What is a populist economic policy?
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  What is a populist economic policy?
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Author Topic: What is a populist economic policy?  (Read 2198 times)
Thomas
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« on: March 06, 2018, 11:36:57 PM »

Explain below
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Dr. MB
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« Reply #1 on: March 07, 2018, 12:17:13 AM »

Populist can mean a lot of different things.
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TexArkana
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« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2018, 12:40:14 AM »

Populist is a meaningless term that could be used to describe everyone from George Wallace to Bernie Sanders.
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Not a Partisan Hack ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)
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« Reply #3 on: March 07, 2018, 01:16:28 AM »

Populism in its most basic premise is a distaste for elitism, so economic populism might as well be a policy that is made to benefit the common working man.
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« Reply #4 on: March 07, 2018, 01:18:27 AM »

Populist is a meaningless term that could be used to describe everyone from George Wallace to Bernie Sanders.


Describes both of them well as both would be terrible for the country(albeit in different ways)
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darklordoftech
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« Reply #5 on: March 07, 2018, 02:16:22 AM »

Populism isn't a set of policies, but rather it's a type of rhetoric. Populism is when a politician claims that everyone except for themselves is in league with the elites who are screwing over the average person and that he/she alone can save the average person from the elites.
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« Reply #6 on: March 07, 2018, 10:41:15 AM »

Populist is a meaningless term that could be used to describe everyone from George Wallace to Bernie Sanders.

That doesn't mean it's meaningless.  Merriam-Webster defines "populist" as "a member of a political party claiming to represent the common people" and then goes on to define the actual Populist Party of the late Nineteenth Century.  It then gives a second definition as "a believer in the rights, wisdom or virtues of the common people."

Populist economic policies are, IMO, policies that look to even the playing field (which a populist would inherently see as unequal and/or unfair) for this "common man."  The flaw of populism, from a "conservative" (gotta include my Santender trolling insurance Smiley ) stance is that the definition of who this *common man* is, and whether or not the playing field is "unfair" is entirely subjective ... not to mention there will be incredible debate about how to level the playing field.

Put simply in our modern day context, I would say economic populism is undeniably tied to forms of redistributionism, be that higher taxes on the wealthy (to redistribute income to those who a populist believes deserves some of this money more), more regulation on business (to redistribute profits to smaller employers and/or consumers who "should" be getting more of that money), trade restrictions (to level the allegedly unfair dynamic of free trade in favor of the industries that aren't benefiting "enough" from it) or other policy measures that look to achieve the same redistributionist goals.  I think economic populism fundamentally has to draw on the rhetoric, style and sometimes the specific policies of the tradition of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian egalitarianism that sought to be a "check" on "monied interests" and other economic "elites."  Cultural or social "populism" would, of course, be different, but I don't see how economic populism can be explained without a clear and precise tie to some form of redistributionist sentiment.
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« Reply #7 on: March 07, 2018, 11:04:16 AM »

Meaningless. “The People” is a subjective term.
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All Along The Watchtower
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« Reply #8 on: March 07, 2018, 02:38:48 PM »

A campaign slogan.
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parochial boy
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« Reply #9 on: March 07, 2018, 04:05:10 PM »

Populist is a meaningless term that could be used to describe everyone from George Wallace to Bernie Sanders.

That doesn't mean it's meaningless.  Merriam-Webster defines "populist" as "a member of a political party claiming to represent the common people" and then goes on to define the actual Populist Party of the late Nineteenth Century.  It then gives a second definition as "a believer in the rights, wisdom or virtues of the common people."

Populist economic policies are, IMO, policies that look to even the playing field (which a populist would inherently see as unequal and/or unfair) for this "common man."  The flaw of populism, from a "conservative" (gotta include my Santender trolling insurance Smiley ) stance is that the definition of who this *common man* is, and whether or not the playing field is "unfair" is entirely subjective ... not to mention there will be incredible debate about how to level the playing field.

Put simply in our modern day context, I would say economic populism is undeniably tied to forms of redistributionism, be that higher taxes on the wealthy (to redistribute income to those who a populist believes deserves some of this money more), more regulation on business (to redistribute profits to smaller employers and/or consumers who "should" be getting more of that money), trade restrictions (to level the allegedly unfair dynamic of free trade in favor of the industries that aren't benefiting "enough" from it) or other policy measures that look to achieve the same redistributionist goals.  I think economic populism fundamentally has to draw on the rhetoric, style and sometimes the specific policies of the tradition of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian egalitarianism that sought to be a "check" on "monied interests" and other economic "elites."  Cultural or social "populism" would, of course, be different, but I don't see how economic populism can be explained without a clear and precise tie to some form of redistributionist sentiment.

Not really, as darklordoftech pointed out, populism is really about setting up an amorphously defined "people" against, not necessarily an elite, but against an enemy, or out group, who are blamed for exploiting or taking advantage of the "people" as a whole.

That is why you have, for example, rhetoric about welfare scroungers as a form of populism, but one which is manifestly not redistributive in nature.
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darklordoftech
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« Reply #10 on: March 07, 2018, 06:06:43 PM »
« Edited: March 07, 2018, 06:11:43 PM by darklordoftech »

Populist is a meaningless term that could be used to describe everyone from George Wallace to Bernie Sanders.

That doesn't mean it's meaningless.  Merriam-Webster defines "populist" as "a member of a political party claiming to represent the common people" and then goes on to define the actual Populist Party of the late Nineteenth Century.  It then gives a second definition as "a believer in the rights, wisdom or virtues of the common people."

Populist economic policies are, IMO, policies that look to even the playing field (which a populist would inherently see as unequal and/or unfair) for this "common man."  The flaw of populism, from a "conservative" (gotta include my Santender trolling insurance Smiley ) stance is that the definition of who this *common man* is, and whether or not the playing field is "unfair" is entirely subjective ... not to mention there will be incredible debate about how to level the playing field.

Put simply in our modern day context, I would say economic populism is undeniably tied to forms of redistributionism, be that higher taxes on the wealthy (to redistribute income to those who a populist believes deserves some of this money more), more regulation on business (to redistribute profits to smaller employers and/or consumers who "should" be getting more of that money), trade restrictions (to level the allegedly unfair dynamic of free trade in favor of the industries that aren't benefiting "enough" from it) or other policy measures that look to achieve the same redistributionist goals.  I think economic populism fundamentally has to draw on the rhetoric, style and sometimes the specific policies of the tradition of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian egalitarianism that sought to be a "check" on "monied interests" and other economic "elites."  Cultural or social "populism" would, of course, be different, but I don't see how economic populism can be explained without a clear and precise tie to some form of redistributionist sentiment.

Not really, as darklordoftech pointed out, populism is really about setting up an amorphously defined "people" against, not necessarily an elite, but against an enemy, or out group, who are blamed for exploiting or taking advantage of the "people" as a whole.

That is why you have, for example, rhetoric about welfare scroungers as a form of populism, but one which is manifestly not redistributive in nature.
It becomes populism when a politician claims that the political establishment is in league with that enemy and that the establishment and this enemy are together the cause of people's malaise. For example, "Wall Street caused the recession" by itself isn't populism, but "I'm the only politician who isn't in league with Wall Street" is.
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Starry Eyed Jagaloon
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« Reply #11 on: March 08, 2018, 12:22:06 AM »

It's more concerned with making the elite worse off than the poor better off.

God, I sound like Marco Rubio.
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« Reply #12 on: March 08, 2018, 05:43:04 AM »

An economic policy being that is broadly popular. Reaganomics is populist. the New Deal was populist. Mugabe distributing land was populist. New Economic Policy was populist.
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Meclazine for Israel
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« Reply #13 on: March 11, 2018, 04:03:46 PM »
« Edited: March 11, 2018, 07:59:55 PM by Meclazine »

That is on the right track.

Economic populism is a very simple case of isolationist policies for the benefit of the common man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdfowbT58wo

A pro-national policy agenda illustrated at one end member of the spectrum was when Chile kicked out copper mining companies in the 1970's and took over the giant copper resources they discovered.

Import tarriffs, barriers to trade and a simple message to the workers that you are not one of them.

Dr Paul M. Johnson from Auburn University explains economic populism as..  

"The ideologies of any of a number of political movements that demand the redistribution of political power, economic dominance and/or cultural leadership away from what are seen as corrupt, greedy, over-centralized, urban-based oligarchies in favor of empowering “the common people,” particularly those who live in rural areas."






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« Reply #14 on: March 11, 2018, 07:02:51 PM »

An economic policy being that is broadly popular. Reaganomics is populist. the New Deal was populist. Mugabe distributing land was populist. New Economic Policy was populist.


Lol no


Reaganomics wasn’t populist and judging by the reaction Huey Long had to the New Deal it  wasn’t populist either
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« Reply #15 on: March 12, 2018, 06:31:40 AM »

An economic policy being that is broadly popular. Reaganomics is populist. the New Deal was populist. Mugabe distributing land was populist. New Economic Policy was populist.


Lol no


Reaganomics wasn’t populist and judging by the reaction Huey Long had to the New Deal it  wasn’t populist either

how could Reaganism not be populist?
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IceAgeComing
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« Reply #16 on: March 12, 2018, 06:48:51 AM »

People have this idea that by default populism is necessarily something which attracts primarily Working Class support which isn't always the case: although in recent years the word has been used in that way.  That's because populism is all about messaging; taking into account annoyances and issues lots of people have with the status quo and use those as the base of your campaign while talking about yourself (and more importantly your opponents) in a certain way.

As a prime international example: what was the 1997 Blair campaign (and victory) if not a populist one?  Now sure that was easy since they were running against an incredibly unpopular four term Tory government but it was still broadly populist: albeit a form of the stuff that was targeted primarily at middle class voters in certain geographic areas but which also had strong support (if not passionate support) by working class voters because of the strong wish to get the Conservative government out.  I think this shows the futility of talking about "populism" as this firm ideology: it changes regularly with the whims of the public (you'd hardly call the policies of a Tony Blair 'populist' in 2018) and its primarily about messaging and how you sell your policies in contrast to your opposition.  The same goes for Reagan and for Thatcher really.  Hell its the same for modern 'populism'; you've got your... weird right wing type (Trump in the US; UKIP; Lega Nord successfully used it despite being an establishment party etc etc); the left wing sort (Corbyn and Sanders are the two that people point at - although notably on policy the former isn't that different from Labour in 2015 but the messaging very much is) and even someone like Macron who's, well, a centrist who's pursuing liberal economic policies after getting elected and therefore annoying the Unions ran as a populist.  As an ideological descriptor it means nothing.

So to answer the question: everything under the sun could be "populist" depending on the time that you were living in and the rhetoric used by those trying to seek power.  Its not even one of those vague ideological groups like Socialism or Conservatism which cover lots of different types of people and which you could have two people identify as but end up with two totally different policy sets because at least they have core values that tend to unite everyone who identifies in that way which populism doesn't.
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« Reply #17 on: March 24, 2018, 05:51:10 AM »

Populist is a meaningless term that could be used to describe everyone from George Wallace to Bernie Sanders.

This. Since Trump and Bernie I have very negative reactions to any politician named populist, but almost every policy is populist, and that says absolutely nothing about its efficacy.
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« Reply #18 on: July 01, 2018, 10:26:50 AM »

Audit the fed, break up the big banks, and close our trade deficit.
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All Along The Watchtower
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« Reply #19 on: July 07, 2018, 08:45:13 PM »

Another definition: Anything that the Davos crowd dislikes.
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mileslunn
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« Reply #20 on: July 30, 2018, 04:14:28 PM »

On the right a populist one would be slashing salaries of government workers or cutting things generally seen as favouring the elites like public broadcasting or the arts.  Another one which a lot of right wing populist use in Europe is by cutting immigration there will be enough money to expand social programs and cut taxes without going into deficit (not true as immigration is beneficial economically, but many right wing populist parties in Europe run on this).

A left wing populist one would be jacking up taxes on the rich and big corporations even if to uncompetitive levels.  A more crazy one and perhaps this can also be found on the right too is return to the gold standard or have the central bank issue debt to fund programs by printing money.
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