To my great surprise, I found out recently that a lot of what I have been saying in my musings on Populism, Authoritarianism, Liberalism, and so on are actually insights that have been brought up before by the so-called “Italian School of Elitism”. I’d recommend the substack blog that I read it on, but I’m tired of recommending those who do not recommend back and intend to end the practice.
Actually, I do not know how much overlap there is between me and the Italians, exactly, seeing as I’ve never read anything from them.
But, as it turns out, all this time I had been reading ancient Greeks when I could have just read some modern Italians. But, hey, ask any Greek and they will tell you that Italians are just bad Greeks so maybe it’s better that I went to the original source. Also, it’s nice to discover that smart people who came before you had come to the same conclusions at some point as well. It makes you feel vindicated and like you’re part of a perennial tradition that is greater than yourself.
Also, in my defense, the Greeks and the Bad Greeks were just looking at the world around them and at examples from history to draw their conclusions. I found myself doing a lot of the same. Furthermore, I never really felt the need to start looking at the past for a philosopher or political movement to blindly fanboy over like others seem to do. Don’t really know why I’m like that, but taking the thoughts and worldview of someone else and adopting it like some foreign god always seemed rather self-demeaning to me. I’d learn, borrow and tweak from others, sure, but eventually figure out my own thing my own way, was my thinking at least.
With all that out of the way, I find that the people struggle to understand even the most basic explanation of Populism that I can offer to them. To be fair, the average person doesn’t understand much of anything, but, if I’m going to claim that Populism is the preferred political tradition of the people, it’s a bit strange then that the average “populist” has no idea what I’m talking about.
To me that indicates that Populism ought to be defined. I use it as a generic term, but, variations in Populism occur in each country and are dependent on the history, culture and political traditions of that country. The Italian Elitists say that all of history is basically the elites warring amongst themselves. So, if a faction of the elite has fewer guns, less gold and traditional assets that can translate into projection of force and power, they have to make up the difference by appealing to the power of the people. Politics, after all, is just war by other means and war is about accumulating strength and using it to destroy one’s enemies.
Populism has nothing to do with pretending that all people are equal or that the plebs should not be treated with disdain. Populism is not a moral category either. Populism is simply a tool or a weapon in the hands of someone or some people who are willing to use it. These Populist leaders tend to be far more intelligent, conscientious and forward-thinking than the people that they represent. That is because Populist movements are usually run by a second-tier elite or an elite-in-waiting.
Over-proliferation of elites and excess elite accumulation is also a prerequisite for revolution. But that’s a topic for another time.
Now, the populace can be characterized like a giant clay golem or, perhaps, a powerful force of nature like a flood or an earthquake. Populism is an attempt to harness that natural power by one faction against another. But, the relationship between the peasants and the rebel elites doesn’t have to be an inherently exploitative one though. The people have something that the rebels need - the power to swing the war one way or the other - and they have legitimate demands for reform and redress so it makes sense, if at all possible, for the rebel elite to make and then honor a deal with the masses in exchange for their support. There are almost as many examples in history of Populist movements being used and then betrayed as there are of things turning out more or less OK for both parties involved.
Now, for there to be potential for a Populist movement, there have to be people getting fleeced or abused by a certain caste with power over them. Luckily, this is happening almost all the time in our fallen world and the only question is the scale on which the fleecing is occurring. The people begin to first resent, then, perhaps, to resist their exploiters.
Please understand this though: the stage of active resistance may never be reached. Without organization and leadership, the peasants are incapable of doing anything but get themselves into trouble with the secret police by writing comments advocating violence against the state in the comments sections of their favorite blogs. The deciding factor is always whether or not a capable rebel elite exists and is willing to go to war with the reigning elite. That’s it.
Material dialectical Hegelian historical realism whatever is not real.
Spontaneous overthrow does not occur in nature.
There are only factions of vanguard elites, whether domestic or foreign, battling it out throughout the course of history. And, these vanguard elites are far more radical and forward-thinking than the masses of peasants that they claim to represent. They may lay claim to a people, but the people often do not recognize their authority … yet. But, these vanguard elites are, in most cases, the most powerful and refined element of the populace’s character. They see themselves as a vanguard elite, even if the peasants don’t even see themselves as anything but miserable, wretched individuals chasing fleeting self-gratification and God knows what else these people spend their free time doing.
A good government prevents the conditions for revolt from forming by not harassing the people more than necessary. A bad government creates the conditions for revolt, but culls the potential leaders and dismantles any organization that they suspect might be used to organize the masses. Both governments have a chance of surviving for generations depending on a myriad of conditions that they find themselves in.
In America, there is a storied local history of Populism. The Populist movements of their time usually demanded more “Democracy” whenever they rallied against the powers of their time. Democracy then, ought to be defined as well, seeing as it’s a loaded and misused term. It is usually taken to mean “power to the people” or as a rallying cry against rule by shadowy cabals of oligarchs. But, the current system we have is anti-Populist, even if it is indeed Liberal Democratic.
And here, the problem is that I’m working with words that no one understands. At the very least, these words don’t mean what people think that they mean. Like, the Bolsheviks weren’t talking about people with wrenches and overalls when they spoke about “workers”. Consider the fact that Leon Trotsky, one of the richest men in the world, considered himself a “worker”. So, basically, to sidestep a lot of this confusion, I’ve boiled politics down to Authoritarianism and Oligarchy. And then, I’ve defined “good” as that which makes an individual and a group stronger and “evil” as that which makes people weaker. It took me several essays to lay this all out and it felt like I’d never get through the basics but here we are.
Now, there is no point in explaining any of this to people who are not “elite” or who do not have the potential to become elite. Most people are incapable of understanding the hidden mechanisms by which the world works and will resist any attempt on your part to explain it to them. So don’t. The masses respond to Populism even if they don’t understand what it is and that is what is important. The rest is just details. As I go into more and more details it’s important to keep in mind that I’m writing for rebel elites or people with the potential to become elite. Telling me that the average person doesn’t know or understand what I’m talking about isn’t really a valid point to be making because I never claimed that they did. All I did was claim that they respond to Populism in whatever form it takes. Populism, contrary to what the word itself sounds like it ought to mean, means something quite different. It means something like “rebel elitism”.
This you must understand, friend.
I used to be really interested in stuff like this until the findings of certain people I follow discouraged me.
From my current point of view, most political and economic ideas, even if they are based on careful research and thoughtful discussion, end up on the public stage in the form of propaganda. Most people don't have the time or patience or intellect or some combination of those to study these ideas the way their originators studied them. And that said, it seems that some ideologies were originated only for their propaganda value, as they seem largely fatuous or unworkable (Eugenics?).
Populism, in my mind, encompasses any package of messages that validates ordinary people as the backbone of society, yet does not necessarily demand any more of them. Revolution demands popular activism, if not martyrdom. Anti-populism shudders at the history of deplorable decisions that ordinary people have been persuaded to make. Yet , is that not Democracy? Conservatism, in most of its forms, demands that adults do productive work if they are able. Authoritarians may demand that people do things they do not wish to do, thus they tend to be anti-populist.
Though decisions about the day-to-day operations of groups, businesses, cities or nations can be based on ideology, they usually aren't. They are based on a mix of political calculations. Thus, I hope that managers and leaders will be sane much more than I hope they will be "liberal" "conservative" or anything else.
Any good leader, whether "populist" or not, will respect ordinary people, as they are needed to work, to reproduce, and to fight. To the extent that they are less needed for these functions, they will be less respected. But in a democracy, ordinary people are needed at voting time. So, a degree of populist rhetoric would always be expected there.
Though anti-populists scream about the shallow ideas of the populists, they seldom reflect on the unworkability of their own ideas, no matter how theoretically rigorous they might be.
On top of this, I am intrigued by how different types of populism influence how ordinary people think about life and about themselves.
In American Dream populism, a constant striving to increase one's social status seems to be expected. In America, everyone wants to send their kids to college. The fact that a world full of doctors and engineers would quickly fall apart seems to be overlooked. And are the American suburbs really the perfect form of community living?
I could respect a form of populism that would assert that all jobs are valuable (and possibly should be remunerated with that in mind), so if you do your job, I'll do mine. A "populism" that expects competence from everyone, particularly if it finds ways to enable that competence, would be an ideology worth respecting, it seems to me. A populism that expects ordinary people to sit back with their popcorn and watch the show isn't worth much. And a populism that promised everyone as much wealth and power as they dream of having would be folly.
The challenge of any leader, populist or not, is to keep the game going for his or her people. In the face of the levels of crime and insanity found on this planet, that's a very difficult challenge.
In a round-about and sorta vague way, Rolo, you have defined populism.
I imagine most politicians and journalists who read this will nod and move on. They, too, use the word casually and with creative licence. But, in my not-so-humble opinon, thee effing errs. Quite uncharacteristically too, if I may say.
I have no idea how the word was used prior to the US Populist Movement and, frankly, I don't care. If it was used at all it was of insignificant import. Today, we have a tight resistance movement rallying against fascist tyranny and demanding government for the people, not just for the benefit of the elite.
The only comparable situation was the US Populist Movment that bourgened following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Now, here is where we need to pluck the naked and undecorated truth from a history written by the elite investment bankers who assassinated Lincoln. Abraham refused to fund the Civil War with private bank loans and, instead, established war bonds. He also refused to permit the same bankers to establish their own Federal Reserve Bank (they had to create their own President, Woodrow Wilson, to acheive that).
All of this was enough for the bankers to regard Lincoln as their worst enemy, but this resistance was not what they feared most. It was Lincoln's Gettysberg Address, which resonated more every day in American and even overseas minds, that terrified them. I refer, of course, to his brilliantly unambiguous and lyrical "Government of The People, by The People and for The People".
This utterly undermined the ellaborate frauds that the elite inflicted on mankind, in which we clods get to elect some jerk to impose decisions on ourselves, made by the bankers, for the bankers. Lincoln's inspired words encouraged sharp students of history and economics to realise that elections, parliaments, policies, majorities, and representatives were pure windowdresssing and theatre, to veil the oligarch within.
Thus it was that, when aware citizens understood who had executed Lincoln, and why, the Populaist Movement came spontaneously into being and lasted well into the 1880s before finally being smotherd by the banker's media. But this was the second historical popular drive for genuine democracy.
Many historians doubt that the bankers were really so fearful of democracy being so unambiguously defined but this is because they know so little of real history. The truth is, only ten years earlier, pro-democracy activists from nations as diverse as Russia, China, France, eastern Europe and even America, travelled to Australia to form the world's first democratic nation. The American bankers panicked and requested that the City of London bankers instruct the British military to crush the movement to oblivion. In Australia this is known as the 1854 'Massacre at the Eureka Stockade' and we dumb-arsed Aussies are told it was all a rebellion agaainst the high cost of gold-digging licences.
What we have today is about a direct repeat of history: the demand that autocracy and tyranny be replaced with genuine democracy. ie the Populist Movement II. In many parts of Australia, you will see the crude slogan "Eureka... unfinished business".