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from the no-one's-leaving-until-we-have-unanimous-agreement dept.
The rise of populism has rattled the global political establishment. Brexit came as a shock, as did the victory of Donald Trump. Much head-scratching has resulted as leaders seek to work out why large chunks of their electorates are so cross.
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The answer seems pretty simple. Populism is the result of economic failure. The 10 years since the financial crisis have shown that the system of economic governance which has held sway for the past four decades is broken. Some call this approach neoliberalism. Perhaps a better description would be unpopulism.Unpopulism meant tilting the balance of power in the workplace in favour of management and treating people like wage slaves. Unpopulism was rigged to ensure that the fruits of growth went to the few not to the many. Unpopulism decreed that those responsible for the global financial crisis got away with it while those who were innocent bore the brunt of austerity.
2017 Davos says: The 99% should just try harder.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday March 29 2017, @08:58PM
Thanks for your comment -- and actually, I should say that I share many concerns with your first comment as well (if that wasn't clear).
I guess one of my issues is with the definition of "populism," which always seems to be problematic. We can see it in other comments on this story -- some people want to claim "populism" is the reason behind many good things in government; others see it as you do, as a pejorative for when democracy gets screwed up.
The "brainlessness" you mention is basically what Plato and others meant by "mob rule" or whatever, and I guess if anything my point is that it's a problem endemic to democracy. Everyone wants to say they are "democratic" (not in sense of party, but in sense of supporting suffrage for common people) until some "populist" movement comes along that causes a tyrant to be voted into power or whatever. But that's part of what being "democratic" will entail. The masses are inevitably going to make decisions sometimes that work against their best interest, and very frequently they will endorse leaders who promise them what they want to hear, regardless of what they do (or even if they do something to support popular sentiment, they'll ignore boatloads of accompanying corruption, etc.).
I don't see how you separate those tendencies of democracy (your "populism") from the "good" democracy. It's all democracy. It's a feature of the system, for good or for ill.