Anyway, for most European countries, it has started also demotivating: right wing populism is receding or not growing everywhere but in France. Populist parties add defeat after defeat. Now it was the Netherlands. Órban will loose elections. In a near future it will be like the European Comunist Parties: just a bunch of nostalgic freaks.
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