41–50 of 68 posts
The resurgence of the term "populism" has always been curious to me. As far as I can tell it means "people not voting how they are supposed to". Much like how we have ousting/coup, freedom-fighter/terrorist, government/regime, we have democracy/populism.
> We build a new long run cross- country database to study the macroeconomic history of populism. We identify 51 populist presidents and prime ministers from 1900 to 2020 and show that the economic cost of populism is high. After 15 years, GDP per capita is 10% lower compared to a plausible non-populist counterfactual. Economic disintegration, decreasing macroeconomic stability, and the erosion of institutions typica…
The theory is that 'populist' got in by being 'popular' NOT being 'good at governing'.
Work Example: It's a form of the guy that gets promoted just because he is friendly with the boss.
The people are the boss, and he got in because he sucked up to them. Told them what they wanted to hear, but can't really do it, or do anything well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't have access to the article, but do they define "populism" in it? The same Wikipedia article you linked to also says > In popular discourse—where the term has often been used pejoratively—it has sometimes been used synonymously with demagogy, to describe politicians who present overly simplistic answers to complex questions in a highly emotional manner, or with political opportunism, to characterise politician…
Yeah someone else linked it. It was fairly meaningless: According to today’s workhorse definition, populism is defined as a political style centered on the supposed struggle of “people vs. the establishment” (Mudde 2004). Populists place the narrative of “people vs. elites” at the center of their political agenda and then claim to be the sole representative of “the people.” This definition has become increasingly dom…
So what? GDP is also increased with more wars, and other activities that enrich the elites and usually do much less for middle and lower classes. I would like to see the “happiness index’ for populist vs. non-populist led countries. Since counterfactuals are used in the abstract, I will add one: normalize for each countries’ naturual resources.
Not according to the authors of the study, obviously. To them an extra 80 cents in a homeless guy's pocket is worse for everybody than an extra dollar in Bill Gates' pocket.
Then there's the reversal of cause and effect - were those populists the cause of economic decline or did they get into power because they were surfing a wave of resentment caused by it? Were the economic decline and the populist leader both caused by external actors cough Ukraine cough?
Manuel Funke, Moritz Schularick and Christoph Trebesch say "we show that the economic cost of populism is high" so no, they clearly they don't think that this is a plausible explanation but they also don't seem to have accounted for it.
> We build a new long run cross- country database to study the macroeconomic history of populism. We identify 51 populist presidents and prime ministers from 1900 to 2020 and show that the economic cost of populism is high. After 15 years, GDP per capita is 10% lower compared to a plausible non-populist counterfactual. Economic disintegration, decreasing macroeconomic stability, and the erosion of institutions typica…
What we are missing is industry. People and politicians by themselves really cant take on the financial sector. They are the modern day rent collecting feudal lords. The Financial Sector(banks/insurers/real estate/stocks/bonds) has a much larger say on the allocation of resources (the economy) than anyone else including politicians and individual corporations. The counter balance is not just people. It has to come fr…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is that even true on populist and financial crises?
I'd be curious about what the data shows. I would describe it as the "conventional wisdom" account of how populism functions e.g. the Great Depression is described as a necessary context for Hitler's popularism to be effective i.e. economic grievance fuels anti-establishment / anti-elite narratives. You get the Occupy Wallstreet movement after a crash/recession, not during a boom.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the majority of cases, it just means "ignore the complexity of reality and go with the simple solution". Sometimes, populists do really believe in what they are saying and doing. And the simplicity is what makes them popular - hence populism. The problem is that reality doesn't care. I have yet to see the case when following a populist leader doesn't end up in a disaster.
Essentially a meaningless term then. Everyone in mainstream politics has to present some kind of simple solution that ignores the complexities of the problem, because you can't pass a complex solution through a media filter and get voters out the other side. So everything is populist. Again which makes the term meaningless.
It probably comes down to a word count and what can be chanted.
Take immigration, very complex.
Populist "Build a Wall". Super simple, can be chanted.
A more Capable Leader might take several sentences, or paragraphs to digest such a difficult subject. Still simplified, still glossing over a lot, but trying to convey some concept. It can't be chanted, and it still takes the listener some brain power to process.
Basically Anger. If you can come up with a slogan, that people can chant angrily -> "Populist".
> We build a new long run cross- country database to study the macroeconomic history of populism. We identify 51 populist presidents and prime ministers from 1900 to 2020 and show that the economic cost of populism is high. After 15 years, GDP per capita is 10% lower compared to a plausible non-populist counterfactual. Economic disintegration, decreasing macroeconomic stability, and the erosion of institutions typica…
What we are missing is industry. People and politicians by themselves really cant take on the financial sector. They are the modern day rent collecting feudal lords. The Financial Sector(banks/insurers/real estate/stocks/bonds) has a much larger say on the allocation of resources (the economy) than anyone else including politicians and individual corporations. The counter balance is not just people. It has to come fr…
The financial industry definitely has outsized power and charges excessive fees but the situation is not at all as simple as the financial industry owning everything. It’s a complicated web of ownership with finance being deeply embedded within it and controlling a lot of the hubs of the network effect.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't have access to the article, but do they define "populism" in it? The same Wikipedia article you linked to also says > In popular discourse—where the term has often been used pejoratively—it has sometimes been used synonymously with demagogy, to describe politicians who present overly simplistic answers to complex questions in a highly emotional manner, or with political opportunism, to characterise politician…
Yeah someone else linked it. It was fairly meaningless: According to today’s workhorse definition, populism is defined as a political style centered on the supposed struggle of “people vs. the establishment” (Mudde 2004). Populists place the narrative of “people vs. elites” at the center of their political agenda and then claim to be the sole representative of “the people.” This definition has become increasingly dom…
I'd take FAR issue more with the fact that the authors appear to have mixed up correlation and causation. e.g. the fact that, say, international conflict causes a bad economy and populism (the "war is bad" theory) appears to have flown completely under the radars of Manuel Funke, Moritz Schularick and Christoph Trebesch.
Also the fact that GDP is well known to be a shitty measure of well being for the average person. Nonetheless, it is a pretty good measure of how things are going for that particular country's oligarchy (the targets of those populists). There is a strong causal relationship between using GDP as a measure and getting published in the AEA, though.