The Populism Crisis
The anti-globalization wave today overlaps the rise of populism. Over the past few years, more and more politicians who are in favor of more populist ideologies around the world are gaining supporters, and some of them are being elected to really make policy changes. While the media keeps warning society against the rise of populism, it is important for people to understand what populism truly represents and practical ways to deal with its detrimental effects. Even though some argue that populism is an inherently harmful ideology, this paper will argue that populism is a neutral trend of thoughts that constitutes an important aspect of a functioning democracy, but an increase in the wealth distribution inequality has raised it to a dangerous level.
While we are seeing the term populism on mass media frequently, there is not a clear and universal definition of populism that everyone would agree on. However, the term is used to identify a phenomenon everyone can observe in our society: people are leaning towards an ideology and rhetoric that the elites who are running the country are corrupt, and the system must be reformed on behalf of the people. (Bryant & Moffitt, 2019) Progressive populists and conservative populists tend to take on different views about how this reform should take place. Progressive populists, Bernie Sanders, for example, tend to embrace the idea of democratic socialism, an ideology that is best represented by the Nordic Model. It concentrates more on economic reform to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor to eventually lead to a relatively equal society. The conservative populists, however, focus more politically and often connects populism to conservatism ideology such as nationalism. Donald Trump, as the most influential conservative populist politician perhaps in the contemporary world, believes the establishment politicians running the country are selfish and corrupt, and the establishment should be overturned.
Many people argue that populism is threatening democracy and the relatively stable social system we are living in. They warned against the chaos and danger that could occur if populist politicians were fully in power. The threat includes destroying the democratic institutions they consider as corrupt creations. For example, “systematically hollow out and undermine… courts, regulatory agencies, intelligence services, the press, and so on.” (De Witte, 2020) De Witte also provided a real-life circumstance in which the governing populist party of Hungary destroyed its judicial independence. This applies to not only the right-wing populist forces, but progressive populists can also lead to problems, especially in developing countries. Formal President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez, a typical left-wing populist, undermined the democratization of Venezuela and dramatically increased the corruption in his government as a result of his reform. These are all concrete arguments of how populists cause trouble. However, these stories cannot put a negative mark on the nature of populism.
Despite the fact that populist leader and their supporters are acting to threaten contemporary social institutions, we must be aware of the neutral nature of populism itself and understand the root causes that lead us to where we are today. The idea of populism, which is to speak for the general public and to consider the elites as corrupted, is an essential part of securing a modern democratic system. As James Miller (2018) argues: “popular insurrections and revolts in the name of democracy… form the heart and soul of modern democracy as a living reality.” In other words, populism provided the people with the weapon to fight against injustices imposed by oppressors and ruling classes; thus, their fundamental political rights can be secured. Modern democracy today results from a balance between elitism and populism. That is why we have well-educated leaders to make major decisions while people are still equipped with democratic rights to influence politics under strict laws. The corrupt side of elites is compromised by the public, while the ignorant side of the public is compromised by the elites. This balance effectively prevents the comeback of mob rules or dictatorships, the two major political catastrophes that happened in human history. Modern society cannot afford either one of them completely outrun the other and dominates the society since that is when one of the aforementioned catastrophes occurs. The crisis we are facing is that more and more people are leaning towards populism so that we are losing the balance that can effectively compromise the ignorant side of the public.
The absolute denial of populism, claiming it is inherently extreme and dangerous since it seeks to overturn a well-established system and replace it with complete chaos, cannot hold. While this claim is partially true, it is not a sufficient reason to morally falsify populism. To better understand how this statement is misleading, we need to be aware that populism comes from mass dissatisfaction and anger among the people, and the majority of them are not even capable of knowing where this anger came from before combining it with other dangerous political thoughts such as xenophobia and racism. However, the anger itself, according to a modern philosophical theory, is apt. This theory called the aptness of anger argued that whether anger is an apt response is not related to either positive or negative consequences of that anger, especially considering the fact that anger is most often counterproductive. As long as such anger is a proportionate response to a moral violation, a violation of how things ought to be, such anger should be justified, especially for those who are suffering from systematic injustices (Srinivasan, 2017). Therefore, if the people begin to feel they are betrayed by the establishment, their willingness to express that anger politically should be justified. Therefore, the question we are facing is why the balance is getting broken, and people are getting more and more convinced by the populist ideology rather than the mature and well-balanced system we have constructed over the past decades.
This question may have multiple answers, but one of the most important answers is the economic inequality that is continually deteriorating. One argument made by political scientists is that populism often flourishes when wealth is concentrated at the top of society. (Glazer, 2014) The rise of populism in the United States is correlated with a wide gap in wealth distribution. When we are making a comparison between economic statistics from 1990 to 2016, when Donald Trump was elected, we can observe that the Gini Coefficient, a major indicator of economic inequality, rose from 0.43 to 0.48. A more intuitive comparison is that the median U.S. household income over the same period of time rose by 10.4%, while U.S. dollars inflated 83.6% (Statista Research Department, 2022). In other words, while the U.S. is achieving economic growth using means like outsourcing, the purchasing power of an average U.S. citizen has dramatically decreased, and only the rich got richer. This phenomenon demonstrates the unbalanced distribution of the profit from outsourcing and economic globalization between the corporates and the working class. While the companies took away nearly all the benefits, it is reasonable that the people start to become resentful. As a result, they appeal to the only valve that is authorized by law: to elect the politicians who are also trying to overturn the corrupted system. Such popular will formed a wave that scholars define as the rise of populism.
The urgent need to dissolve the crisis that is getting out of control reemphasized the importance of narrowing the gap in wealth distribution, which requires the working class to get a fair share from new economic and technological developments such as outsourcing and automation. When we are dealing with turbulent public opinions, it is always better to solve the origin of the problem rather than shutting people up. As Melissa De Witte (2020) pointed out: “we need to understand, not just condemn, why so many voters find populist politicians so appealing.” A new distribution system will have to take place in order to combat the high level of populism that is jeopardizing democracy.
In conclusion, when we talk about the threat of populism, we are talking about an abnormal imbalance between the populist forces and elitist forces that secure a functioning democracy. As such imbalance is heavily a result of financial inequality, the redistribution of wealth will be needed to mitigate the rising populism crisis and prevent dangerous outcomes.
References
Bryant, O., & Benjamin, M. (2022, February 9). What actually is populism? and why does it have a bad reputation? The Conversation. Retrieved March 3, 2022, from https://theconversation.com/what-actually-is-populism-and-why-does-it-have-a-bad-reputation-109874
De Witte, M. (2020, March 11). Populism is a political problem that is putting democracy at risk, Stanford Scholars say. Retrieved March 3, 2022, from https://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2020/03/11/populism-jeopardies-around-world/
Miller, J. (2018, October 11). Could populism actually be good for democracy? The Guardian. Retrieved March 3, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/oct/11/could-populism-actually-be-good-for-democracy
Srinivasan, A. (2017). The aptness of anger. Journal of Political Philosophy, 26(2), 123–144. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12130
Statista Research Department, & 16, F. (2022, February 16). United States — monthly inflation rate January 2021/22. Statista. Retrieved March 3, 2022, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/273418/unadjusted-monthly-inflation-rate-in-the-us/
