Reading Populism

[redsquirrel]

Not got much more to say about chapter 1 that I didn't already say above.

Chapter 2 - There's a lot in this chapter, so much so that I had to read some sections a few times to get all the subtleties, but my first thoughts:

The review of how the word populism is used, and thus how populisms are defined, is useful not only in helping to shed a light on populisms but also on the politics of those seeking to define it.

I'm still chewing over the 'vertical' vs 'horizontal' distinction drawn between populisms and other political concepts, thinking about the concept in relation to different examples of populism and other ideologies.

no longer the traditional, ‘horizontal’ dialectic between the different political cultures in which citizenship articulates itself, of which the Left–Right couple is the richest example. Here, instead, we have the ‘vertical’ distinction – or rather, counterposition – between the whole people in its uncontaminated original purity, and some other entity that unduly stands above it (a usurping elite, a privileged gang, a hidden power) or insinuates itself from below (immigrants, foreigners, travellers).

in which ... the contending protagonists stood on the same footing of equality, different in ideas but not in rank – to a vertical one in which the logic of ‘above and below’ instead prevails. Indeed, in this spatiality, the protagonists in the conflict belong to different levels and, in some senses, opposed and self-referential life-worlds.

Likewise the differentiation of 'left' and 'right' populisms (need to follow this up by reading the Judis book butchersapron linked to, but which I've not yet had a chance to read).

left-wing populism’ has a ‘dyadic’ structure, whereas right-wing populism has a ‘triadic’ structure: ‘It looks upward, but also down upon an out group.’24 The first, we could add, follows the schema of a classic social conflict (even if ‘it is not a politics of class conflict, and it doesn’t necessarily seek the abolition of capitalism’).25 In the second, there comes into play the atypical figure of the scapegoat (what has been called ‘this demagoguing of the scapegoat du jour’)26 which splits the level of conflict into two by adding a second plane of antagonism with a ‘weaker’ protagonist who is nonetheless accused of enjoying undue privileges.

Have to admit my ignorance about 'left' wing populism here, do Syriza still fall into this structure?

I've not read any of Arditi but his quoted commentary speaks volumes to me. The political space assigned to the people no longer being satisfactory to (some) of them and the intimate connection between populism and representative democracy populism as “the form that politics assumes today, at the end of the long cycle of ‘democratic normalisation”.

The section on Italy had some real insights. The example of both the Five Star Movement and Renzi mirroring each other mirroring each other in attacking existing social bodies and strengthening the executive.

I'll leave it there for the moment, and let others comment.

 

[redsquirrel]

double post

 

[redsquirrel]

Seeing as though last weeks deadline didn't really work how do people think we should proceed?
Should we just hold on and aim to have Chp 2 by this coming weekend or go for Chp 3?

I would say that IMO Chp 2 is probably the hardest read, I read Chps 3-6 much more quickly.

 

[redsquirrel]

Looks like the government will collapse now. Salvini threatening to withdraw ministers. Could be new elections in the coming months, elections Salvini is sure to get a larger share of the vote in. I think it's curtains for the five star movement, and we'll see a coalition of classic right wing parties (Lega, Forza d'Italia (aka Berlusconi's party) and Fratelli d'Italia (aka the real actual fash)), a near collapse in the five star vote and only a tiny gain for the Democratic Party (once Renzi's party, largely ineffective limbo-land ghost party since the start of this government)

I'm cross-posting the above onto this thread as the last chapter of Revelli's book is very pertinent and provides an interesting view into what has happened and what might happen next.

 

[Flavour]

What does Revelli have to say about what might happen next?

 

[chilango]

I've finished it.

But as I read it last thing at night it's hard to then post.

I'll try and summarize my key thoughts soon.

 

[redsquirrel]

What does Revelli have to say about what might happen next?

It's not so much that Revelli makes predictions (though he does mention Lega eating into the M5S vote) rather that the analysis of populism he gives can help us analyse and understand the situation.

I'm too tired to post anything more detailed tonight but I'll try to remember to come back to it as we go through the book, especially when we discuss chapter 6 which focusses on Italy.

 

[redsquirrel]

Anyone got anything they want to say about Chp 2 or should we just move on to Chp 3?

 

[redsquirrel]

Just going to stick this here as a placemarker for when (if?) ice get to Chp 5 and discuss Europe.

NG: End of a golden decade for Germany
Today’s GDP report marks “the end of a golden decade for the German economy”, says Carsten Brzeski, chief economist for Germany at Dutch bank ING.

Brzeski sounds deeply disappointed to learn that the German economy contracted by 0.1% in the last quarter. He blames the damaging uncertainty caused by Donald Trump’s trade war with China, along with problems at Germany’s carmakers, writing

"Trade conflicts, global uncertainty and the struggling automotive sector have finally brought the German economy down on its knee. In particular, increased uncertainty, rather than direct effects from the trade conflicts, have dented sentiment and hence economic activity."

Brzeski points out that Germany had been on a decent run since the financial crisis, growing at around 0.5% per quarter. Not any more....

"It was a decade of strong growth on the back of earlier structural reforms, fiscal stimulus, globalisation at its peak and steroids provided by the ECB in the form of low-interest rates and a relatively weak euro.

This decade, in which strong German growth looked so effortless, is coming to an end"

I'll try to stick up my thoughts on Chp3 before/at the weekend.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Sorry for the tardy performance by me. I’ll get reading and post my thoughts. Hopefully others will do the same.

 

[chilango]

40% off Verso's Populism reading list.

Verso

Includes Revelli and the Traverso which I've just started.

Apologies for no comments on the Revelli yet. I might better just responding to others thoughts tbh.

 

[chilango]

Ch.1 of the Traverso is pretty good.

Ch.2 on Identitarianism is not so good, so far. Too soft on idpol and Islamisht groups for me. Also reading some iffy stuff on "Jews".

Revelli seems much more my kinda take.

 

[redsquirrel]

Ch.2 on Identitarianism is not so good, so far. Too soft on idpol and Islamisht groups for me. Also reading some iffy stuff on "Jews".

What's the take on ID politics?

 

[redsquirrel]

(Just about to go out so this post is going to be a bit incomplete but if we don't start posting some stuff the thread is going to die like past reading groups).

---------
US Populism

Chapter 3 of Revelli looks at populism in the US. While I'd heard of the populist party I have to admit I did not have a lot of background knowledge of it so the introductory sections on it were helpful. It's also worth mentioning the Judis book butchersapron put up here as well, I'm only part way through it but the first two chapters of that book give not only background on the People's Party but also other US populisms - Long, Wallace, Perot, Buchanan, the Tea Party and Occupy. What both books make clear is the long history of populism within sections of the US populace

And yet the ‘electoral geography’ revealed by the 1892 vote would prove far tougher and more resilient than its temporary spokesmen. It was destined to continue burrowing away, unseen, in the political subsoil of Deep America, with its charge of radicalism. And of ambiguity.

Judis also emphasises that US populisms (whether "left" or "right") have tended to draw consistent support from the lower middle classes, who fell threaded by "loss". To what extent this is justified I need to take a closer look at the data but it closely corresponds to the thesis of Goodwin and Eastman in their book.

 

[chilango]

(Just about to go out so this post is going to be a bit incomplete but if we don't start posting some stuff the thread is going to die like past reading groups).

---------
US Populism

Chapter 3 of Revelli looks at populism in the US. While I'd heard of the populist party I have to admit I did not have a lot of background knowledge of it so the introductory sections on it were helpful. It's also worth mentioning the Judis book butchersapron put up here as well, I'm only part way through it but the first two chapters of that book give not only background on the People's Party but also other US populisms - Long, Wallace, Perot, Buchanan, the Tea Party and Occupy. What both books make clear is the long history of populism within sections of the US populace

Judis also emphasises that US populisms (whether "left" or "right") have tended to draw consistent support from the lower middle classes, who fell threaded by "loss". To what extent this is justified I need to take a closer look at the data but it closely corresponds to the thesis of Goodwin and Eastman in their book.

Yeah.

Revelli traces the same pattern as part of the rise in populism in a range of places.

The pushing of the formerly included to the periphery.

Or at least a feeling of that.

Look at the m/c anxiety thread.

The geographical patterns Revelli observes are interesting too.

 

[redsquirrel]

One thing that Judis raises, very accurately IMO, is the importance of the aims of populists indicating the break from the consensus rather than being "realistic" goals.

“But the very extravagance of Long’s plan established a political divide between him and the powers-that-be that could not easily be bridged. It defined the movement’s radicalism the way free silver, the sub-treasury plan, and the nationalization of railroads defined the People’s Party

... a proposal to ban all Muslims or to slap a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports or to get Mexico to pay for a wall may have been deliberate attention-getting ploys, not to be taken seriously. But they were also typical of a populist approach. They were his equivalent of “free silver” or Long’s confiscatory tax on the wealthy—incapable of being negotiated, even by the great dealmaker, but just for that reason dramatizing the difference between what the “silent majority” wanted and what the “establishment” would condone. Trump’s supporters didn’t necessarily believe that he could get Mexico to pay for a wall or that he could deport all immigrants who had entered the country illegally. What they heard in his demand was a point of demarcation between “what “we” wanted and what “they”—Congress, the Mexican president—would accept.

While those examples are for US populists I think they are true of all (or at least nearly all) populisms. I did not vote Labour at the last GE because I thought they might be able to implement the policies in their manifesto but because for the first time in my political life the LP had a leader that stood on a picket line and a manifesto that broke, even if in rather a mild way, from neo-liberalism.

And the above is why all the centrists dismissal and "exposure" of the "unrealistic" demands of Trump, no-deal Brexit, Sanders medicare for all or whatever are so absolutely useless. These demands are popular precisely because they are "unrealistic"

 

[redsquirrel]

So moving onto Chp 4 and Brexit.

The vote to leave the EU has been discussed so much that on first reading I found this chapter less interesting than others. Going back to it this week in preparation for this post I found more in it that on first reading. The University of Warwick study (posted on U75) is cited and I agree with Revelli that the vote the leave

cut horizontally through the two political parties that had monopolised the British political arena since time immemorial

The finding that while both campaigns focus on immigration (present tense used on purpose here)

immigration had such an effect within what was a rather more complex context than we might imagine, indeed a seemingly contradictory one. In fact, immigration was a significant ‘key driver’ in the referendum only with reference to the migration patterns from Eastern European countries who joined the EU between 2004 and 2013. It is an almost ‘inert’ or insignificant indicator when we look at migration patterns ‘from older EU states or non-EU countries’

contradicting the often-made claims that the referendum was all about immigration for the people. The section looking at the counterfactual of what might have happened if the cuts of the coalition government had not been so severe is interesting (and rather nicely partly lays the loss for Remain at the fee of the fuckwit LDs and pro-EU tories like Cameron/Osbourne), although I'd delete the 'probably' in the parentheses (my emphasis)

This suggests that had the austerity policies shared by the governing parties and preached by Europe itself only been applied less stubbornly and drastically, it would have been possible to avoid the ‘British earthquake’ (although there would have remained a serious reservoir of malaise and anger, which would have probably been ready to explode again if it found the opportunity to do so).

Thinking about the dyadic/triadic nature of 'left' and 'right' populisms discussed in Chp 2, is interesting when applied to the the populisms within the vote to leave the EU (and I think it is important here to stress that their was not one populism but multiple populisms present). (NB for those that have not (yet) read the book Revelli does not do this explicitly I am taking the concepts he discusses in Chp 2 and applying them here)

That said one criticism I would make is that I don't think Revelli (and even more so Judis) grasp (or at least discsuss) how long term (and left-wing) the opposition to the EU is in the UK. The connections made to the long-time scales in the USA re Trump are rather brushed over for the UK and Brexit. Though that does raise an interesting question, was anti-EU politics in the UK always populist or has it become (more) so over time?

I'm not sure where I stand on that question. Thinking 'aloud' I suppose you could make an argument that as the left embraced the EU, that freed up space within anti-EU feeling that populisms entered? Don't know if anyone else has any thoughts on that, or anything else? And apologies for the brackets, there's far too many of them in this post.


Final point, how shameful is it that it fell to fucking Farange to oppose the attacks on Greece

We need to recognise that a terrible mistake has been made. We must resolve to put it right. We have got to give people hope because out there now is absolute despair. We all remember Dimitris Christoulas, the 77-year-old former pharmacist who shot himself dead outside the Greek Parliament, but he is just one of a growing humanitarian disaster. There have been huge increases in suicides in Italy and in Greece, particularly by people running small businesses who cannot see a way out of the problem. Children are being left in increasing numbers outside the doors of churches because their parents cannot afford to feed them. Our leaders are too callous to listen and care. You can do something about this.

Yes it was a cynical attempt to try to bolster his support but whatever the reasons and hypocrisy behind such a statement it cannot be denied that it is absolutely accurate.

 

[chilango]

Finished the Traverso. Interesting read, but not really about populism.

 

[Proper Tidy]

Haven't been keeping up with this thread, but bought winslow/hall's rise of the right ages ago and have finally got round to starting it, so far very good. As it happens 'met' (online) both hall and winslow who both came across as sound

 

[redsquirrel]

Chp 4, pt 1 - France

Obviously anyone interested in populism or the return of the hard right knows of the FN (RN) but what this chapter really drew home to me was how successful the FN have been. It's ability to draw support across the whole of France (taking first place in more communes than the Union of Left and Union of Right did together in the 2015 regional elections) is remarkable considering it is fighting under an electoral system that is stacked against them (arguably to as great an extent as FPTP would be).

The analysis that the idea of the Fronts (one based in the South around classical hard-right ideas and one in the North that is more 'anti-capitalist) has broken down only strengthens the FN over the longer term

The fact is ... that since 2000 a polarisation has emerged among the frontiste electorate, with the elements of society that were already previously less present among its electorate (‘managers and higher-level intellectual professions, intermediate levels of the public sector’) tending to vote for it ever less, and the ones that were already most present (‘blue-collar workers, supervisors, company technicians, sales clerks, the low-earning self-employed’) ever more committed to voting Front National.

Indeed going back to the long-timescales it is clear that the FN has now succeeded in expanding the 'historical' map of French populism in a way that Trump did not really do for US populism.

It is impossible for anyone serious not to agree that the loss to Macron in the 2017 Presidential election (as said by a number of us at the time)

A dispassionate analysis of the data makes it clear that, not only had the Front not been set back even a millimetre, but that it had greatly built on its previous advance.

If we look at the Front’s electoral map, based on different shades of grey, we can see that alongside two very dark, almost black patches in the north-east and along the Mediterranean coast, where Marine Le Pen’s percentage on 7 May was above 40 per cent, there was a broad sweep of dark grey covering eastern France and a good part of the centre, where the Front’s candidate scored over 30 per cent. The only light grey patches (where she took under 30 per cent of votes.

(One minor off-topic criticism of the book is that it would be nice to have actual maps showing the below rather it being described in text)

It is also worth thinking about how Marcon fits into the populism framework, like populists he sold himself on being outside the established parties and wanting 'renewal' (33% of those that intended to vote for him said they would do so for this reason). However, Macron is of course very much pro-establishment and his popularity has now skydived - he might have used some of the clothes of populism to help his election but he was very quickly exposed as yet another naked emperor.

The 2019 European elections have only reinforced the existing trends, the LR and PS look totally moribund with the RN and En Marche dominating the political map (important to note that for all the talk about the drop in its % vote the RN took 500,000 more votes in 2019 than 2012). With the electoral system so against it it is hard to see a electoral breakthrough for the RN but its political breakthrough has already occurred.

 

[redsquirrel]

I'm cross posting some thoughts from the Brexit thread because I think they apply to most (all?) of the populisms we are seeing today. Plus I think it will get a better reception here.
The below is not only based on my readings of Revelli but also the fact that I've begun to get into Tronti's Workers and Capital. Reading the two together has developed my thinking - for good to ill.

------

There's been a repeated demand on this thread, and others, for strong workers organisations that are in favour of leaving. People suggesting that they could accept the arguments for leave if such organisations existed. But this insistence on the necessity of such organisations is both dishonest and goes to the key division between those arguing from a class perspective and those arguing from a progressive perspective.

It is dishonest because where are strong left wing* organisations arguing for remaining in the UK? They no more exist than those that favour leave. So in fact the argument against leaving the EU because left wing organisations don't exist is implicitly an argument for some sections of capital/the state to protect the working class against other sections, the EU to defend the working class against the UK. And here we have the whole problem, that of making capital the prime mover and the working class a pawn of capitals and states.

(*I don't believe this term is useful but it is the one that has been used most often on the thread so I will use it here)

Instead Let's take up Tronti's advice.

We too saw capitalist development first and the workers second. This is a mistake. Now we have to turn the problem on its head, change orientation, and start again from first principles, which means focusing on the struggle of the working class.

From this point of view we can see that the working class (recognising that the organisations it had once developed to advance it's cause are now utterly redundant in the fight with capital after the latest crisis) has engineered a series of political crises. The working class has seized the initiative, once again leaping ahead of its organisations, and used populisms to strike at capital.

The relationship between the two classes is such that whoever has the initiative wins. On the terrain of science, as on the terrain of practice, the strength of either side is inversely proportional to the other: if one grows and develops, the other stays put and thus slips backward. .... If we want to start going forward again, then we need to immobilise the enemy, the better to be able to strike him.

[The working class] must violently break with its own immediate past. It must reject the traditional figure that has been officially attributed to it and surprise the class enemy with its sense of initiative, making a sudden, unpredicted, uncontrollable theoretical advance. And it is worth making our own partial contribution to this new genre, to this modern form of political work.

And it is that last sentence there that is key to understanding what actions socialists should take. Socialist have to take their lead from the working class, have to use the opportunities the working class has created by its actions to help develop new tools that the working class can use to attack capital. To argue that an anti-EU campaign should not be mounted until tools have been developed is to have workers organisations act as the brake on the working class.

Whether one sees more opportunities for the working class with remaining in or leaving the EU no pro-working class politics can start from the point of a return to the status quo ante, to undo the intuitive that the working class have created.

We are against the present organisation of struggle and research, but that does not mean that we take the practical and theoretical solutions of the past as our model. Saying no to today’s socialism does not mean having to say yes to yesterday’s capitalism.
....
But when it comes to the problems that concern us, from the perspective of unleashing the decisive struggle against the power of capital, there are unknown worlds that are waiting to be explored. The fate of those who sought another route to India and ended up discovering other continents is very similar to our own present manner of proceeding. For this reason, it is fair enough that the seeds of the new have not yet grown to the maturity of a fruit-bearing plant. It is important to recognise the force of what is being born. If it is alive, it will grow. You cannot criticise someone who is still continuing their research for what they have not yet found.

Those of favour remain and are pro-working class are every bit as much in search of India as those who voted/favour leave.

 

[redsquirrel]

Thanks for the reply, as the Brexit thread has moved on so fast I thought I'd reply to this post here. I hope that's ok with you PM.

(1) like you i don't see the importance or need for strong lw / pro-working class bodies as a pre-requisite to leaving the eu. but i don't believe that in any capitalist democratic exercise any section of society operates wholly independently, that all are to some extent pawns of capital and states - in that the setting of the agenda, through the setting of the question, was very much orchestrated by parliament and the campaigns largely run by politicians and businesspeople for example. tbh this isn't *that* important, as it ought to be a given in any poll.

I don't think we are really that far away on this point. I would not say that the working class is a pawn of capital/states but I would accept that capital will inevitably respond to moves of the working class and seek to re-frame the issue on its terms. To borrow from Tronti again

While it is true that the working class objectively imposes precise choices on capital, it is also true that capital then completes these choices in such a way that they work against the working class.

(2) i am not persuaded that the working class has seized the initiative, as all i see here or in the msm involves the machinations of the political classes here and abroad. aside from some demonstrations the working class has been largely absent, afaics, from pushing things forwards. there has been more activity from the msm and the bourgeois political parties than from the wc. i suspect populisms have made more use of the wc to get where we are today than the wc has made use of populisms.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree here. In my view the working class has caused the political crises via populism against the objectives of capital. Across Europe capital's tool of the EU is under attack, the

(3) i am confused by what you're saying here, as - as far as i can see and as implicitly admitted in your (1) i see no tools which have been developed over the last three years, and there's been anti-eu campaigns, albeit orchestrated by the right, for many, many years. perhaps you could give some examples of the new tools socialists have developed.

Sorry I'm confused by your reply. I wasn't not arguing (or at least I didn't mean to argue) that the new tools socialists should be helping to develop have emerged yet (or at least we don't recognise then at this moment).

in addition, this all seems to be predicated on 'the working class' being right, or at least being right for the right reasons. the problem here seems to me to be that nowhere in your analysis quoted do you admit that sections of the working class voted leave for reasons such as opposition to immigration and that it may be desirable to address that while remaining committed to their wish to leave the european union.

I think this is the core part of our disagreement. I'm absolutely not making this analysis on the 'working class being right for the right reasons'. I agree that the move by the working class is partly on the basis of ideas that you and I would reject but I don't see that as a reason to organise against the move. Surely every time the working class has seized the initiative it has been on the basis of a medley of 'right' and 'wrong' ideas - puritan religious sensibilities in the English Civil Wars, nationalism in the Russian Revolution and colonial rebellions, etc. In fact I'd argue many ideas are 'right' and 'wrong' at the same time, take sovereignty for example, one of the key themes of the present day populisms. I don't think either of us have any time for the nationalistic side of sovereignty but I can certainly support the part of sovereignty that argues that people should have democratic control of their institutions. I see sovereignty as a contestable idea one that can work for the working class as well as against it.

(4) there is no return to the status quo ante. the last three plus years cannot be effaced from memory. any abject return to the eu fold would bring with it such a loss of ruling class face in this country and such a humiliation around the world that i think new political spaces could open up. the authority of the ruling class to rule, of the political class to govern, of their right to such things has taken a huge blow through their inability to extricate the country from the european union. as i have said frequently on the boards, i don't believe we will leave - not because the desire to do so among the ruling class isn't there: they want to leave, i feel, in large measure to retain their place at the top of the table following the result of june 2016. i don't believe they have the nous, the wherewithal, to deliver a departure which doesn't result in their own diminishment, which delivers in any way the results promised in 2016 of a brave buccaneering nation swashbuckling its way across the globe. the divide in the ruling class, of which the divisions in the house of commons are the most obvious symptom, shows they're effectively paralysed and unable to come up with any way forwards. stay in the eu or depart, the ruling class has been dealt a great blow the results of which may take years to become fully apparent.

I'm in general agreement with the first part of this, and indeed use it as evidence to back up my contention that the working class has engineered a crisis. I don't agreement with you that the ruling class want to leave but to some extent that by-the-by. My point was not that a return to the status quo ante was possible but that no pro-working class politics could view it as desirable. However, such a desire has been mentioned more than a few times on these boards and has significant purchase amongst progressive politics, which goes to illustrate the gap between social and progressive politics that some (not you) like to pretend does not exist.

 

[redsquirrel]

Back to the Revelli

Chp 4, pt 2 - Germany and Visegard

My prior knowledge on the AfD was much less than UK populisms or the FN/RN, so this section was both interesting and helpful. Clearly there are many similarities on the AfD vote with the UKIP/BP and FN votes - non-metropolitan, older, lower educational qualifications and lower income (the data on the how fast the AfD vote has focused is especially interesting).

The section A populism for 'rich countries'? is excellent both in exposing this type of shit below for the dishonest nonsense it is.

Today’s GDP report marks “the end of a golden decade for the German economy”, says Carsten Brzeski, chief economist for Germany at Dutch bank ING.

Brzeski points out that Germany had been on a decent run since the financial crisis, growing at around 0.5% per quarter. Not any more....

"It was a decade of strong growth on the back of earlier structural reforms, fiscal stimulus, globalisation at its peak and steroids provided by the ECB in the form of low-interest rates and a relatively weak euro.

This decade, in which strong German growth looked so effortless, is coming to an end"

In fact

despite the myths about Germans’ ‘high wages’, today, real average wages in Germany are lower than they were twenty-five years ago. And while capital income has grown by around 30 per cent since 2000, labour’s income has only increased by a feeble 6 per cent in monetary terms. This process has not only deepened the divide between labour and capital, but has split the world of waged labour itself, as higher-waged workers have seen their incomes increase and their lower-waged counterparts see their incomes decrease.

and the stuff about the mini-jobs is illuminating and appalling.

“mini-jobs’ introduced by Gerhard Schröder’s SPD government with the so-called Hartz reform in 2003. This introduced a new ‘contractual figure’, at survival levels designed for short-term periods of work and marginal occupations previously employed cash-in-hand (domestic helpers, babysitters and home carers, newspaper sellers, waiters, etc.). It stipulated a maximum salary of €450 a month for fifteen hours a week’s work, at an hourly cost of between five and seven euros and a 30 per cent extra contribution by the employer, amounting to 135 euros, with no holidays, no redundancy arrangements, and almost no provision for pensions.
.....
there was an exponential rise in the use of these contracts: numbers more than tripled compared to the first few years, such that it is now estimated that these workers represent around 20 per cent of the labour market

On the Visegrád populisms one thing that came through for me was that while there are differences between the populisms in the central European countries and those in the west, the similarities are both greater than I had previously thought and more important.

Law and Justice is not populist only in terms of its style and rhetoric, but also its electorate, which is very similar to that of the other ‘new populisms’ we have considered. Its main strong points are among working-class constituencies and union members, as well as among miners, shopkeepers, farmers, the unemployed and pensioners. In this case, too, PiS is strong in rural and peripheral areas and weaker in the big cities.

To what extent these different populisms can ally together is obviously a key question. At the moment the populisms of Hungary, Poland. Slovakia and the Czech Republic while lambasting the traditional European centre-right are nevertheless willing to align with them much of the time (e.g. their membership of the EPP or ECR groupings in the EU parliament). I feel the competition between populisms, both within and between states, is going to be an important factor in politics in the coming years.

 

[redsquirrel]

Thought I may as well finish the book off even if the thread did not really go as we might have wished.

Chp 6 - Italy

Revelli's description of the three populism - first Berlusconi, then M5S, then Renzi (and of course now we could add the League) - surprised me a little. I was aware of the populism and M5S and could see how Berlusconi fits in the populism framework (very easy to see Berlusonci as a fore runner to the populisms in the US and the Visegard group) but I had not thought of Renzi's government within that framework. But Revelli makes a strong case for understanding the Renzi government as such

But, in many regards, Matteo Renzi is a ‘populist’. One of a new type, of course. A post-twentieth-century, post-ideological, post-democratic populist. He also differs from the other contemporary ‘neo-populists’: certainly, he is no ‘identitarian populist’ like the emerging central European ethnonationalisms, but nor is he a ‘social-protest’-oriented populist, to again use Taguieff’s classification.

This is, rather, a ‘hybrid’ populism,29 with little struggle and a little government. It remixes the ingredients of Italy’s other previous populisms. In the decision to speak ‘directly to citizens’ using the TV or other media, there is a pinch of Berlusconian ‘telepopulism’, with an impressive proliferation of promises to resolve all the problems that the parties and politicians have never managed to confront.

It would be interesting to compare Renzi's PD with En Marche, both defining themselves in opposition to national populisms but using, at least, some of the language and behaviours of populism - the executive pushing changes through the legislature, a populism from above

'It’s not about Yes or No, but Yes or never. This is citizens’ opportunity to change things’ (Matteo Renzi, 30 November #bastaunsi); ‘On Sunday [referendum day], it’s up to you, friends, if you want to vote No and keep the armchairs like before, because it’s not about voting for me but for our children’ (Matteo Renzi, 30 November at #Matrix) … Right up to the grand finale in his own city of Florence on 2 December: ‘The future begins with a Yes. There is a silent majority that wants to be taken in hand in order to change the future’; ‘If Yes wins, Italy will become a European leader and not a cash machine for those who take in money and lose their humanity’.

Conclusions
I think the conclusions are pretty much bang on and even if people cannot be bothered to read the book in full they could do worse than read this final chapter.

in around two decades, between 8 and 10 per cent of GDP shifted from total wages to total profits: an enormous figure, which amounts to around €120 billion a year that is no longer present in workers’ pay packets.

I think that the data given in the conclusions (above) lend support to the idea that populisms are being used by workers to attack capital (that's not to say that such populisms will necessarily lead to advance of workers interests).

Capital sought to take back – with interest, we could say – what had been won by labour, in terms of income and rights, during the previous cycle of industry and of conflict, in the ‘social twentieth century’. The sociologist, attentive to the numbers and their significance, maintained that this struggle had been won by those who stood up above,...
Almost all of us, convinced by this diagnosis from the outset, concentrated most of our attention on what followed from this mutation of those forces ‘up above’: on the formation of new oligarchies, on the destructiveness of finance capital and its changeable global oligarchies, on the modus operandi of the postmodern robber barons, on the socially destructive use of monetary policies and austerity. There was rather less reflection on what was happening ‘down below’.

(my emphasis)

 

[redsquirrel]

Renzi leaving the PD to form his own party.

I have decided to leave the PD and to build together with others a new house to do politics differently,

So potentially another populism (again) at play.

 

[gawkrodger]

just starting the Revelli book so will be reporting in

 

[redsquirrel]

just starting the Revelli book so will be reporting in

Cool. More the merrier.

 

[redsquirrel]

Couple of recent regional election results from Germany and Italy show that populist parties are still eating into the votes of establishment parties (both results highlighted in other threads but I think they are worth cross-posting here).

In Germany Die Linke topped the Thuringian state election (31.0, +2.8%) but the AfD finished 2nd with a 12.8 swing in it's favour to take 23.4 % of the vote. The CDU had an 11.7 % swing against it and the SPD is now taking a single figure vote share.

The CDU, which rules at the national level in a coalition with its Bavarian sister party the CSU and the SPD, suffered its worst result in the state, losing more than 11 percentage points to take 22.5% of the vote.

And in Umbria (a traditional stronghold of the centre-left) the centre right list, now led by Lega, crushed the PD-M5S coalition by 20%, putting the nonsense idea that withdrawing from government with hurt the League into the rubbish bin. It is very hard to see anything other than the current government living on borrowed time.

“It was no surprise that they won,” said Elisabetta Spallaccia, a shop owner in Orvieto. “I’ve always been a leftwing voter and while I voted for the PD I was very sceptical about supporting them again. I cannot tolerate what the rightwing parties say but can understand why there was a vote for change. The real left doesn’t really exist any more.”

 

[redsquirrel]

Terrible piece by the dreadful Garton Ash in the Guardian, nicely encapsulating why liberals are losing out to populists

In the territory that used to be the Stasiland of East Germany, the far-right, virulently xenophobic Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has received the support of a shocking one in four voters, in no less than three recent state elections: in Saxony, Brandenburg and – only last Sunday – in Thuringia. This despite the fact that these states have for nearly three decades been part of one of the richest, most stable democracies in the world, which has made vast financial transfers to precisely these poorer post-communist regions

No mention of the data Revelli quotes regarding the declining living standards, the huge expansion of mini-jobs - workers have never had it so good!

 

[redsquirrel]

Another example of how populism is forcing fractures in the traditional party political landscape.

Merkel's CDU could 'tear itself apart' after call for AfD coalition

Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union risks “tearing itself apart” over her legacy in the wake of a string of poor election results, as some conservative politicians double down on her pro-immigration stance while others eye a pact with the nationalist far-right.

In the eastern state of Thuringia, where the CDU was beaten into third place by the openly xenophobic Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) at state elections last month, 17 politicians from the party have written a letter calling for lifting the cordon sanitaire around the far-right outfit.