[mbs] I don't think I sneered at academic research. I've been accused of doing some myself. I do think that critiques of populist protest against specific institutions like the Fed, or high finance, etc. on the grounds that they are not sufficiently comprehensive is academic in a negative sense. And criticism along the lines 'it doesn't go far enough' is just another way of saying this is reformist and I'm not. Both are a type of elitism.
CB: Jacksonian producerism only looked good if you can stomach ignoring the slaughter of Indians.
[mbs] From what I've read, the pops invoked Jackson more than they actually reflected him programmatically. Their similar use of Jefferson was even more incongruous. And once again you have to attack 'producerism' by associating it with Indian slaughter, of all things.
CB:
The Populist Party started out with some good ideas and then a significant
number of its supporters slipped into demonizing Jews and Blacks.
>>>>>>>>>>
[mbs] This is quite an encapsulated history. As with references to the developments of 1930 and after, it radically foreshortens what happened.
cb: As Canovan pointed out, both the elitist liberal and romanticized progressive views of populism were flawed.
The Progressive Populist ran two columns warning about the conspiracism and
bigotry of right wing populism. If they can get it...
>>>>>>>>>>>
[mbs] Everything is flawed. That's not in question. Neither is the lousyness of right wing populism, much less conspiracism and bigotry.
cb: And to anticipate Max's next complaint, yes, I have worked with a predominantly White printing trade union, and my wife and I spent ten years organizing for peaceful integration in a White working class neighborhood on the southwest side of Chicago. I do not think White working people are devils, but I know they aren't saints, either. Historic producerism only looks good if you limit your assessment to the gains of White men. Not my idea of a good business for a left observer. :-)
[mbs] I have no idea what you think my next complaint would have been. Once again, it is your grip on "historic producerism" that is in question.
cb: . . . I think the history of "producerism" is to focus on the needs of a largely White sector of the middle and working class, while frequently tolerating or supporting attacks on people of color, immigrants, and Jews. The economic analysis masks a lack of concern over social justice. . . .
[mbs] The old movement gets going after Reconstruction, well past Jackson. It fought against monopoly, high finance, sectionalism, and the old Democratic Party. It supported industrial action, trade unionism, and cooperatives. It had a primitive but valid concept of fiscal policy. It was pro-government, not anti. By standards of the time, it was more of a force for racial justice than most anybody but the radical Republicans. It is nothing but gross reductionism to equate all this to your stunted idea of producerism -- of opposition to the rich and the poor. The great price deflations of the latter part of the 19th century made many agrarians as poor as imaginable.
And it is unfair to blame the old movement for the likes of Father Coughlin, the Birchers, or Pat Buchanan, all of whom are anti-government.
You mention Kazin, but he describes the CIO movement as populist.
Today populism entails many social-democratic concerns, but also an emphasis on finance and trade that many soc-dems lack, downplay, or reject. The idea that this 'variation' is of no interest or importance to non-whites or women is mind-boggling, but you seem to chalk these up as white guy issues. How could monetary policy, credit allocation, and the fate of manufacturing be irrelevant to minorities and women? Really!
If you insist on defining producerism on the basis of the entire span and diversity of populism, you are left with a very watered-down, positively misleading picture of the developments between 1870 and 1910, approximately. But why would you want to do that?
mbs