Others, who may agree about the scale and even urgent necessity of change, will contend that such a radical path should only be pursued by a narrow technocratic elite. Such an impulse is understandable if not excusable; or the suspicion that democracy unleashes ‘the mob’ is as old as the idea itself. What is more, a superficial changing of the guard exclusively at the level of policy-making is easier to envisage than building a mass political movement – and far simpler to execute as a strategy. Yet the truth is any social settlement imposed without mass consent, particularly given the turbulent energies unleashed by the Third Disruption, simply won’t endure.
Which is why for the kind of change required, and for it to last in a world increasingly at odds with the received wisdom of the past, a populist politics is necessary. One that blends culture and government with ideas of personal and social renewal. One that, to borrow a term, invents the future. Anything less will fall short.
A populist politics is one that calls upon, and claims to represent, ‘the people ’. While this category does not exist as a permanent and immutable entity, what does prevail are parameters that elevate certain kinds of assembly, social trait or capacity. That is why the ‘ethnic people ’ is defined by the community of blood and land; the ‘democratic people ’ by the shared act of forging legitimate authority through elections; and the ‘ignorant people ’ by a benevolent elite who generously keeps them at bay or defends them from themselves. The very essence of populism is to determine who ‘the people really are, rendering visible – and powerful – those elements otherwise framed as too incompetent, dangerous or docile to transform society.
Popular Support
187