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Sorry to cross post (very busy today) but thought you might find these insights interesting.
…
The People, No.
The Peoples, Yes
What makes income and wealth (class) inequalities so pernicious is how they politically disenfranchise the low income (working class). By needing to work three times or four times harder than the average medium income (middle class) for the same loaf of bread means the working class don’t have the time or energy to engage politically. Therefore they become dependent on the middle or higher classes to represent them and their well-being.
Populism occurs when both the middle and the higher classes fail to adequately take care of working class wellbeing.
Right populism is when the higher classes take responsibility for working class welfare and left populism is when the middle classes take responsibility for working class welfare.
Therefore, a truly just universal society that is based on freedom, liberty and fairness is one where everyone has equal wages per hour worked.
https://thebaffler.com/intros-and-manifestos/the-people-no-frank
….
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2018/10/29/the-liberal-conception-of-freedom-is-incapable-of-addressing-the-problems-of-contemporary-capitalism/#comment-992140
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I think I made a connection between equality and freedom, liberty and fairness and hence liberalism. The same will also apply to republicanism (freedom, liberty, fairness and fraternity).
.
.
The People, No.
The Peoples, Yes
What makes income and wealth (class) inequalities so pernicious is how they politically disenfranchise the low income (working class) person. By needing to work two, three or four times harder than the average medium income (middle class) person for the same loaf of bread means the working class don’t have the time or energy to engage politically. Therefore they become dependent on the middle or upper classes to look after them and their well-being.
I feel the current crisis of Liberalism is because the welfare of the working classes has been neglected by both the middle and upper classes who now feel betrayed and underepresented economically, culturally and politically. I feel this is mainly due to high levels of inequalities between the different classes whether income based, wealth based or investment based.
Therefore, I feel Populism occurs when both the middle and the higher classes fail to adequately take care of working class wellbeing and instead become too focused on themselves and their own interests.
Possibly, in terms of political activity, Right populism is when the higher classes take responsibility for working class welfare and left populism is when the middle classes take responsibility for working class welfare. However, populism in itself cannot resolve the underlying inequalities that produces the working class anger in the first place but then neither can current forms of Liberalism either. Republicanism in this context, at least seeks to build the necessary sense of fraternity by which inequalities may be confronted but it remains unclear how a greater sense of political duty can connect freedom with an equality that goes beyond non-interference.
However, for a society to be a truly just universal society that is based on freedom, liberty and fairness, then Liberalism must go beyond equal treatment on the civil and civic level and start applying equal treatment at the economic level whereby everyone has equal wages per hour worked and therefore everyone has the actual or lived freedom, liberty and fairness to engage politically which ensures that the working classes can represent themselves in the same way the middle and upper classes can.
Therefore Liberalism is in crisis because we are not allowing the principle of equality to permeate into our shared economic life as well as our shared civil and civic lives. In other words, because the middle classes and the upper classes are actively stunting the development of Liberalism by not applying equal treatment beyond the civil and civic realms of society, we not only have the arrested development (crisis) of Liberalism but we also have the Emergence of Populism as the middle and upper classes become increasingly protective of their accumulated economic privileges and advantages. As such, Liberalism has turned into a privileged state of incumbency that benefits the middle and upper classes which has resulted in the emergence of populism. Since the middle classes, in particular, the left liberal metropolitan middle classes have put Liberalism into arrested development and abandoned the goal of political freedom through economic equality, this has allowed the upper classes to step in and take populism to the right.
This article provided me with useful insights and space to re-imagine populism.
https://thebaffler.com/intros-and-manifestos/the-people-no-frank
I agree that liberals have lost the plot at the minute, and have surrendered the central ground of democratic debate to the populists and rabble-rousers. I think I also agree that the focus of many liberals on internationalism has helped them to take their collective eye off the ball of what matters to people in the communities they claim to represent.
I absolutely do not agree, however, that “the nation state is the primary locus of democratic legitimacy.” The only locus of democratic legitimacy lies with each individual citizen of a community, whether that is as part of a family, a locality, a region, a nation, or a federation of nations.
Many Liberals (as opposed to liberals!) accept that sovereignty rests with the people, and only when the structures of government, at whatever level, accept this premise, and are so organised as to give practical expression of this fact, can they be seen as legitimate.
The government of the UK is a case in point. It is a centralised institution predicated on the erroneous principle that the UK is a homogenous nation. It manifestly is not, and that is one of the reasons why so many people reject both politics and politicians. The over-centralised government of the UK is so remote from the realities of most people’s lives, that for all practical purposes, its writ hardly runs outside of the privileged south east of England.
The main reason why British liberals are so unsuccessful at the moment is that they have forgotten one of the basic principles of political activity – campaigning in communities. Their policy proposals may be appropriate for the current situation in the UK, but their failure over many years to go out and campaign for them in the communities that need them is a woeful error of judgement. It is time that Liberals got out of the claustrophobic environment of London, and started to campaign on their fundamental principles and policies, and demonstrate to an angry, frustrated and cynical population, that London does not know everything, and that people in communities are perfectly capable of taking and using power in their own localities to deal with local issues. Liberals should leave London, and get out on the streets talking to people, listening to their concerns, and helping them to use the powers local government already has to tackle local problems. That is direct democracy in action, not the farce that exists in Westminster. Britain needs fundamental reform, from the very top of society all the way down to the level of the individual.
Thank you Peter for your comments. I agree about the centralization issue. What I nshould have said is that the highest level at which people feel some kind of connection with their elected representatives is at the level of the nation state. Of course, they could maybe feel even more connection with a politics that is more embedded in their communities (as in Germany, Switzerland, Canada, etc). There will always be a need for coordination of all of that at the national level. And a need to avoid the development of the ‘us and them’ syndrome between local and national politics.