I want to say Robert Reich wrote it, that or Paul Krugman. I read a book several years ago which described in the last chapters or so how ignoring the economic needs of the bottom 95% of Americans would cause populist candidates to rise who was an economic populist.
Anyway, the argument near the back of the book said that a political candidate would likely rise who played on the economic fears of both parties, and would probably come as a third party candidate.
On the left he would support expanding the welfare state, changing/ending trade deals, expanding the minimum wage, etc.
On the right he would be harshly anti-immigrant (I forget what all rightward views he said the candidate would have).
Seems like Trump and Sanders rather than a singular candidate (although Trump is or has been pro-UHC, said he won’t cut SS or medicare, supported the minimum wage in the past).
Anyone know what book it was I’m thinking of? I’m pretty sure it was a book about income inequality and about how if politicians kept catering to the wealthy and powerful the public would find candidates who reflected their economic needs.
I’d really like to re-read the book as it seems like it is coming true.
Considering that Ross Perot got nearly 20% of the vote in 1992, that wouldn’t exactly have been a bold, out-of-left field prediction. The makings of a populist movement have been out there a long time.
Perot wasn’t really a traditional populist-for example he was a deficit scold among other things and his support was far more middle-class than a traditional populist would have been.
The truly “economically-ignorant” are your typical Very Serious Person hacks blindly accepting neoliberal orthodoxy.
Yet his strongest support is among white voters who are not college educated.
Sanders is a left-wing social democrat, not a socialist and he has a far better grasp of the current situation then most other politicians of other parties. Certainly preferable to the “fairyland” of 4% economic growth, flat taxes, and entitlement “reform”.
Provided you openly acknowledge that “neoliberal orthodoxy” is nearly universally accepted by studied, mainstream economists and that those who attack it are typically redistributionist, protectionist liberals who lack support for their views among the general economics community…
…then, yes, Very Serious Person is economically-ignorant and Bernie Sanders is the modern Adam Smith.
“Consensus” or not, the empirical evidence of the last few years have clearly disproven economic orthodoxy which is not surprising since neoclassical economics tends to be an ivory tower parlour game.
Nah, no elections in that story. No named political actors at all. The backstory is, the trusts expanded to the point where they owned the whole economy, and then, without any revolution, without any fuss or resistance at all that is mentioned, the government simply stepped in and took over the trusts.
The problem is that populism is more a style than an ideology: Sanders is a LW populist, Trump is (more or less) a RW populist. Not even producerism is a factor common to all forms – LW populists don’t classify the poor as parasites.