>As far as the commonalities, briefly: Both populism and socialism
>find their representation/justification in the figure of "the
>people." The state is coterminus with the people, meaning there is
>always an other who is not the people, outside of the state, and
>populism and socialism are two types of politics that attempt to take
>hold of state power in order to carry out the function of drawing
>(and constantly redrawing, whenever it serves their purposes) the
>boundary between the people and the not-people, inside and outside
>the state. State socialism (eg, Chavismo) of course tends to exclude
>less along racial and gender lines that populism (eg, the US
>anti-immigration movement), but it still reserves the right to fix,
>but not dissolve, the boundaries.
And how do you propose to dissolve those boundaries--with the bourgeoisie in control of the state apparatus and armed to the teeth? Flowers in the guns? They don't take kindly to even small suggestions for redistribution, you know.
(Witness the recent minimum wage defeat.) Also, since when is Chavismo state socialism? Just because the military takes the side of the poor for once? Private ownership in Venezuela continues, including of the media.
Jenny Brown