Why has populism's influence increased politically |
Claims that rising inequality is driving populism overlook the evidence – stagnant wages and falling living standards are the more likely cause.
Populist prejudices and demands are too often a threat to our democratic values and social cohesion. Allan Patience is right when he writes in a recent article, that we need to better understand what motivates populism if we are to respond effectively to it.
However, Patience then goes on to assert: “the most devastating motivation arises from the rapid growth in socio-economic inequality in all of the so-called ‘advanced’ economies. This is true of Australia where inequality has grown exponentially over the past four or so decades”.
Patience follows with the further assertion that this rise in inequality is due to the hollowing out of Australia’s economy through deregulation, privatisation and unparalleled levels of profiteering and rent-seeking by corporate bosses and their political accomplices, etc. etc. Finally, he lists a series of economic policy-making failures since the 1980s that he asserts “are exacerbating socio-economic inequalities in Australia today, producing a new kind of lumpenproletariat – an underclass of misinformed, disenfranchised people”.
My problem with all these assertions is that Patience provides literally no evidence which links increasing inequality with the rise in populism. Equally missing is any evidence or discussion of why inequality has increased and when.
In this article, I will discuss why and when inequality increased and why that is not the main cause of the rise in populism. Instead, I think the evidence is that it is the stagnation of real wages which has given rise to increasing populism, but in Australia’s case at least, that wage stagnation is not related at all to any increase in inequality.
Why and when did inequality increase?
In our book, Fair Share, Steven Bell and I........