On Sun, 14 Nov 1999 12:48:19 -0500 Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
writes:
>Michael Hoover wrote:
>
>>Populist movements/parties generally claim to support 'common people'
>>in face of economic & political elites (whose characterization as
>>'corrupt' often serves as explanation in lieu of systemic/structural
>>analysis).
>
>Nader & lots of other left populists like to talk about corporate
>crime, but have little to say about the normal exploitative
>operations of capitalism; they like to talk about monopoly, without
>having much to say about the destructiveness of competition.
Nader and the other left populists represent a form of petty bourgeois radicalism. They represent or aspire to represent the perspectives of the petty bourgeoisie and other strata that are intermediate between the big bourgeoisie and the working class. That is why they critique monopoly capitalism from the normative standpoint of an older competitive capitalism in which the petty bourgeoisie enjoyed a higher status and carried more weight economically and politically. That is why they idealize competition and deplore monopoly, while failing to see that the latter necessarily arises from the former.
Jim F.
>
>Doug
>
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