Populism: Promises and Problems.

• Author: Holcombe, Randall G.

Populism is a political ideology that advocates citizen control of government, government policies that support the interest of average citizens rather than the interest of an elite few, and, often by extension, democratic political institutions. Populist movements have advocated a wide variety of policies over the years and from one country to another. The common element underlying populist movements is that government should be accountable to the masses rather than controlled by an elite few and that government policy should be designed to benefit the masses rather than the elite. Populism has obvious political appeal. The problem with the populist vision is that it points toward political institutions that are poorly suited to accomplishing populist goals.

Public policy will always be designed by an elite few, and the populist idea that government can be controlled by the masses ultimately shifts more power to the elite. Public policy cannot be designed by a large group of people because the larger the group, the more difficult it is for individuals in the group to negotiate with each other. To use economic terminology, transaction costs are too high. A large group could vote to approve policies or vote on who they want to represent them in negotiations, but voting brings with it additional problems. As Anthony Downs (1957) notes, when the number of voters is large, each individual vote has only an imperceptible influence on the outcome, so voters tend to be rationally ignorant. Most individuals have no meaningful political power; that is why their ignorance is rational. And those with no power are not in a good position to control those who have power, even if the powerless far outnumber the powerful.

The American Founders understood this and designed a government with constitutionally limited powers and with institutions that allowed some with power to check and balance the use of power by others. They deliberately did not design a democracy in the sense of a government that would be controlled by its citizens or that would implement policies that were desired by its citizens. Populism begins with the promising and persuasive idea that governments should act in the best interests of their citizens, but it continues with the problematic ideas that citizens are able to control their governments and that governments should carry out the will of its citizens. The populist idea that control of government should be taken from the elite and returned to the people ultimately facilitates a transfer of power (back) to the elite.

Populism

Populism begins with the idea that governments should serve their citizens rather than citizens being subjects of their governments. John Locke's ([1690] 1960) political philosophy supported the Glorious Revolution in Britain in 1688, which confirmed the supremacy of Parliament--the representatives of the people--over the British Crown. The American Revolution in 1776 was based on the perception that the British government was violating the rights of the colonists, and it was fought to give the colonists the right to establish a new government designed to protect the rights of the masses against abuses by the elite. Bernard Bailyn (1967) notes that Locke's ideas played an important role in developing the arguments for American independence. The French Revolution that began in 1789 replaced the monarchy with a republican government.

These governments were not populist governments, but they were based on the populist idea--revolutionary at the time--that governments should serve their citizens rather than citizens serving their governments. Despite that compelling idea, the political elite who hold power always have the incentive to use that power to solidify their elite status.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels argued in 1848 that government works for the benefit of the elite, saying, "Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class.... [T]he bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of modern industry and the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative state, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie" (1948, 10-11). Marx and Engels emphasized the division between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, just as twentieth-century sociologists and political scientists noted the division between elites and masses. The Occupy Wall Street movement that began in 2010 protested policies that were designed to benefit the one percent rather than the 99 percent. Populism is a movement designed to reorient political power to further the interests of the proletariat, the masses, the 99 percent.

The term populism originated in the United States in the late 1800s to describe an agrarian movement to counteract the perceived abuse of economic power. Agrarian interests believed that as the nation had industrialized, those with concentrated economic power were able to influence government to favor themselves over the masses (Holcombe 2019, chap. 8). (1) Hannah Arendt (1958) identifies both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin as populist leaders who rose to power on the idea that government should be run for the benefit of the masses. In the twenty-first century, national leaders Donald Trump in the United States, Boris Johnson in the United Kingdom, and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil are commonly identified as populists. Leaders as varied as Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel have been labeled populists.

The populist label has been applied to movements and leaders from one end of the political spectrum to the other, and populist leaders have advocated a wide variety of policies. As such, populism is a motivation underlying political movements rather than a specific set of policies. That motivation is to take political power from the elite and give it to the masses. It begins with an adversarial "us against them" mentality that often promotes nationalism and even racism. Populist leaders tend to be charismatic individuals who develop a following by persuading people that they are being taken advantage of and that those who have advantages got them with the assistance of the power elite.

Donald Trump told voters he would "drain the swamp" in Washington, D.C. Adolf Hitler told Germans they were being taken advantage of by the nations that defeated them in World War I and by Jews. Boris Johnson said that the British were getting a bad deal as members of the European Union. Populism is not a specific set of policies but rests on the idea that government policies are designed by insiders for the benefit of an elite few. Populist leaders advocate taking control of government from the political elite--the insiders, the cronies--for the benefit of the masses.

Populism is based on an adversarial mindset that pits the masses against what C. Wright Mills calls the...