I have a PhD in Political Science and Public Policy, and I have no idea what “Populism” means. It is mainly used an insult against people of differing views, not much different from Leftists calling opponents “racist,” fascist,” or “nazi.”
Maybe if it were just used as a descriptive adjective of a specific policy, but I hardly see it as an ideology.
The people who obsess over Populism are typically focused on style and rhetoric. It is typically done by Center-Left types who have high social status and lots of political influence within institutions. But they miss how much those institutions have been changed for the worse over the last 20 years. The Left captures institutions, changes their policies toward Leftist ends, and then accuses anyone who disagrees with them of being “Populist.”
I see no contradiction between Populism and Classical Liberalism. Classical Liberalism is not a love of elites and established institutions. That is traditional Conservatism in pre-industrial times. They supported the King, Nobility, Church, and the Traditional Order.
Milei is a perfect example of where Classical Liberalism and Populism align.
Classical Liberalism is about institutional structures that force non-violent transparent competition between elites so those elites must offer benefits to the masses to acquire their support. This works in the marketplace, elections, and religion. This is in opposition to extractive institutions that use the threat of violence to expropriate from the masses.
The Founding Fathers were populists regarding the Tory establishment, but they established a constitutional federal republic to ensure that America did not get a new extractive elite.
Unfortunately, the growth of the Administrative state over the last century has gradually eroded the checks in balances within the Constitution.
The Anti-Populists defend the Administrative state, not Classical Liberalism or Democracy. Their path leads to a Soft Totalitarianism that is the opposite of Classical Liberalism. They are not trying to achieve that goal, but it is where they are taking us.
Classical Liberals need to better explain why their ideology is actually about channeling elite behavior towards pro-social ends, not blind obedience to what any given elite stands for.
Embracing federalism is the best path forward, so Classical Liberalism needs to explain to people who are legitimately pissed at our institutions that there are productive solutions:
I think that the entire problem with the article lies in the fact that Milei is not a populist in his most important positions which are all about economics. One can conveniently redefine populism, in such a way that his libertarian economics fits the definition, but it could not be further from the truth. Economically right-wing populists are universally protectionists and defenders of the welfare state. Argentina is a special case and politics across different regions cannot be copypasted. The concern is US. Here is a snipet from my coming article on why this completely does not transfer to the US:
The libertarians, even forgetting the ethical quandaries, have little chance of becoming a dominant ideology of the populist movement. Hanania writes: “Low human capital cultures are the world of transparent scams: anti-vaxx, Stop the Steal, the corrupt televangelist, gold and silver bars sold at exorbitant prices, fake news content mills. Yes, conservatives disproportionately create and fall for such scams. But they proliferate because even among smart people on the right who should know better, there is no culture of shaming or stigmatizing members of the tribe for even the most egregious types of behaviour. This doesn’t mean that Low Human Capital communities are completely devoid of a moral sense. But it’s a tribal morality, which appeals to people who are stupider and less idealistic.“
Libertarians will never be such a tribe. As dr Tom G. Palmer put it “Liberalism, it isn't as stirring in the blood as massacring your neighbours. Not many things, especially for young men, are as exciting as going and killing your neighbours". Libertarianism is not, and cannot be built around a cult following (no gods or kings, only man is the central point afterall), hate for foreigners, or disdain for the elites. The libertarian ideas are too complex and those libertarian intellectuals who give in to populism, quickly become subject to audience capture, that quickly turns them unrecognizable from what they were before.
They become Dave Rubin’s of the world, capable of believing and spreading every hoax, but lose any power to steer the movement in their way. One can hardly believe that a few years back Rubin had Caplan and McCloskey on his podcast. This is the future libertarian movement needs to be saved from.
Libertarians have an actual opportunity to influence the world through politics. Many countries with high degree of polarization and two major parties, could find themselves struggling to form a stable majority, once a libertarian leaning third party is in play. Even a couple MPs with a tight majority, could give huge negotiating power to a well-running libertarian party. However, if libertarians cozy up to the right-wing parties there will be nothing to gain in such regards, as the libertarian identity won’t be distinct enough to build the third largest party upon it of the size that could become a kingmaker. Admirers of Orban, Trump or Bolsanaro don’t need a paper-mache replica of their cult leader.
The utter degeneracy of the libertarian-nationalism tactic is best illustrated by the case of the Konfederacja party in Poland. Konfederacja is a monster mash of the most disgusting political figures one could imagine all brought together under the banner of “freedom populism”. It is exactly what a libertarian nationalist could desire. After all, it is a strategic alliance between the classical liberal Korwin party and the Nationalist Movement party. In their search for the populist electorate, the party quickly became a crossover of all the most toxic, despicable and deranged ideologies. They brought into the Polish parliament, the internationally known antisemite Grzegorz Braun (he gained global press for destroying Hanukkah candles in the Polish parliament with a fire extinguisher and harming a woman in the process). Among its last year candidates, one could find even some flat-earthers. It would be just another terrible alt-right party if not for one detail, commitment to some free market elements at least in rhetoric.
Thanks to them the situation is disastrous for libertarians. The Konfederacja party will talk about tax cuts and champion free markets, at the same time voicing support for conscription, ending free trade with Ukraine, state-ownership of the largest petrol company in Poland, Orlen, and hatemonger against immigrants trying to find the sweet spot between hate and pogroms. Its politicians will be vocal about legalising weed and fight for supposed freedom of speech whenever the left wants to ban hate speech but will pair it up with advocacy for ending pride marches, corporal punishment for homosexuality, and banning speech that criticises the Catholic Church. This is libertarian populism in action, and it is an utter disgrace.
Milei is not economically populist (as Tyler Cowen has pointed out), he is socially populist. This article ignores his social positions and attaches the term populism to his (popular with classical liberals) economic positions and, presto, turns him into a populist to bash popuphobes. Hayek will be turning in his gave :)
When the establishment is socialist, as is the case in Argentina, and when the people clearly wanted to do away with the economic socialism of the ruling elite, then giving the people the libertarianism that they want becomes populist.
“Over the past eight years I have come to think of the United States as an erstwhile ‘first-world’ country. We become ‘second world’, like China, or ‘third world,’ like Argentina—countries in which governmental elites are deeply and systematically corrupt.”
This statement is extreme and extremely wrong, taken any way you could charitably read it. The US is not a second-class country today, in any sense — it is an economic, cultural, technological, scientific, military, and growth powerhouse. It is certainly not in any way as corrupt or illiberal as Argentina or China. As appalling as any US libertarian should find the last eight years, we are not a one-party dictatorship or a kleptocracy. We remain a country with solid rule of law, little corruption in day to day affairs, with a healthy democracy and highly competitive elections, and a large, dynamic private sector. All of that can still be true while you revile the policies and politics of most elites, or indeed those of the great unwashed masses who elected [pick a bad politician]. All of that can still be true while you worry constantly about the many threats and losses we’ve suffered over the years.
To try to counter the obvious fact that America is amazing and still has the brightest promise of basically any place in the world today (despite our ever-looming fiscal problems), populists offer a blizzard of outrageous and ahistorical hyperbole about how today’s president and the media and elites are the worst ever, and how we’re just coasting on the accomplishments of the past. The America in decline narrative is always popular, and it’s the narrative that is common to populists of all ideologies — left, right, and, sadly, even libertarian.
Bryan has invited me to respond to this post and its accusation that Nils and I suffer from "popubhobia." I'll let Nils speak for himself. But if this piece had tried to engage with my and my publication's actual definition of populism—which is far, far more than the one that Dan embraces based on some alleged "long-standing semantic convention"—there would be something to engage back with. Alas, it does not. Populism has a vast academic literature and is a highly contested term and is used by different scholars in different ways. We have distilled that literature into our own four-part definition of populism at The UnPopulist and we use that to understand the rise of strongman politics in America and the rest of the world. Anti-elite, anti-establishment sentiment is just one element of populism. But for a leader or movement to be populist, it needs to be more than that: It has to put its faith in a strongman or a cult leader, show contempt for liberal procedures/checks-and-balances; and divide the population into us versus them/in groups and out groups. Those interested in exploring the phenomenon can begin by reading my essay on it (which Dan conveniently does not even mention) and follow the hyper link to a piece by a brilliant paper by true classical liberal, Karen Horn. We have formalized this definition in a model of populism that we are then using to survey the extent of strongman appeal among various political factions in America. I would urge readers to explore those too. https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/why-populism-and-authoritarianism?r=6jqoy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Your definition of populism resembles Nils’, not only in the particular elements featured but also, and more importantly, in the multifariousness of the elements.
I provided a definition of populism that is simpler and more intuitive.
Thus, I agree with you when you write that your definition “is far, far more than the one that Dan embraces.”
I provided headlines about Milei from WaPo, NYT, AP, NPR, PBS, Politico, Guardian, Economist, and France 24. Those headlines comport with my definition. Or perhaps I should say that my definition comports with those headlines.
I gather that those headlines do not comport with your definition, since, I gather, you do not call Milei’s campaign, movement, and character populist. (I draw this conclusion because your comment disputes only my definition of populism, not my claim that Milei is classical liberal.)
You imply, therefore, that not just me but also WaPo, NYT, AP, NPR, PBS, Politico, Guardian, Economist, and France 24 use ‘populist’ improperly.
Can you tell us what it is on which that semantic judgment is based? Tell us why we are wrong.
Dan, I hope you do not take this offensive, but do you even know the definition of classical liberalism? Or are you becoming a Dan Hannan type of classical liberal who thinks that modern nations should function as 100 years ago?
Thanks so much for writing this Dr. Klein (I'm resisting saying "Danny" since that is what you went by when I first met you in 1980).
If Trump 2.0 (along with Elon, Vivek, Gabbard etc.) manage any significant reductions in government -assuming Biden and the Democrats do not start WWIII - so many Beltway "libertarians" and "classical liberals" will not be able to claim any credit.
I'm with Bruce on this. Danny has consistently been a voice of reason and good judgment on everything from Adam Smith to Milei and now to the blindness of our friends who claim the title "classical liberals." The door is wide open for them to repent.
Well, it is indeed wrong to present Milei as far-right regarding political theory and knowledge about ideologies . It is also true that populism can be combined with more libertarian or market-liberal ideas. But being a right-wing libertarian or a market liberal does not make you an individualist or a liberal in older meaning. One can say that all liberals are market liberals, but not all market liberals are liberals.
In the case of Klein, he is not a liberal in his intellectual work and activism but more of a market-liberal right-winger and anti-left person in general. I met Klein once in Stockholm, Sweden, at a market-liberal think-tank Timbro seminar. He promoted that Trump was better for liberalism than Hillary and Democrats. This a strange opinion because right-wing populism is not only collectivist but also targets people and institutions that often are already stigmatized, poor, and discriminated such as sexual and religious minorities, refugees, migrants from poorer countries, etc.
Klein arguing that there is "good populism" is an absurd and strange position for a person officially presenting himself as a liberal. Because (classical) liberalism is about the individual while populism is about groups as peoples and nations. So liberalism is the opposite of populism because it is a struggle between individualism vs collectivism. And that struggle is even harder because of the global development and globalism vs nationalism, or cosmopolitanism vs nationalism political spectrums.
Klein supports Milei mainly because Milei is anti-left, promoting more libertarian policies within Argentina while being skeptical towards international and globalist institutions. But there is a catch-22 there. As Johan Norberg mentioned in his book Open, research shows that people who are more hostile towards minorities, diversity, and immigration are also often more negative towards private alternatives, market solutions, and lower taxation levels. The more bigoted, racist, collectivist, populist, nationalist people are, the more they demand a bigger government and interventionist state discrimination and mistreatment that one is afraid of.
I understand that Klein is anti-left for different reasons. Still, such behaviors lead to, sooner or later, being pro-right-wing collectivism. And that is where Klein is heading towards in his (psuedo)intellectual development.
I think of populism as 1) offering benefits through “simple” solutions while ignoring the true complexity and trade-offs of a given issue, 2) a narrative of the common folk being held back.
Trump and Nigel Farage in the UK fit that definition. Milei doesn’t seem to. He has a clear agenda but is also clear about the trade offs.
Being primarily a classical liberal, I have historically been against populism, at least in the U.S, in the traditional sense that populists are generally for more government intervention on both economic issues and on social issues.
But as many note, populism is more often about rhetoric and being anti-establishment. Given what elites have done in the last several years, in the U.S. beginning with the Obama Administration, a healthy dose of being anti-establishment is more than merely justified, it’s almost essential.
Trump the first time around talked populist, but generally governed like a traditional GOPer (except on spending and entitlements, where he governed like a Democrat).
I’m on Team Milei, though I know very little about Argentina (don’t cry for me…). And it’s very clear that the MSM’s leftist bias shines through brightly in how they label Milei.
More to the point, I immediately unsubscribed from The Unpopulist several months ago as soon as I saw how illiberal it was in its pro-establishment, TDS stances.
Reading this piece makes me even more glad that I did this.
Well, looking back at last week in Rio de Janeiro: Millei trying to pull Argentina out of climate agreements, or blocking mentions of gender equality in the final document, or withdrawing from the pact against hunger; or perhaps feasting with Trump during G20 negotiations, maybe praising/defending/embracing/etc. the Brazilian group – its top leader – who prepared a military coup that included assassinating a Supreme Court judge, the elected president, and the vice president... all of this is quite liberal. Perhaps Bolsonaro is a classical liberal and not even a populist. (My Zeus)
This article parallels my own thoughts. 1 cheer for populism. The issue with the MAGAs is there is nobody with any coherent idea of what to do after tearing down the old. Trump is not all that classically liberal and is certainly no Milei. So we're going to be in for a wild ride. Possible: we'll get some sort of payments to taxpayers in a bill called the "Tariff Impact Relief Act".
Vivek might have an idea. Elon is friends with Thiel. Tulsi Gabbard, having sold her home in Anacostia, is apparently great friends with Ben Domenech & Meghan McCain and stays with them when visiting D.C.
The thing is that Milei is also cooperating with "enemies of liberty". Many in his coalition are right-wing collectivists and more authoritarian conservative who are anti-left and against left-wing populism but still are not fans of freedom
The institutionalists vs those who see the institutions as having betrayed their fundamental missions is one of the core differences. While I always want to hold an opening for those who have been sincerely bamboozled, it's hard at this point to see how someone who studies and follows this stuff for a living, and claims to be for liberty, can't see how the institutions you mention and the others in their orbit, have become clearly and obviously the biggest threat to liberty today.
I can forgive that in normies who don't follow things super closely. But for people who follow this stuff for a living, missing that tells me they either don't actually value liberty, or else don't have enough sense and intelligence to take whatever else they say seriously.
To be against all elites is anarchism. But “elites” in this definition never includes elected officials or business leaders of the preferred Republican faction.
It seems that the essence of "populism", to the extent that it is genuinely something bad, is to promote a kind of "us versus them" style of thinking amidst the electorate, particularly when this would not be warranted or helpful in maintaining true social progress. The problem, of course, is that there really are interested parties working within most modern political systems whose ends are not aligned with those of the general public. For such narrowly focused players as these, it becomes easy to see how the term "populist" could get thrown around in media circles rather regularly on their behalf, in a strategic effort to deflect public awareness from these players' own machinations.
So populism is bad when - perhaps through campaign rhetoric - a political leader creates an ideological divide within society that didn't already exist. But populism would be good, on the other hand, when that very ideological divide was already in place, where afterwards, through a populist candidate's rise, the prior existence of this divide is made crystal clear, and so is then able to be fought.
This topic raises a sore point with me.
I have a PhD in Political Science and Public Policy, and I have no idea what “Populism” means. It is mainly used an insult against people of differing views, not much different from Leftists calling opponents “racist,” fascist,” or “nazi.”
Maybe if it were just used as a descriptive adjective of a specific policy, but I hardly see it as an ideology.
The people who obsess over Populism are typically focused on style and rhetoric. It is typically done by Center-Left types who have high social status and lots of political influence within institutions. But they miss how much those institutions have been changed for the worse over the last 20 years. The Left captures institutions, changes their policies toward Leftist ends, and then accuses anyone who disagrees with them of being “Populist.”
I see no contradiction between Populism and Classical Liberalism. Classical Liberalism is not a love of elites and established institutions. That is traditional Conservatism in pre-industrial times. They supported the King, Nobility, Church, and the Traditional Order.
Milei is a perfect example of where Classical Liberalism and Populism align.
Classical Liberalism is about institutional structures that force non-violent transparent competition between elites so those elites must offer benefits to the masses to acquire their support. This works in the marketplace, elections, and religion. This is in opposition to extractive institutions that use the threat of violence to expropriate from the masses.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/the-importance-of-non-violent-competition
The Founding Fathers were populists regarding the Tory establishment, but they established a constitutional federal republic to ensure that America did not get a new extractive elite.
Unfortunately, the growth of the Administrative state over the last century has gradually eroded the checks in balances within the Constitution.
The Anti-Populists defend the Administrative state, not Classical Liberalism or Democracy. Their path leads to a Soft Totalitarianism that is the opposite of Classical Liberalism. They are not trying to achieve that goal, but it is where they are taking us.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/the-dangers-of-soft-totalitarianism
Classical Liberals need to better explain why their ideology is actually about channeling elite behavior towards pro-social ends, not blind obedience to what any given elite stands for.
Embracing federalism is the best path forward, so Classical Liberalism needs to explain to people who are legitimately pissed at our institutions that there are productive solutions:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/one-radical-reform-to-solve-all-our
Elites don't like checks and balances, and that is exactly why we need them!
Yeah, it largely comes down to aesthetics from people who are put off by the masses and those who appeal to them.
I think that the entire problem with the article lies in the fact that Milei is not a populist in his most important positions which are all about economics. One can conveniently redefine populism, in such a way that his libertarian economics fits the definition, but it could not be further from the truth. Economically right-wing populists are universally protectionists and defenders of the welfare state. Argentina is a special case and politics across different regions cannot be copypasted. The concern is US. Here is a snipet from my coming article on why this completely does not transfer to the US:
The libertarians, even forgetting the ethical quandaries, have little chance of becoming a dominant ideology of the populist movement. Hanania writes: “Low human capital cultures are the world of transparent scams: anti-vaxx, Stop the Steal, the corrupt televangelist, gold and silver bars sold at exorbitant prices, fake news content mills. Yes, conservatives disproportionately create and fall for such scams. But they proliferate because even among smart people on the right who should know better, there is no culture of shaming or stigmatizing members of the tribe for even the most egregious types of behaviour. This doesn’t mean that Low Human Capital communities are completely devoid of a moral sense. But it’s a tribal morality, which appeals to people who are stupider and less idealistic.“
Libertarians will never be such a tribe. As dr Tom G. Palmer put it “Liberalism, it isn't as stirring in the blood as massacring your neighbours. Not many things, especially for young men, are as exciting as going and killing your neighbours". Libertarianism is not, and cannot be built around a cult following (no gods or kings, only man is the central point afterall), hate for foreigners, or disdain for the elites. The libertarian ideas are too complex and those libertarian intellectuals who give in to populism, quickly become subject to audience capture, that quickly turns them unrecognizable from what they were before.
They become Dave Rubin’s of the world, capable of believing and spreading every hoax, but lose any power to steer the movement in their way. One can hardly believe that a few years back Rubin had Caplan and McCloskey on his podcast. This is the future libertarian movement needs to be saved from.
Libertarians have an actual opportunity to influence the world through politics. Many countries with high degree of polarization and two major parties, could find themselves struggling to form a stable majority, once a libertarian leaning third party is in play. Even a couple MPs with a tight majority, could give huge negotiating power to a well-running libertarian party. However, if libertarians cozy up to the right-wing parties there will be nothing to gain in such regards, as the libertarian identity won’t be distinct enough to build the third largest party upon it of the size that could become a kingmaker. Admirers of Orban, Trump or Bolsanaro don’t need a paper-mache replica of their cult leader.
The utter degeneracy of the libertarian-nationalism tactic is best illustrated by the case of the Konfederacja party in Poland. Konfederacja is a monster mash of the most disgusting political figures one could imagine all brought together under the banner of “freedom populism”. It is exactly what a libertarian nationalist could desire. After all, it is a strategic alliance between the classical liberal Korwin party and the Nationalist Movement party. In their search for the populist electorate, the party quickly became a crossover of all the most toxic, despicable and deranged ideologies. They brought into the Polish parliament, the internationally known antisemite Grzegorz Braun (he gained global press for destroying Hanukkah candles in the Polish parliament with a fire extinguisher and harming a woman in the process). Among its last year candidates, one could find even some flat-earthers. It would be just another terrible alt-right party if not for one detail, commitment to some free market elements at least in rhetoric.
Thanks to them the situation is disastrous for libertarians. The Konfederacja party will talk about tax cuts and champion free markets, at the same time voicing support for conscription, ending free trade with Ukraine, state-ownership of the largest petrol company in Poland, Orlen, and hatemonger against immigrants trying to find the sweet spot between hate and pogroms. Its politicians will be vocal about legalising weed and fight for supposed freedom of speech whenever the left wants to ban hate speech but will pair it up with advocacy for ending pride marches, corporal punishment for homosexuality, and banning speech that criticises the Catholic Church. This is libertarian populism in action, and it is an utter disgrace.
Milei is not economically populist (as Tyler Cowen has pointed out), he is socially populist. This article ignores his social positions and attaches the term populism to his (popular with classical liberals) economic positions and, presto, turns him into a populist to bash popuphobes. Hayek will be turning in his gave :)
When the establishment is socialist, as is the case in Argentina, and when the people clearly wanted to do away with the economic socialism of the ruling elite, then giving the people the libertarianism that they want becomes populist.
As opposed to popupphobes, who are afraid of websites with pop-ups.
Yes, pop-ups make me far more angry than populists.
LOL
Popup-phobes I have no quarrel with.
“Over the past eight years I have come to think of the United States as an erstwhile ‘first-world’ country. We become ‘second world’, like China, or ‘third world,’ like Argentina—countries in which governmental elites are deeply and systematically corrupt.”
This statement is extreme and extremely wrong, taken any way you could charitably read it. The US is not a second-class country today, in any sense — it is an economic, cultural, technological, scientific, military, and growth powerhouse. It is certainly not in any way as corrupt or illiberal as Argentina or China. As appalling as any US libertarian should find the last eight years, we are not a one-party dictatorship or a kleptocracy. We remain a country with solid rule of law, little corruption in day to day affairs, with a healthy democracy and highly competitive elections, and a large, dynamic private sector. All of that can still be true while you revile the policies and politics of most elites, or indeed those of the great unwashed masses who elected [pick a bad politician]. All of that can still be true while you worry constantly about the many threats and losses we’ve suffered over the years.
To try to counter the obvious fact that America is amazing and still has the brightest promise of basically any place in the world today (despite our ever-looming fiscal problems), populists offer a blizzard of outrageous and ahistorical hyperbole about how today’s president and the media and elites are the worst ever, and how we’re just coasting on the accomplishments of the past. The America in decline narrative is always popular, and it’s the narrative that is common to populists of all ideologies — left, right, and, sadly, even libertarian.
If elites themselves give up on liberalism it is left to 'the people' to defend it
You and 3 likes do not know what liberalism is. What the people want is not liberalism.
Bryan has invited me to respond to this post and its accusation that Nils and I suffer from "popubhobia." I'll let Nils speak for himself. But if this piece had tried to engage with my and my publication's actual definition of populism—which is far, far more than the one that Dan embraces based on some alleged "long-standing semantic convention"—there would be something to engage back with. Alas, it does not. Populism has a vast academic literature and is a highly contested term and is used by different scholars in different ways. We have distilled that literature into our own four-part definition of populism at The UnPopulist and we use that to understand the rise of strongman politics in America and the rest of the world. Anti-elite, anti-establishment sentiment is just one element of populism. But for a leader or movement to be populist, it needs to be more than that: It has to put its faith in a strongman or a cult leader, show contempt for liberal procedures/checks-and-balances; and divide the population into us versus them/in groups and out groups. Those interested in exploring the phenomenon can begin by reading my essay on it (which Dan conveniently does not even mention) and follow the hyper link to a piece by a brilliant paper by true classical liberal, Karen Horn. We have formalized this definition in a model of populism that we are then using to survey the extent of strongman appeal among various political factions in America. I would urge readers to explore those too. https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/why-populism-and-authoritarianism?r=6jqoy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Hi Shikha,
Thanks for the comment.
Your definition of populism resembles Nils’, not only in the particular elements featured but also, and more importantly, in the multifariousness of the elements.
I provided a definition of populism that is simpler and more intuitive.
Thus, I agree with you when you write that your definition “is far, far more than the one that Dan embraces.”
I provided headlines about Milei from WaPo, NYT, AP, NPR, PBS, Politico, Guardian, Economist, and France 24. Those headlines comport with my definition. Or perhaps I should say that my definition comports with those headlines.
I gather that those headlines do not comport with your definition, since, I gather, you do not call Milei’s campaign, movement, and character populist. (I draw this conclusion because your comment disputes only my definition of populism, not my claim that Milei is classical liberal.)
You imply, therefore, that not just me but also WaPo, NYT, AP, NPR, PBS, Politico, Guardian, Economist, and France 24 use ‘populist’ improperly.
Can you tell us what it is on which that semantic judgment is based? Tell us why we are wrong.
Thank you again for the engagement.
Best,
/Dan
Dan, I hope you do not take this offensive, but do you even know the definition of classical liberalism? Or are you becoming a Dan Hannan type of classical liberal who thinks that modern nations should function as 100 years ago?
Thanks so much for writing this Dr. Klein (I'm resisting saying "Danny" since that is what you went by when I first met you in 1980).
If Trump 2.0 (along with Elon, Vivek, Gabbard etc.) manage any significant reductions in government -assuming Biden and the Democrats do not start WWIII - so many Beltway "libertarians" and "classical liberals" will not be able to claim any credit.
Hi, Bruce! Do say 'Danny'!
I'm with Bruce on this. Danny has consistently been a voice of reason and good judgment on everything from Adam Smith to Milei and now to the blindness of our friends who claim the title "classical liberals." The door is wide open for them to repent.
Kent Guida
Well, it is indeed wrong to present Milei as far-right regarding political theory and knowledge about ideologies . It is also true that populism can be combined with more libertarian or market-liberal ideas. But being a right-wing libertarian or a market liberal does not make you an individualist or a liberal in older meaning. One can say that all liberals are market liberals, but not all market liberals are liberals.
In the case of Klein, he is not a liberal in his intellectual work and activism but more of a market-liberal right-winger and anti-left person in general. I met Klein once in Stockholm, Sweden, at a market-liberal think-tank Timbro seminar. He promoted that Trump was better for liberalism than Hillary and Democrats. This a strange opinion because right-wing populism is not only collectivist but also targets people and institutions that often are already stigmatized, poor, and discriminated such as sexual and religious minorities, refugees, migrants from poorer countries, etc.
Klein arguing that there is "good populism" is an absurd and strange position for a person officially presenting himself as a liberal. Because (classical) liberalism is about the individual while populism is about groups as peoples and nations. So liberalism is the opposite of populism because it is a struggle between individualism vs collectivism. And that struggle is even harder because of the global development and globalism vs nationalism, or cosmopolitanism vs nationalism political spectrums.
Klein supports Milei mainly because Milei is anti-left, promoting more libertarian policies within Argentina while being skeptical towards international and globalist institutions. But there is a catch-22 there. As Johan Norberg mentioned in his book Open, research shows that people who are more hostile towards minorities, diversity, and immigration are also often more negative towards private alternatives, market solutions, and lower taxation levels. The more bigoted, racist, collectivist, populist, nationalist people are, the more they demand a bigger government and interventionist state discrimination and mistreatment that one is afraid of.
I understand that Klein is anti-left for different reasons. Still, such behaviors lead to, sooner or later, being pro-right-wing collectivism. And that is where Klein is heading towards in his (psuedo)intellectual development.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcoHNbB7Tas
I think of populism as 1) offering benefits through “simple” solutions while ignoring the true complexity and trade-offs of a given issue, 2) a narrative of the common folk being held back.
Trump and Nigel Farage in the UK fit that definition. Milei doesn’t seem to. He has a clear agenda but is also clear about the trade offs.
Excellent piece.
Being primarily a classical liberal, I have historically been against populism, at least in the U.S, in the traditional sense that populists are generally for more government intervention on both economic issues and on social issues.
But as many note, populism is more often about rhetoric and being anti-establishment. Given what elites have done in the last several years, in the U.S. beginning with the Obama Administration, a healthy dose of being anti-establishment is more than merely justified, it’s almost essential.
Trump the first time around talked populist, but generally governed like a traditional GOPer (except on spending and entitlements, where he governed like a Democrat).
I’m on Team Milei, though I know very little about Argentina (don’t cry for me…). And it’s very clear that the MSM’s leftist bias shines through brightly in how they label Milei.
More to the point, I immediately unsubscribed from The Unpopulist several months ago as soon as I saw how illiberal it was in its pro-establishment, TDS stances.
Reading this piece makes me even more glad that I did this.
3 cheers for it.
Well, looking back at last week in Rio de Janeiro: Millei trying to pull Argentina out of climate agreements, or blocking mentions of gender equality in the final document, or withdrawing from the pact against hunger; or perhaps feasting with Trump during G20 negotiations, maybe praising/defending/embracing/etc. the Brazilian group – its top leader – who prepared a military coup that included assassinating a Supreme Court judge, the elected president, and the vice president... all of this is quite liberal. Perhaps Bolsonaro is a classical liberal and not even a populist. (My Zeus)
This article parallels my own thoughts. 1 cheer for populism. The issue with the MAGAs is there is nobody with any coherent idea of what to do after tearing down the old. Trump is not all that classically liberal and is certainly no Milei. So we're going to be in for a wild ride. Possible: we'll get some sort of payments to taxpayers in a bill called the "Tariff Impact Relief Act".
Vivek might have an idea. Elon is friends with Thiel. Tulsi Gabbard, having sold her home in Anacostia, is apparently great friends with Ben Domenech & Meghan McCain and stays with them when visiting D.C.
Yes, I think Vivek (in addition to Milei) is another politician who mixes populism with libertarianism. More proof that thy are not opposites.
The thing is that Milei is also cooperating with "enemies of liberty". Many in his coalition are right-wing collectivists and more authoritarian conservative who are anti-left and against left-wing populism but still are not fans of freedom
The institutionalists vs those who see the institutions as having betrayed their fundamental missions is one of the core differences. While I always want to hold an opening for those who have been sincerely bamboozled, it's hard at this point to see how someone who studies and follows this stuff for a living, and claims to be for liberty, can't see how the institutions you mention and the others in their orbit, have become clearly and obviously the biggest threat to liberty today.
I can forgive that in normies who don't follow things super closely. But for people who follow this stuff for a living, missing that tells me they either don't actually value liberty, or else don't have enough sense and intelligence to take whatever else they say seriously.
To be against all elites is anarchism. But “elites” in this definition never includes elected officials or business leaders of the preferred Republican faction.
It seems that the essence of "populism", to the extent that it is genuinely something bad, is to promote a kind of "us versus them" style of thinking amidst the electorate, particularly when this would not be warranted or helpful in maintaining true social progress. The problem, of course, is that there really are interested parties working within most modern political systems whose ends are not aligned with those of the general public. For such narrowly focused players as these, it becomes easy to see how the term "populist" could get thrown around in media circles rather regularly on their behalf, in a strategic effort to deflect public awareness from these players' own machinations.
So populism is bad when - perhaps through campaign rhetoric - a political leader creates an ideological divide within society that didn't already exist. But populism would be good, on the other hand, when that very ideological divide was already in place, where afterwards, through a populist candidate's rise, the prior existence of this divide is made crystal clear, and so is then able to be fought.