What is Populism

I like the truth.

I have to say that some of the stuff that is written on the politics threads in particular is not the truth

It is not the truth, the whole truth, and struggles to be even half the truth quite a lot of the time.

I often imagine some posters crossing their fingers as they write some of the sentences in the posts, hoping that nobody notices.

Because I dont believe it to be true MaizieD. And neither do some other posters by the look of it.

She may have tried, but not at all sure of that either really.

And, like magic, this take on populism by Daniel Finkelstein appears in the Times today. Makes some good points.

But it's a completely non-judgemental thread. Or it least, it was until some people started getting weirdly huffy about it; presumably imagining it was an attack on their political position.

But then you do like to have every I dotted and every T crossed, Ankers

That is a non answer again.

What is the point of debate and discussion if there are big holes in it or worse.

I can't get access bags would it be easy to give a brief run down?

ankers sometimes I lose the will to live looking at your posts.

I'll see if I can, ww. It's annoying as I'm supposed to be able to share stuff. Grr.

Paywalled, bags.

But, from his opening sentence, why would he claim that the left don't understand populism when we seem to have established on here that it can be used by the left or the right?

I'm never allowed to read your Times links, thatbags.

But it's a completely non-judgemental thread

But it isnt!

I have seen whitewave in particular attempt it a number of times.
Sometimes she succeeds better that others.

But often, her bias tends to shine through loud and clear.

It is a difficult thing to try and do, but it can be seen that she does not manage it very well at all on this occasion.

Here you are. The whole thing. What he says about recent research into the importance of reciprocity is most interesting.

Why the left will never understand populism

January 17 2017, 5:00pm,
Daniel Finkelstein

Labour and the Democrats still believe in equality but voters’ notion of fairness rests on taking out what you put in

‘I Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States.”

So help us God.

How did this happen? An anti-establishment revolt is not, perhaps, an entirely surprising reaction to a banking collapse and stagnant wages, but why has that revolt turned to the right and not the left? And, even more perplexingly, why is this revolt coming from voters who should be keen on the left agenda, people who are not, by any means, prosperous?

On Friday, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States; Britain is leaving the EU; Geert Wilders leads in the polls in the Netherlands; the centre-left Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi has fallen; there are right-wing populist governments in Hungary and Poland; François Hollande has been forced out of the Élysée; and it is quite likely that the final round of the French presidential election will be a contest between a candidate of the centre right and one of the far right.

Last weekend Jeremy Corbyn tried hard to suggest that his agenda should be seen as an effective response to Donald Trump’s, but even without his usual stumbling performance, he did not convince.

This should be the left’s moment, shouldn’t it? Yet everywhere one looks they seem to be losing. There isn’t one simple reason of course, but I would like to suggest one that I think is particularly powerful. It is that the left misunderstands what most people mean by fairness.

In the past 20 years we have learnt a great deal more about how the brain works and about how our social behaviour has evolved. A new wave of thinkers — people like Robert Trivers, Ken Binmore, Martin Nowak, Robert Wright — have looked closely at how we co-operate with each other and why.

Their interest is not in identifying a superior idea of fairness, or making judgments about what we should think is or is not fair. They are seeking to discover what we actually, right or wrong, do think.

This work has led to the powerful, and increasingly widely discussed, idea of reciprocal altruism. We co-operate with people not out of some vague niceness, but because it is a good evolutionary strategy. If I do a favour for you, you will do me one back.

The left traditionally stresses equality and the fairness of equal shares. And, indeed, people are concerned about equity and the way things are shared out. But the new thinking points beyond equality, to the idea of reciprocity. Fairness demands a relationship between what you put in and what you get out. Equality is silent on the contributions that people put in, and no proper notion of fairness can be silent on that.

That people believe in reciprocity rather than equality explains quite a lot, it turns out. We are all on our guard that someone else is taking out more than they have put in. We are, in fact, fairly certain that this is happening all around us and it makes us pretty cross. The political issues that excite the strongest emotions are those where we think someone else is committing a sin against reciprocity. MPs’ expense claims, for instance.

This, obviously, provides a challenge to the right that the left can feel pretty comfortable with. What about men who earn more than women doing the same job? What about chief executives earning vast multiples of their staff’s wages? What about bankers’ bonuses? Here are anti-establishment, egalitarian left arguments that work politically.

But now let’s look more carefully at the banking example.

Bankers were earning vast bonuses for years and nobody was all that bothered. Yes they were being paid big money, but the banks were making big money and paying big taxes. Then came the crash. People suddenly became contributors to the banks rather than vice versa. We were putting in, they were taking out. Bankers’ bonuses became a huge political issue when they moved from being a sin against equality to one against reciprocity.

There’s more. And this is where the idea becomes challenging to the left. What is true of our attitude to bankers turns out also to be true of our attitude to welfare recipients.

Belief in equality dictates only that we are concerned (as we must always be, of course) about whether welfare recipients are given enough to live on and are able to be equal citizens. Yet much debate about welfare ends up being about something else entirely. Just like with the bankers it ends up being about what welfare recipients put in as much as what they take out.

Because we are hardwired to be suspicious that we are being deceived — deception is the subject of two recent books by the biologist Robert Trivers — we are almost impossible to persuade that enough is being done to prevent welfare fraud. Even when (as is often the case) it is. Stressing equality rather than reciprocity, the left is vulnerable on welfare, an issue on which it might imagine it would be strong.

Crime is another example. Here are people who are taking what others have worked hard to earn. Crime isn’t just a potent issue because of safety, it is a potent issue because it is also a question of fairness.

But the most important demonstration of the difference between reciprocity and equality is policy on immigration. And it is here that the gap between the left’s idea of fairness and their voters’ idea of fairness has given them most trouble.

Equality provides very little argument for immigration control. Yet voters in traditional Labour areas don’t regard an open door policy as fair. There are two mechanisms at work here. The first is a feeling, whether reasonable or not, that immigrants are using public services that others have paid to establish. They are taking out what they have not put in. No amount of data showing the contribution made by hard-working migrants shifts this debate all that much.

The second mechanism is more complicated. Because we are worried about being deceived by people who take our favours, but don’t reciprocate them, we guard against it by using shortcuts to help us decide who to trust. One shortcut, unfortunately, is to trust people who look like us and distrust strangers. Mass immigration triggers this reaction too.

The left should be on the rise at a time when people think there is a great deal of injustice and unfairness and are casting around for someone to put it right. But it can’t when its idea of fairness diverges from that of the voters it seeks to attract. They are not hearing the cry of the voters.

Liberté, fraternité, réciprocité.

ankers Why oh why do you just love to go on and on and on instead of accepting what I said in good faith?

Have you ever heard of the word magnanimous? Try to cultivate it, it helps oil the wheels.

Thanks bags, I always find Danny Finkelstein's articles and opinions fascinating and relevant.

There was a young man who said “Damn,
For it certainly seems that I am,
A creature that moves
In determinate grooves,
I’m not even a bus – I’m a tram."

Ankers If someone posts something that doesn't fit into your predetermined grooves, you find it difficult to square it with the patterns of your previous thinking, but that doesn't mean that they were lying. It could mean many things, one of them is that they assume that everyone can understand their allusions and assumptions without having to spell them out in words of one syllable.

I dont understand what you mean, you will need to explain it more.

post to whitewave

I dont understand that either Elegran.

Nigel Lawson on populism.
^ Populist is a misnomer. What populist is, is a rebellion against political correctness which has been a blight on politics in so many countries including the United Kingdom.
People are prepared to think for themselves for a change and I don't believe there is only one view on any issue, which is politically correct.
It's good to emancipate oneself from that sort of intolerance, and it is intolerance and also lazy thinking^

Brilliant post petra.

Thanks bags for your excellent effort.

Well I can definitely follow his argument, and it deserves more a quick read through than I have given it so far.

As I said I see the term populism as a neutral concept and simply a tool that describes the phenomenon of a particular political movement be it left or right. I clearly irritated a number by then going on to look at some right wing populist movements in Europe, but in particular Trump. However I accepted and then pointed out left wing populist movements in South America etc.

Unfortunately because I gave examples I was accused of bias. But this is really to misunderstand what this thread set out to achieve, which was simply to describe a concept. I think we as a team achieved this - it is a pity that some wish to undermine this effort.

I don't think you will understand my post however much I explain, ankers, because it describes why you don't understand it.

ankers I am constantly amazed at your apparent ability to understand every word of a post you agree with but absolutely none of those with which you disagree.

I have therefore to ask myself just how much integrity can be given to your questions to me

bags Is there anyway you could post that article to Jeramy Corbyn and Tim Farron.

ankers I am constantly amazed at your apparent ability to understand every word of a post you agree with but absolutely none of those with which you disagree.

Not my problem.

^ have therefore to ask myself just how much integrity can be given to your questions to me^

Again, your problem.

You can choose to answer, or not answer.
But non answers by anyone get commented on, as there seem to be a lot lately by a number of posters.

petra

The words of Nigel Lawson in your post makes the point I have 'endeavoured' to make but a little more 'succinctly'.