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# taz.de -- Spotlight Populism: Should We Talk About Fascism?
> The word populism has become a kind of container that serves almost
> everything you do not like.
Bild: Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, priests of the 'more-market-and-less…
„Populism“ has been the word of the year 2016 in Spain according to Fundéu,
the foundation that promotes the good use of Spanish in the media. If there
was a time when this originally neutral word was used to define, today it
is used to qualify and always with negative connotations. The fact that it
has become the word of the year indicates its use – and also abuse – in a
short period of time. Indeed, last year populism grew in stature in its
most varied forms both in Europe and in the United States. However, we are
not dealing with a political phenomenon coming out of the blue, born
suddenly, nor it is a one-time phenomenon.
Populism has had a long period of incubation in the last decades, since the
concepts of right and left began to lose their original content with the
supposed disappearance of ideology being replaced by a single religion, the
Market, imposed by the conservative revolution of Margaret Thatcher and
Ronald Reagan under the mantra of 'more-market-and-less-state’.
The European left did not know how or did not want to avoid that neoliberal
agenda. Social-Democracy began to walk along the „third way“ theorized by
British sociologist Anthony Giddens. It took on the neoliberal postulates
and in some cases, as in several policies imposed in the United Kingdom by
the Labor government of Tony Blair, went further than the original
conservative ones. The left allow herself to be dominated by financial
elites and was dazzled by a supposed modernity.
They were times of economic growth, of fat cows, of social progress. There
was a visible socialization of benefits in the growth of public services
and in the expansion of a middle class with numerous graduations according
to the different schools of sociology. However, the cycle came to an abrupt
end and a very painful one for most of the people. It was discovered how
banks had swindled small savers, how corruption had become systemic in many
countries, how in others it had kept its citizens obscure on issues that
affected them. How they had to pay for the excesses of the others.
To that first confusion, that of a left taking on ideas and policies of the
right, another one has been added, opposite direction. Now it is the right
that usurps approaches of the left in the social field. It claims to defend
the disadvantaged, even at the cost of condemning other more disadvantaged
people like refugees or immigrants, and proposes, at least on paper, to
give greater weight to the state although there seems not to be much
interest in the return of Keynes.
Populism has its best breeding ground in confusion. If it is a question of
fighting it, it must be done from clarity. In our postmodern world we are
told that the ideological division between left and right no longer exists,
that the axis is another one, but let us not fall into a delusion. This is
not the same thing, a right-wing policy or a left-wing one, a conservative
or a social-democratic one. The old axis continues to exist. We must
confront it and turn around the old neoliberal mantra. We must demand
'more-state-and-less-market’.
Clarity also passes through an adequate use of language. Unfortunately, the
word populism has become a kind of container that serves for almost
everything you do not like. This wide and varied use makes its real meaning
trivial while avoiding to call other things by their proper names. Why do
we talk about populism when we should talk about fascism on so many
occasions? Why do we use that word as synonymous with demagogy? It is the
same perverse mechanism that invents a neologism and thus we speak of
„post-truth“ when in all languages there is a word for it: „lie“.
Rosa Massagué, Senior Analyst on Foreing Affairs at [1][El Periódico de
Catalunya]. Former correspondent in London and Rome. Author of 'El legado
político de Tony Blair’.
8 Jun 2017
## LINKS
[1] http://www.elperiodico.com
## AUTOREN
Rosa Massagué
## TAGS
taz in English
taz international
Spotlight Populism in Europe
Populismus
Europa
Demokratie
taz in English
USA
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