Like all of us, I'm often trying to better understand the sources and fuel for the current surge in populism. You clearly pin it primarily on changes in the economy, especially the growth of inequality. I'm wondering how to distinguish that explanation (or measure its relative contribution) vs. an alternative cause: a variety of social policy changes across the West (immigration being one but not the only element). If we view the surge in populism in both Europe and the US as two expressions of a related phenomenon, the surge in immigration after the Arab Spring seems a good explanation to rival the more gradual growth in inequality in Europe. In the US, it seems like these two causes are tightly intertwined.
What are your thoughts? How do you convince yourself that the inequality explanation is the key one, rather than (or more than) immigration and social change?
Thx. And great comments. I agree with the spirit of what you say, and I think that it is very hard to disentangle from all this (especially in the U.S.) aspects of anxiety and resentment among many working class whites, and to disentangle that from levels of immigration which surely, from a sociological perspective (I don't know this literature but it must exist) at some levels and some contexts can be politically destabilizing. But at bottom I guess I'm with Martin Wolf (in his recent book, The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism) and, more succinctly with Dylan (Only a Pawn in their Game, 1963) in holding the view that these anxieties are manipulated by some elites as a Trojan Horse for policies (like large tax cuts for the extremely wealthy) that could not otherwise be politically sustained. As Wolf writes: “How, after all, does a political party dedicated to the material interests of the top 0.1 percent of the income distribution win and hold power in a universal suffrage democracy? The answer is pluto-populism.” He sees race-baiting and the culture wars as instrumental to that strategy. Perhaps, arguably, he understates the extent to which people really care about such things (after all, the technique must gain some traction to work). But I'd love to run the experiment where public policy was designed to help median households thrive, rather than stagnate and be imbued with a sense of hopelessness about their future, and then check back and see how much of this virulent nativist-nationalism is left after we've taken care of that business.
Hi Jonathan,
Provocative and interesting essay, as always.
Like all of us, I'm often trying to better understand the sources and fuel for the current surge in populism. You clearly pin it primarily on changes in the economy, especially the growth of inequality. I'm wondering how to distinguish that explanation (or measure its relative contribution) vs. an alternative cause: a variety of social policy changes across the West (immigration being one but not the only element). If we view the surge in populism in both Europe and the US as two expressions of a related phenomenon, the surge in immigration after the Arab Spring seems a good explanation to rival the more gradual growth in inequality in Europe. In the US, it seems like these two causes are tightly intertwined.
What are your thoughts? How do you convince yourself that the inequality explanation is the key one, rather than (or more than) immigration and social change?
Daryl
Hi Daryl:
Thx. And great comments. I agree with the spirit of what you say, and I think that it is very hard to disentangle from all this (especially in the U.S.) aspects of anxiety and resentment among many working class whites, and to disentangle that from levels of immigration which surely, from a sociological perspective (I don't know this literature but it must exist) at some levels and some contexts can be politically destabilizing. But at bottom I guess I'm with Martin Wolf (in his recent book, The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism) and, more succinctly with Dylan (Only a Pawn in their Game, 1963) in holding the view that these anxieties are manipulated by some elites as a Trojan Horse for policies (like large tax cuts for the extremely wealthy) that could not otherwise be politically sustained. As Wolf writes: “How, after all, does a political party dedicated to the material interests of the top 0.1 percent of the income distribution win and hold power in a universal suffrage democracy? The answer is pluto-populism.” He sees race-baiting and the culture wars as instrumental to that strategy. Perhaps, arguably, he understates the extent to which people really care about such things (after all, the technique must gain some traction to work). But I'd love to run the experiment where public policy was designed to help median households thrive, rather than stagnate and be imbued with a sense of hopelessness about their future, and then check back and see how much of this virulent nativist-nationalism is left after we've taken care of that business.
Jonathan