Didn't you review this for RRPE? Don't be ashamed to mention it!!! After all, you don't have to worry about tenure.
michael yates
Max Sawicky wrote:
> By popular demand . . .
> (o.k. two people asked for it.)
>
> mbs
>
> The New Populist Reader
> Edited by Karl G. Trautman
> Westport, CT
> Praeger Publishers
> 1997
> 256 pp.
> $65 hardcover, $22.95 paper
>
> Max B. Sawicky
> Economic Policy Institute
> Suite 1200
> 1660 L Street, NW
> Washington, DC 20037
> 202-775-8810
> 202-775-0819 (fax)
> maxsaw at cpcug.org
>
> As for other political crusades, dispute surrounds the meaning of populism.
> Editor Karl G. Trautman begins his anthology well enough by explaining
> populism as "the claim that there is illegitimate power operating against
> the American political creed, and this power is exercised by self-serving,
> out of touch elites that apply it against the will of the majority of the
> people."
>
> The editor goes on to point out that the multiplicity of American creeds is
> matched by a diversity of populist currents. We have populisms of left and
> right, each divisible into disparate subcategories. In The Populist
> Persuasion, Mike Kazin makes the case that although not all marched under a
> banner proclaiming ‘populism,' all U.S. insurgency worth the name, including
> our own beloved CIO movement of the 1930's, wore the populist mantle.
>
> The flexibility of the populist framework permits a variety of ideas to be
> clothed in populist garb. What's required is the construction of a suitable
> reference point in the past: some tangible movement; an intellectual,
> cultural, or political tradition; a noteworthy historical interlude; or
> better, some combination of these. A second key feature is that such a
> reference point serves a majoritarian interest--the many against the few.
> Populism gains currency in our public debate because it kindles a positive,
> possibly idealized memory of something lost but worth recovering.
>
> Marxists are prone to be suspicious of populism. Populism rejects Marxist
> taxonomy and formal analysis. It is reformist, not revolutionary. The
> bourgeois state is something to be reformed or reclaimed by the people, not
> destroyed. Private ownership of capital is not rejected in principle, only
> narrowly-defined abuses of such ownership. Finally, the habit of finding
> some bright spot in the American past offends many who see nothing but
> unrelieved tyranny and oppression. In short, populism at its best doesn't
> go far enough for some. At its worst, populism can be sufficiently muddled
> or wrong-headed to lend itself to overtly reactionary purposes.
>
> Populism has come in for rough treatment at the hands of elite, mainstream
> historians and economists as well. Populism's original adversaries included
> the Southern post-Civil War plantocracy and Northeastern capital
> (particularly banks and railroads). Its original allies included the
> Knights of Labor. Such a line-up suggests that populists deserve another
> look from the left. Trautman's book is helpful but incomplete in this
> respect. He is more interested in providing a modern sampling of populist
> ferment in the fields of economics, culture, and government. My purpose
> here is different: to judge whether the selections do justice to the
> tradition at its best.
>
> The economic section includes articles on commodities speculation,
> telecommunications deregulation, and corporate welfare. The most important
> items are on trade, health care, and the Fed, but the selections chosen
> dwell on secondary issues.
>
> The trade piece deals with the issue of national sovereignty, not without
> salience for populism but clearly secondary to the fundamental concern
> driving the debate: footloose capital driving down wages. Congressional
> testimony on the Fed by the redoubtable Ralph Nader is also off the mark.
> Nader dwells on democratization of the Fed and its regulatory functions,
> rather than tight money, historically the leading concern of populism.
>
> Speculation is germane to a critique of high finance, but it is secondary to
> the more egregious sin of blocking independent enterprise, wage increases,
> and economic growth by virtue of enforcing an inelastic money supply.
> Whether or not you believe a distinction between finance capital and
> industrial capital is appropriate, for populism to gain a fair hearing its
> critique of finance deserves an airing.
>
> Nader's interest in consumerism and the democratic process are reflected in
> the book as a whole. They are more in keeping with a turn-of-the-century
> progressivism or bourgeois liberalism, not historic populism. The latter is
> more about producers, specifically the ability of workers, farmers, the
> self-employed, and small business owners to earn a living.
>
> We do get offerings of interest on media concentration and corporate
> welfare, but secondary to my way of thinking. The health care selections
> treat consumers' fates in the hands of HMO's, an incrementalist health care
> reform bill, and health care supplied by the Salvation Army. One would have
> expected something on national health insurance.
>
> The shortcomings of the economics section are partially redeemed by the
> inclusion of a speech from Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota that
> provides a clear but lamentably brief excursion through the left-populist
> tradition.
>
> The cultural section begins on a promising note with Christopher Lasch's
> observation of a crucial question--where do community rights properly
> override individual rights and property rights? Selections are offered on
> the content of mass media, university speech codes, gambling, sports team
> franchises, the amorality of markets, and the alleged "end of work" (by, you
> guessed it, Jeremy Rifkin).
>
> It is left for the culture section to treat producers through Rifkin's
> well-known, highly problematic story of "the end of work" and a succeeding
> piece on "new work." Employment is alleged to be disappearing, but
> according to the latter piece we will see new forms of work based in the
> home and in social service to communities, not unlike the world of the Whole
> Earth Catalog. Not for these writers the world of poorly-paying service
> jobs, the progressive loss of leisure time to multiple job responsibilities,
> and the stagnation of the public sector! The inadequacy of this treatment
> of the working class almost goes without saying.
>
> The pieces on media content are appropriate in topic but predictable, such
> as the Bob Dole speech on Hollywood. They also tend to imply that such
> criticism is intrinsically conservative in origin, which could be taken to
> suggest that the left is content with the likes of Jerry Springer,
> misogynistic rap music lyrics, and movies featuring improbable heros who
> single-handedly wipe out small armies of heavily armed assailants.
>
> The selections on gambling, speech codes, and sports franchises are
> worthwhile. More to the point is an account of a conflict between local
> citizens and suburban developers. As before, the best piece of the section,
> although it embodies a negative example, is another political speech, this
> time from Pat Buchanan. In the first section, labor is conspicuous by its
> absence. The topic most important to the cultural section is also missing:
> religion, a gigantic force in all populisms.
>
> The third section aims to display what the editor calls "governmental
> populism" with articles on campaign finance, term limits, ballot access,
> presidential debates, the jury system, and welfare reform. This is a
> reasonable selection of subjects. I do have near-violent objections to the
> book's treatment of welfare reform, a single-sided gloss in support of the
> abolition of Aid to Families with Dependent Children. An alternative view
> should have accompanied the apologia for such a craven political act.
> Similarly, the section closes with an ignorant screed from Governor Richard
> Lamm on Social Security but lacks any populist defense of the program.
>
> The government selections reflect current concerns about political process
> but raise a deeper issue. The original populists of 1890 viewed government
> as their salvation, a bulwark against the depredations of capitalist robber
> barons and small-time commerce founded on sharp practices. In Trautman's
> anthology, the implied countervailing force wielded by the many against the
> few is a notion of decentralized localism. At the very least, this is too
> narrow a span to capture the variety of contemporary populism. It is also a
> debatable strategy in its own right.
>
> I think the next populism will look more like the 19th century variety than
> the present ones. Only in the speeches by Dorgan and Buchanan can one
> glimpse the seeds of revolt or the makings of a crusade. Cleveland will not
> rise up against capitalism because their football team was moved to
> Baltimore. Upheavals will be about basic living standards and how God would
> have the people defend them. There isn't enough red meat here to feed the
> lions of revolt.
>
> A number of the selections are from major corporate media outlets. We don't
> need them. The ideal populist contribution is a raw cry from the wilderness
> that speaks to a fundamental matter, rather than canned mini-treatises from
> the usual suspects, including this reviewer. Better the book that would
> showcase authors who have not been afforded much public exposure, such as
> Harry Boyte or Ronnie Dugger on the left or James Dobson and Gary Bauer on
> the right.
>
> In general there is thin gruel here for those interested in radical
> political economy. The two most important populist causes–the plight of
> labor and the power of Finance--are ill-served. Omissions and miscues
> aside, the cultural and political selections are more on point.
>
> What will an authentic populism would look like? Some of the ingredients
> are on view in this book, but some are missing as well. Not to worry,
> though, the people will inevitably be heard. It will be all we can do to
> catch up.