The tag line for this article states “regimes dependent on a personality never succeed.” Fair enough. If, for example, the ‘populism’ current in the USA was nothing more than an extension of Trump’s outrageous personality, it would be unlikely to last.
But as the author notes at the end of her article, “Yet [populists] are also a symptom as well as a cause; they flourish in systems with deep pre-existing problems that last a lot longer than they do.” Only elements of the hysterical left are unwilling to admit that Trump is nothing more than a symptom of a deep-seated malaise in the US. The populist instincts in the US and throughout the western world are not going away anytime soon, irrespective of which political leader is in power. I would expect them to intensify as the actions of the political left become ever more extreme.
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
‘Indeed, he defined his foreign policy, the so-called Third Position, as being on the Left, in the centre or on the Right according to the circumstances. Like any populist, he wanted to be all things to all people.’ So that’s where Blair got his ‘Third Way’ from. The heir to Peron. Actually I don’t think Trump or Orban (against whom this article is targeted) want to be ‘all things to all people’. Whether you agree with them or not, they have clearly defined enemies.
“Why populism always fails?” – The question should be “why do all politicians fail?” because the old adage of “all political careers end in failure” applies to populist and to the establishment figures. The question of why all politicians eventually fail should be of great interest but is rarely discussed. In my view it is because every politician has a set of ideas and policies which are specific to their time and place. In 1979 Mrs Thatcher (and Ragan in 1980) had a vision and the drive to push through economic reforms that transformed the UK (and USA). But Mrs Thatcher push to far with her reform of rates and Regan ran out of steam and his advisors took certain polices to far. Populism has not failed, it is a policy movement for this moment, but that will change. It does not make the policy or the idea a failure, just as Mrs Thatcher was not a failure as a PM. But the policies agenda needed in future years will change and that requires a new person at the top with new ideas! Populism does not “Always fail”. Like every political idea it’s time will come and go and it will leave it’s mark like every other political philosophy.
Every politician has their time, but creating a perfect society is impossible. Instead, the best solution is to engage in debates and discussions to find the best solution for everyone. It’s crucial to have term limits for politicians to prevent them from holding on to power for too long, which can lead to dictatorship. Populism might seem like a fast solution, but it’s not easy, and good changes require institutions, good ideas, and people to develop them both before and after votes.
Rather than hate, politicians should seek more debates and agreements to make society better for everyone. The perfect society, to me, is one in which everyone, regardless of social class or political affiliation, has the power to decide and be free without damaging others.
Saul D
3 years ago
Early C20th Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world. Then Peron introduced a set of reforms and regulation that more resemble a modern progressive Democratic party manifesto than anything. Although the history is complicated by the Great Depression and WWI, the ultimate outcome was longstanding large-scale inflation that eventually destroyed the Argentinian economy. Didn’t the same also happen with Chavez in Venezuela?
Argentina’s (relative) decline set in before Peron. I have a friend of Italian extraction. Many of his ancestors and relatives emigrated to Argentina at various points from the early 20th century onwards, along with countless other Italians. We always joke that it was the arrival of the Italians, and the departure of British interests, that sealed Argentina’s fate.
“We always joke that it was the arrival of the Italians, and the departure of British interests” –
Is this a case of :- Many a true word is spoken in jest…?
robert scheetz
3 years ago
I think this is a tad reductive. Hitler won power in large part because the elites preferred him to Liebknecht, Luxemburg & Ulbricht. Similarly, Trump won over here because the elites feared Bernie. Their supreme leader, Lloyd Blankfein (Chairman of Goldman Sacks) famously declared he’d vote for Trump if Bernie was the alternative.
The point is: there’s more than one brand of populism. And further, Sanders had the tried & true institutional structures of New Deal-ism which he was only professing to refine and extend.
Hitler won because the Middle Classes were destroyed by Weimar inflation and felt they had nothing to lose. A burgeoning middle class (and aspiring working class) created liberal modern societies and without them those liberal societies will fail. At present globalism threatens their prosperity, maybe existence. Modern democracies should be self correcting in this respect, (arguably Brexit was evidence of this). If it doesn’t we’re in trouble.
Steve Gwynne
3 years ago
The missing component in these polemics about populism is the fact that society is in general composed of three classes, the working class, the middle class and the upper class.
Populists win elections when the working class consolidates their democratic power with either the middle class or the upper class.
In simple binary terms, right populism is when the working class consolidates with the upper class and left populism is when the working class consolidates with the middle class.
Each type is an uneasy relationship since it directly threatens established hierarchies. Similarly, each type is an unstable relationship since the ousted class still has the power to undermine economic performance whether as managers or bosses.
Typically, anti-populists are from the middle class or the upper class depending on whether working class solidarity is aligned with the middle class or the upper class. In recent times, most anti-populists are from the middle class as right populism surges who tend to frame their anti-populism as ad hominem narratives whether in terms of the demagogic personality of the elected populist or the naivity of the working class.
However, what anti-populists never do is understand the phenomenon of populism as a set of class relationships with working class solidarity holding the balance of power. Presumably this is because neither the middle class or the upper class wishes to acknowledge the hierarchy of power within society.
Instead, the middle class will seek to defame the populist leadership whilst sabotage the integrity of the economy in hidden ways in order to reinforce narratives of incompetence, in order to win the hearts and minds of the working class. The alternative, from a middle class perspective is to consolidate their democratic power and align with the upper class which in the UK would be extremely unrealistic.
If Jeremy Corbyn had won the last election and ushered in a left populism, then the upper class would essentially play the same game which would similarly seek to exclude any narrative of the established hierarchy of power within our society along with intentional economic sabotage to support narratives of incompetence.
So at present, at least in the UK, as long as the upper class continues with its levelling up programme with a close eye on increasing working class prosperity, then there is little likelihood of a left populism resurgence any time soon. Especially as the middle class left have spent the last five years denigrating the working class.
Last edited 3 years ago by Steve Gwynne
Charles Hedges
3 years ago
The author has taken a knowledge of Peron and the commented on other countries.
Argentina made a fortune selling meat to Britain in WW2. Peron spent more money than the country earned.Cecil said Elizabth 1 greatest asset was that she was parsimonious which meant taxes were not wasted.
Spending more than one earns coupled with corruption leads to inflation, a run on the currency which destroys the middle class but wealthy who can earn foreign currency can do well. A rancher selling beef in foreign currency did well. Inflation destroys savings. People with foreign currency can buy assets cheaply. Those in the ruling party can use their politcal power to force people to sell assets at below market value.
The problem with nationalising assets is that Part members end up running them; into the ground. The Vesteys( from Liverpool) developed modern refrigeration technology and used it to create the largest meat company in the world. The Vesteys, owned everything from ranches in Argentina, railways, slaughter houses, canning factories, refrigerated ships and butcher shops in the UK. If the Argentinians had done this before the Vesteys, they would have made the money.
We were bankrupt by 1942 and bought time ( according to Stalin )which is one commodity one cannot buy.
Why did’t an Argentinian develop refrigeration for moving meat and beat Vesteys to the market? The Vestey got the idea from a member working in the Chicago meat industry.
Brazil declared war on Germany, Argentina did not. By 1945, Argentina had one of the highest per capita incomes of any country.
How many Nazis fled to Argentina apart from Joseph Mengele? What did the Argentinian people do to deport the Nazis ? Argentina was a golden country in 1945 and the people of the left and right blew it, helped by Peron.
Dennis Boylon
3 years ago
1215, 1783, 1799… I don’t think they always fail. Especially when the establishment is completely corrupt and against the people. Kind of like now.
If our democratic institutions work we will reform and be ok. If those institutions are not responsive to the voters (like the EU?) they will not and they will fail.
mike otter
3 years ago
I’m not at all sure populism needs to be a cult of personality or that personality driven leaders have to be populists ( ie Castro Bros, Kims in NK) I think populism’s short life span stems from its being a version of the tragedy of the commons. So the general populace with their fairly simplified take on complex problems say something like “i have hands, why am i ( or my proxy Mr Trump) not running the ship?”. Once they get on the tiller they head straight for the rocks. What is more interesting is the so called technocrats, the third way brigade and the old trad centre left/centre right parties seem to end up on the same rocks despite their claim to be above us plebs and infallable!
The populist, Frank Roosevelt, formerly Governor of New York, knew very well how to captain the ship and, the elite, ie the enlightened fraction (very tiny) admit, saved it from the rocks (ie, communism/socialism) if so they were.
Last edited 3 years ago by robert scheetz
Colin Haller
3 years ago
Ugh — another ahistorical use of the term “Populism” which was literally created in the rural USA at the end of the 19thC. See Thomas Frank’s “The People, NO” for all the details, including how Hofstadter’s misrepresentation of the movement has created an enduring impression of the minds of those unfamiliar with the real history.
Keith Brockwell
3 years ago
Small EU quotas and high import duty slaughtered the vast meat trade from South America to the UK.
Christopher Barclay
3 years ago
Peron was not a disaster for Argentina because he came from outside the Establishment. He was a disaster because his government didn’t balance its books and let inflation rip. These policies have been adopted as orthodoxy by Establishment politicians around the world. Italy has been essentially insolvent since the mid-90s and Japan from around 2000. Government finances have been trashed in the US since the election of Bush Junior and in Britain and other countries since 2008. The full ‘fruits’ of these policies will only be seen when inflation starts to rise.
It’s curious that Dr Hedges mentions people being beaten up by Peron’s supporters but does not mention the violence perpetrated by the Establishment. The violence by Peron’s supporters was triggered by the Argentine Navy bombing a political rally in the Plaza de Mayo in 1955 and killing 364 people. (Yes, you read that correctly). This was just the start of the atrocities that the Argentine Establishment that Dr Hedges presumably supports showed itself to be capable of.
G Worker
3 years ago
Populism within the liberal thought-world must fail because it is inevitably the inauthentic struggle of the non-real liberal model of Man (ie, as the unfettering will). His truth is, of course, that of the blood, of family, of kin, of belonging. These are his most vital ties. Man is racial, therefore. He is ethnic. He is tribal. When these commonalities are emergent in his public and political life, especially at an existential moment in his history, then his struggle is authentic. Success or failure, he is fighting for life itself, and there is no more necessary and moral expression of what it means to be human.
Last edited 3 years ago by G Worker
Clive Mitchell
3 years ago
This article seems quite approving of old Peron. I never read such a positive profile before. Almost a good populist then!
jvirgin jvirgin
3 years ago
The author conflates populism with personality cult. What tends to happen eventually is either populist ideas are either absorbed by other more mainstream parties (e.g. Brexit) or are completely rejected and there is some sort of coup.
Andre Lower
3 years ago
Excellent article. It still baffles me that people chose the easy, but hopelessly shot-sighted path of populism (with its cliches of demagogy & opportunism) over leveraging on democracy’s regular tools – conscientious, carefully selected politicians – to rid them of bad governments.
Granted, the democratic path is sometimes slow and full of snags. But how can populist supporters fail to realize just how short-legged populist plans are? How can they find populism justifiable because “ah well, I am so frustrated…”? How many historical examples like Perón, Chavez, etc. do they need before they consider the ultimate consequences? Don’t they realize that populism is the nemesis of the democracy their futures depend on?
The tag line for this article states “regimes dependent on a personality never succeed.” Fair enough. If, for example, the ‘populism’ current in the USA was nothing more than an extension of Trump’s outrageous personality, it would be unlikely to last.
But as the author notes at the end of her article, “Yet [populists] are also a symptom as well as a cause; they flourish in systems with deep pre-existing problems that last a lot longer than they do.” Only elements of the hysterical left are unwilling to admit that Trump is nothing more than a symptom of a deep-seated malaise in the US. The populist instincts in the US and throughout the western world are not going away anytime soon, irrespective of which political leader is in power. I would expect them to intensify as the actions of the political left become ever more extreme.
‘Indeed, he defined his foreign policy, the so-called Third Position, as being on the Left, in the centre or on the Right according to the circumstances. Like any populist, he wanted to be all things to all people.’
So that’s where Blair got his ‘Third Way’ from. The heir to Peron.
Actually I don’t think Trump or Orban (against whom this article is targeted) want to be ‘all things to all people’. Whether you agree with them or not, they have clearly defined enemies.
No, Blair’s third way was Mussolini’s.
“Why populism always fails?” – The question should be “why do all politicians fail?” because the old adage of “all political careers end in failure” applies to populist and to the establishment figures. The question of why all politicians eventually fail should be of great interest but is rarely discussed.
In my view it is because every politician has a set of ideas and policies which are specific to their time and place. In 1979 Mrs Thatcher (and Ragan in 1980) had a vision and the drive to push through economic reforms that transformed the UK (and USA). But Mrs Thatcher push to far with her reform of rates and Regan ran out of steam and his advisors took certain polices to far.
Populism has not failed, it is a policy movement for this moment, but that will change. It does not make the policy or the idea a failure, just as Mrs Thatcher was not a failure as a PM. But the policies agenda needed in future years will change and that requires a new person at the top with new ideas!
Populism does not “Always fail”. Like every political idea it’s time will come and go and it will leave it’s mark like every other political philosophy.
Every politician has their time, but creating a perfect society is impossible. Instead, the best solution is to engage in debates and discussions to find the best solution for everyone. It’s crucial to have term limits for politicians to prevent them from holding on to power for too long, which can lead to dictatorship. Populism might seem like a fast solution, but it’s not easy, and good changes require institutions, good ideas, and people to develop them both before and after votes.
Rather than hate, politicians should seek more debates and agreements to make society better for everyone. The perfect society, to me, is one in which everyone, regardless of social class or political affiliation, has the power to decide and be free without damaging others.
Early C20th Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world. Then Peron introduced a set of reforms and regulation that more resemble a modern progressive Democratic party manifesto than anything. Although the history is complicated by the Great Depression and WWI, the ultimate outcome was longstanding large-scale inflation that eventually destroyed the Argentinian economy. Didn’t the same also happen with Chavez in Venezuela?
Argentina’s (relative) decline set in before Peron. I have a friend of Italian extraction. Many of his ancestors and relatives emigrated to Argentina at various points from the early 20th century onwards, along with countless other Italians. We always joke that it was the arrival of the Italians, and the departure of British interests, that sealed Argentina’s fate.
The sale of the Buenos Aires branch of Harrods in 1922 to local interests was the beginning of the end.
So that’s where Eva Peron got her outfits from. I had always wondered.
“We always joke that it was the arrival of the Italians, and the departure of British interests” –
Is this a case of :- Many a true word is spoken in jest…?
I think this is a tad reductive. Hitler won power in large part because the elites preferred him to Liebknecht, Luxemburg & Ulbricht. Similarly, Trump won over here because the elites feared Bernie. Their supreme leader, Lloyd Blankfein (Chairman of Goldman Sacks) famously declared he’d vote for Trump if Bernie was the alternative.
The point is: there’s more than one brand of populism. And further, Sanders had the tried & true institutional structures of New Deal-ism which he was only professing to refine and extend.
Hitler won because the Middle Classes were destroyed by Weimar inflation and felt they had nothing to lose. A burgeoning middle class (and aspiring working class) created liberal modern societies and without them those liberal societies will fail. At present globalism threatens their prosperity, maybe existence. Modern democracies should be self correcting in this respect, (arguably Brexit was evidence of this). If it doesn’t we’re in trouble.
The missing component in these polemics about populism is the fact that society is in general composed of three classes, the working class, the middle class and the upper class.
Populists win elections when the working class consolidates their democratic power with either the middle class or the upper class.
In simple binary terms, right populism is when the working class consolidates with the upper class and left populism is when the working class consolidates with the middle class.
Each type is an uneasy relationship since it directly threatens established hierarchies. Similarly, each type is an unstable relationship since the ousted class still has the power to undermine economic performance whether as managers or bosses.
Typically, anti-populists are from the middle class or the upper class depending on whether working class solidarity is aligned with the middle class or the upper class. In recent times, most anti-populists are from the middle class as right populism surges who tend to frame their anti-populism as ad hominem narratives whether in terms of the demagogic personality of the elected populist or the naivity of the working class.
However, what anti-populists never do is understand the phenomenon of populism as a set of class relationships with working class solidarity holding the balance of power. Presumably this is because neither the middle class or the upper class wishes to acknowledge the hierarchy of power within society.
Instead, the middle class will seek to defame the populist leadership whilst sabotage the integrity of the economy in hidden ways in order to reinforce narratives of incompetence, in order to win the hearts and minds of the working class. The alternative, from a middle class perspective is to consolidate their democratic power and align with the upper class which in the UK would be extremely unrealistic.
If Jeremy Corbyn had won the last election and ushered in a left populism, then the upper class would essentially play the same game which would similarly seek to exclude any narrative of the established hierarchy of power within our society along with intentional economic sabotage to support narratives of incompetence.
So at present, at least in the UK, as long as the upper class continues with its levelling up programme with a close eye on increasing working class prosperity, then there is little likelihood of a left populism resurgence any time soon. Especially as the middle class left have spent the last five years denigrating the working class.
The author has taken a knowledge of Peron and the commented on other countries.
Argentina made a fortune selling meat to Britain in WW2. Peron spent more money than the country earned.Cecil said Elizabth 1 greatest asset was that she was parsimonious which meant taxes were not wasted.
Spending more than one earns coupled with corruption leads to inflation, a run on the currency which destroys the middle class but wealthy who can earn foreign currency can do well. A rancher selling beef in foreign currency did well. Inflation destroys savings. People with foreign currency can buy assets cheaply. Those in the ruling party can use their politcal power to force people to sell assets at below market value.
The problem with nationalising assets is that Part members end up running them; into the ground. The Vesteys( from Liverpool) developed modern refrigeration technology and used it to create the largest meat company in the world. The Vesteys, owned everything from ranches in Argentina, railways, slaughter houses, canning factories, refrigerated ships and butcher shops in the UK. If the Argentinians had done this before the Vesteys, they would have made the money.
Pretty sanctimonious considering the parsimonious Brits blew off their war debt to Argentina.
We were bankrupt by 1942 and bought time ( according to Stalin )which is one commodity one cannot buy.
Why did’t an Argentinian develop refrigeration for moving meat and beat Vesteys to the market? The Vestey got the idea from a member working in the Chicago meat industry.
Brazil declared war on Germany, Argentina did not. By 1945, Argentina had one of the highest per capita incomes of any country.
How many Nazis fled to Argentina apart from Joseph Mengele? What did the Argentinian people do to deport the Nazis ?
Argentina was a golden country in 1945 and the people of the left and right blew it, helped by Peron.
1215, 1783, 1799… I don’t think they always fail. Especially when the establishment is completely corrupt and against the people. Kind of like now.
If our democratic institutions work we will reform and be ok. If those institutions are not responsive to the voters (like the EU?) they will not and they will fail.
I’m not at all sure populism needs to be a cult of personality or that personality driven leaders have to be populists ( ie Castro Bros, Kims in NK) I think populism’s short life span stems from its being a version of the tragedy of the commons. So the general populace with their fairly simplified take on complex problems say something like “i have hands, why am i ( or my proxy Mr Trump) not running the ship?”. Once they get on the tiller they head straight for the rocks. What is more interesting is the so called technocrats, the third way brigade and the old trad centre left/centre right parties seem to end up on the same rocks despite their claim to be above us plebs and infallable!
The populist, Frank Roosevelt, formerly Governor of New York, knew very well how to captain the ship and, the elite, ie the enlightened fraction (very tiny) admit, saved it from the rocks (ie, communism/socialism) if so they were.
Ugh — another ahistorical use of the term “Populism” which was literally created in the rural USA at the end of the 19thC. See Thomas Frank’s “The People, NO” for all the details, including how Hofstadter’s misrepresentation of the movement has created an enduring impression of the minds of those unfamiliar with the real history.
Small EU quotas and high import duty slaughtered the vast meat trade from South America to the UK.
Peron was not a disaster for Argentina because he came from outside the Establishment. He was a disaster because his government didn’t balance its books and let inflation rip. These policies have been adopted as orthodoxy by Establishment politicians around the world. Italy has been essentially insolvent since the mid-90s and Japan from around 2000. Government finances have been trashed in the US since the election of Bush Junior and in Britain and other countries since 2008. The full ‘fruits’ of these policies will only be seen when inflation starts to rise.
It’s curious that Dr Hedges mentions people being beaten up by Peron’s supporters but does not mention the violence perpetrated by the Establishment. The violence by Peron’s supporters was triggered by the Argentine Navy bombing a political rally in the Plaza de Mayo in 1955 and killing 364 people. (Yes, you read that correctly). This was just the start of the atrocities that the Argentine Establishment that Dr Hedges presumably supports showed itself to be capable of.
Populism within the liberal thought-world must fail because it is inevitably the inauthentic struggle of the non-real liberal model of Man (ie, as the unfettering will). His truth is, of course, that of the blood, of family, of kin, of belonging. These are his most vital ties. Man is racial, therefore. He is ethnic. He is tribal. When these commonalities are emergent in his public and political life, especially at an existential moment in his history, then his struggle is authentic. Success or failure, he is fighting for life itself, and there is no more necessary and moral expression of what it means to be human.
This article seems quite approving of old Peron. I never read such a positive profile before. Almost a good populist then!
The author conflates populism with personality cult. What tends to happen eventually is either populist ideas are either absorbed by other more mainstream parties (e.g. Brexit) or are completely rejected and there is some sort of coup.
Excellent article. It still baffles me that people chose the easy, but hopelessly shot-sighted path of populism (with its cliches of demagogy & opportunism) over leveraging on democracy’s regular tools – conscientious, carefully selected politicians – to rid them of bad governments.
Granted, the democratic path is sometimes slow and full of snags. But how can populist supporters fail to realize just how short-legged populist plans are? How can they find populism justifiable because “ah well, I am so frustrated…”? How many historical examples like Perón, Chavez, etc. do they need before they consider the ultimate consequences? Don’t they realize that populism is the nemesis of the democracy their futures depend on?
Bad politicians arise, ultimately, through bad systemic philosophy.