A populist is someone who says things he doesnt believe himself, just so people agree with him.
That isnt democratic at all.
Most importantly, if you put the populist in power, he will not do what he promised, because he never believed it in the first place.
A very common example for this are conservatives who complain about state debt. In many countries, you put them into power and they will raise state debt faster than their political opponents did before. For very often it turns out they might indeed hate state debt, but certainly love much more to lower taxes for the rich, instead of lowering state debt. Therefore their argument is populistic.
Thus, if a state has nothing but populists as politicans, the end result is that democracy turns into a mockery. The general public has no way any more to decide about politics at all, because in the end people need to trust the people they vote for will do what they say they will do.
The Immortal Goon Sun Aug 07, 2011 12:13 am wrote: It's basic Newspeak, really. I'm not a liberal or a progressive (in any real ideological sense) but people that are liberals (almost everyone in the west) try to run away from the label.
Sorry, but thats a symptom I only know from the USA, not "the west".
Here in europe, people instead try to prove that other people arent liberal.
cathartic moment Mon Aug 08, 2011 12:26 pm wrote: The problem is that the public doesn't properly think things through.
If you poll a person in the street with a series of questions, and ask them to make up their mind quickly, then you will get one set of answers. If you then allow that person a week to research a topic, to talk with other people about it, to understand different opinions, and debate their ideas, you will get a completely different set of results.
Wouldn't the second set of ideas, the well considered ideas, be likely to be superior to the first set that were produced "off the cuff"?
The problem with populism is that it primarily revolves around the first, ill considered, set of ideas.
To take a simple example, consider the following 3 statements:
The government should support people with good public services.
The government should keep taxes low.
The government should run a balanced budget.
I'm pretty sure that if any of these statements were polled in my country (Britain) then far more people would select "Agree" than "Disagree". But no public policy can be constructed that supports all 3. When reality is introduced, all any government can hope to deliver is at most two of these statements.
That's a big part of the problem that populism has caused in both Britain and America. Politicians making promises, and talking about benefits, without talking about the corresponding costs. That's why our countries are facing economic crisis.
I like your post, but the statement "The government should keep taxes low." is dead wrong.
The right statement, that I would agree with, would be "The government should keep taxes on the right level". For the service the community provides. For example, if they make all public travel (train, bus etc) free, I dont oppose higher taxes in return.
There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning. - Warren Buffett