Prediction 2 – Populism Is Put In Retreat
As I said in my review of 2021 predictions, this was, in fact, born out, last year. Yet, for the same reasons that other predictions were held back, even this was not as fully developed as it would have been had lockdowns and lockouts not been used to slow economic expansion. Because I expect that economic expansion in 2022 is not going to be held back by such means, I expect the processes described to now move forward much faster.
In my review of 2021 predictions, I noted, in respect of this prediction, the comments of Trotsky about the role of economic expansions in enabling the working-class to feel more confident, to raise its consciousness and rebuild its organisations.
“In other words, workers higher living standards are not a consequence of their increased militancy and trades union organisation, but the increased organisation and militancy is itself the consequence of their higher living standards, which themselves result from the economic expansion, and demand for labour. The economic revival that got underway in 2021, was the material basis for such a change, and the further undermining of populism.”
It can be seen in the US, for example, in the growth of trades union organisation, with workers at McDonalds, and elsewhere starting to get organised. Populism thrives in conditions where workers are isolated, and all of the subjective factors that encourage individualism thrive. It reduces large numbers to being an amorphous mass prone to be influenced by direct appeals from elites via charismatic leaders offering easy solutions, solutions which are to be provided from on high by such leaders via government. In conditions where such masses are encouraged to see catastrophe and crisis around every corner, it is the kind of Hobbesian world, in which they are led to abandon their own self-activity, their own self-government and control, and even their own liberty, in return for the protection of the sovereign.
In previous times, there were plenty of real such threats, be it widespread poverty, unemployment, or war - in the 20th century, two world wars, 20 years of economic crisis and stagnation in the 1920's, and 30's, lack of even basic social security. But, in developed economies, for the large majority of society, those threats have not been present, for the last 60 years. Welfare states were created, which for all their faults, provide a minimum level of social security; prices of staple items like food have fallen massively in real terms, continental wars have been avoided. Even in terms of the threat from terrorism, it is grossly inflated compared to previous conditions. The Provisional IRA, in the 1970's and 80's, was able to set off effective bombs in Ireland and Britain, without requiring its own members to blow themselves up in the process. Today's terrorists are as likely to kill themselves as they are to kill anyone else, and, even then, they fail to come anywhere close to the effectiveness of the IRA. So, instead, new crises have to be fabricated, be it climate crises, COVID or whatever, and in a world in which we have 24 hour news media, where the distinction between news and entertainment has disappeared, every event has to be turned into something unprecedented, and sensational.
The reality is that the majority of people in developed countries have lives today that, in the past, would have led them to be thankful for their uneventfulness. In fact, that is so to an extent to which all past conditions which would have caused people to take some responsibility for their own lives and actions, both individually and collectively, has simply led people to believe they no longer have to take such responsibility. It is heard in the much repeated mantra of “someone should do something”, as against the idea that “I” or “We” should do something. The now perennial news stories about flooding of properties, in Britain, is a good example. We are encouraged to see such events in the framework of climate crisis, rather than in the much more obvious framework that such flooding is what naturally happens when builders are allowed, and economically encouraged, to build large numbers of houses in flood plains. But, the clue is also in the description, and it is also, then, a consequence of people who have been gradually led into a mindset that they do not have to take any responsibility for their actions, who then buy houses in places where it is fairly obvious they are likely to be flooded, and then expect others to, literally, bail them out!
Possibly, humans need such expectation of impending doom, because although prolonged stress leads to damagingly high levels of adrenalin, and cortisol, the body also requires periodic production of these hormones for its healthy functioning. There is a reason that people seek out thrills on roller-coasters, or horror movies. However, it is this same catastrophism, and conditioning to the prospect of impending crisis that states have been encouraged to develop, as a means of controlling populations, but also which enables populists to create their own narratives, and to offer their own snake oil solutions. The idea that tens of millions of Turks were going to flood into Britain without Brexit was one such example. But, the same narrative lies behind all of the Malthusian catastrophism that climate change is going to displace millions of people from across the world, all of whom are going to flood into Northern developed countries. In fact, nothing of the kind is likely, and given that we have ageing populations, in nearly all developed economies, with birth rates failing to be sufficient to maintain population size, without immigration, any such movement, over the proposed timescale, would be beneficial rather than a cause of crisis.
The main weakness, in rolling back the advance of the populists, is the role of conservative social-democracy. It continues to aim its fire to its Left rather than its Right, a feature of such political forces throughout history. But, as economic expansion occurs the material basis of that conservative social-democracy is itself undermined, in the same way it was prior to its resurgence over the last period, and which enabled the rise of Corbyn, and of progressive social-democrats in the US, and elsewhere. The same material conditions that will undermine asset prices, and so the power of fictitious capital, and so of its political representatives, will strengthen the power of real, large-scale socialised capital, and so of progressive social-democracy, which is its political reflection. The same process will undermine the petty-bourgeoisie that has grown over the last 40 years, and was the basis of the growth of populism. The effects of lockdowns will accelerate that process, as we come out of them. Many of the small capitals will be crushed, and their owners driven into the ranks of the proletariat, whilst a small number will be able to grow by taking over the capital and market share of their erstwhile competitors, elevating them into the ranks of the bourgeoisie proper.
Whether this or that populist movement, in this or that country, moves forward or backwards will be a matter of the specific conditions in each country, including the role played by the various political parties themselves, but understanding that these parties are not themselves monoliths, but also coalitions. The point, being made is only that which a materialist can make, which is that, as economic activity increases, the factors which enable the advance of workers position, organisation and consciousness are strengthened, and those factors, particularly the self-organisation and collective activity of the workers, undermines the power of populism. In economies across Europe, where populists have advanced, in Hungary, Poland etc., that is already being seen, as it is amongst the working-class itself, and particularly amongst the younger workers, that opposition, from the base, begins to organise against the governments.
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