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Radio War Nerd EP #161 — Populism vs. "populism", feat. Christopher Phelps (Patreon)

Published:
2018-12-14 19:23:29
Edited:
2025-11-19 19:44:19
Imported:
2026-06
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Recorded: December 11, 2018

Guest: Dr. Christopher Phelps, associate professor U. Nottingham & author 

The word "populism" gets thrown around a lot today in the mainstream press, usually meant as a pejorative to describe far-right reactionary, anti-democratic politics that threaten the so-called "liberal order." But "populism" is just a synonym for "democracy" — "of the people" — and it has a concrete historical meaning that's completely at odds with the current abused meaning of the word. The War Nerd talks to intellectual historian Christopher Phelps about the original meaning of "Populism" in the United States at the end of the 19th C., and we try to sort out myths from facts, and what the word means today in Europe and in the official US media. Throughout the discussion, we reference Lawrence Goodwyn's great book: "The Populist Moment".  

At 1:43:00 — Ames & the War Nerd discuss a few of the larger-than-life Populists, France's "yellow vests" movement . . . And then briefly look at current war news: ISIS battling US-backed SDF in its last stronghold in Syria, along Iraq border . . . Al Qaeda jihadis take main Syria road in Idlib, against Turkey-Russia peace agreement . . . Qatari emir wisely avoids GCC summit . . . Qatar has played soft-power propaganda game brilliantly, gotten away with murder . . .

Read Christopher Phelps' books Radicals In America: The U.S. Left since the Second World War and Young Sidney Hook: Marxist and Pragmatist. Check out his articles in The Nation and Jacobin.

Populist Cartoons:

* On debt bondage

*On overcoming racial sectarianism whipped up by party elites and their sponsors

*On overcoming Union-Confederacy sectionalism to unite against ruling class

*"It will never do to let the people get together. You talk Force bill and I'll shout Negro Supremacy!" — Democrat Grover Cleveland conspiring with Republican Benjamin Harrison to hype race fears to divide & conquer class 

Total time: 2:28:54

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

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Comments

Breakaway

Is there a new RSS link? This episode hasn't shown up in the RWN Subscriber Feed an hour after posting here.

Breakaway

Nevermind, it's there now. Thanks!

Paul Vd

I'd like to ask Mark Ames why ppl on the left always assume that a loose money capitalist regime is better for the common person than a harder money regime ? (assuming we are stuck w/ capitalism) EDIT: Mark you even said that Ron Paul's gold buggery implies that he's even less of a populist. Theoretically, loose money seems better for everyday ppl. But it's not. Where is the evidence? Governments are just as stingy with spending now as they were in the hard money times. In fact govts are more stingy now b/c they are doing these bailouts. You said it yourself. All of this cash sloshing around is almost pricing you out of your neighborhood. That's a condition of an easy money regime. This liquidity would not be there in a harder money regime. Even the guest today, you could tell that he supported the loose money policies of the Fed. I don't think that this as clear as anyone thinks. We've had a loose money regime since the 2000's. It's been an utter disaster. And we had a tight money regime from 1980-1999. Those were better years for the common man. Ppl from the left should support a tight money regime. Not a loose money one. The rich under this loose regime are just obscene. It is just disgusting. At least in the hard eras, ppl went bankrupt. (like trump) Today the rich just can't lose. Even once.

Avery

Writers and books referenced in the intro: William Greider, author of "Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country" Joseph Costello, author of "Of, By, For: The New Politics of Money, Debt & Democracy" And Hunter Thompson and Goodwyn

Paul Vd

Ironic how the guest is here to talk about populism. Then he casually says " today the Fed can drop rates to zero. Muh easy money". Yeah and the rates stayed at zero for 8 years and that's where all this wealth inequality came from. That's how F-tard trump got elected. That's the route of the problem today. Inflation.

Keith Riley

Check out the book the populist vision by Charles Postel

Animals in Motion

What!? The 80's what awful for workers. what the fuck are you on about? The 80's was just deregulation bonanza, that's where all the "growth" came from, it had zero to do with any actual gains in real wages. The Volcker shock was awful for the world. As for the loose/tight money thing, being able to control your currency is absolutely necessary, there's just no competition. Look at the Eurozone, a modern day gold standard, if many of the governments that had problems after the crisis had been allowed to devalue their currency instead of doing a painful internal devulation of wages and social spending, they would already have been out of this mess.

Animals in Motion

Lol, asset inflation in the housing market maybe, but there has been literally zero inflation of any kind in the economy sinec 2008.

xnfec

The song "the taxes on the farmer feed us all" might have come from that time. I know it from Ry Cooders rendition from the album Into the Purple Valley: "We worked all through Spring and Winter, through Summer and through Fall ut the mortgage worked the hardest and the steadiest of us all. It worked on nights and sundays, it worked each holiday; and it settled down among us and it never went away" Maybe the 40,000 lectureres wrote songs in their spare time? As far a Brexit is concerned, both parties are split with the liberal wing of both trying to end brexit and remain the EU. It is possible that the Yellow vest movement is being high-jacked. I've seen Boris Johnson (one of the Leavers) has often been seen in a yellow, high-viz vest. Some Leavers today blocked a bridge to traffic. they were all wearing yellow vests. It is hard to tell. The movement is soon surrounded by a fog of propaganda, little of it theirs. There was a good article on them (the gilet-jaune) in the Atlantic. The parallells with today exist. The farmers felt that the bankers and railroad magnates were oppressing them via monopoly pricing. These days it is the pharmaceutical companies like Valeant (see the episode from Dirty Money on Netflix) with capitalists like Peter Thiel questioning whether competion is a good thing. Then enemy then was debt and it is today. Plus ҁa Change.

Paul Vd

^ @Hampus Don't tell me you are one of those fools who doesn't think there has been inflation. Housing maybe ? How about we go back to housing of the mid 90's. Remember those times ? High end apartments were 150k. Your average house was 120k. Anyone who can't see that growing the Fed balance sheet more in 94 days in 2008, than the whole 94 years previous is crazy, has NO common sense.

Paul Vd

^ (i liked your dumb post just to alert you that i replied bc U aren't a subscriber) I never said NOT to have control of the money supply asshole. I never said an f-ing thing about gold. Having a tighter policy is STILL CONTROL. It's just different control. From post WW2 till 1970, wages went UP four fold in real terms. In Victorian times, wages for the bottom also went UP 3 fold over 30 years. Lots of things sucked in the 80's. And not just because of tight money. Correlation not causation. But compare housing ONLY housing from the 90's or now and tell me that NOW is better ! I am a centrist. Not right wing. And i just don't understand why Left wingers support loose money. They at the least have no opinion on it. Now give me examples where loose money regimes are good for workers

Adam Koslin

The problem with discussing populism - even in as restricted a context as the late 19th century in America - is that the concept just refuses to get nailed down. This podcast focused heavily on the People's Party and the concept of sub-treasuries (essentially public banks designed to free small-time farmers from the ruinous lending and pricing practices of railroads, store owners, and large land-holders), but that was just one of the many issues that got people raring and fighting during the period. The issues that drove particular populist revolts were frequently highly localized. In Virginia, for example, the Readjuster party won control of the state between 1879 and 1886, taking as its main issues repudiation of the pre-Civil War state debt (which had been spent on boondoggles like the Kanawha canal), reassessment of land-values to bring tax bills in line with the actual productivity of land which armies had spent the last four years marching and fighting through, funding of public agricultural and technical schools, and reclaiming ownership of state railroad projects from northern and english hands. Race was involved, too (and a race riot in Danville, VA was ultimately what sunk the Readjusters, who got tarred one too many times with the "black Republican" racial slander) but as a whole the battle was between old, pre-war social hierarchies (as laid out in Bertram Wyatt-Brown's magisterial work "Southern Honor) trying reassert themselves and provide stability in the chaotic, bloody post-war environment, and younger reformers rebelling against the scions of the old gentry and trying to overturn the social order in order to re-develop what they saw as an unforgivably backward economy. It's easy to caricature the "funders" (as the anti-Readjuster party was often known) as reactionary old dinosaurs, but any realistic portrayal has to take into account that Virginia had just been basically leveled by the war, a whole generation of rising leaders - the most energetic of her young men, taught that they were born to lead and educated since the cradle with leadership in mind - were dead or crippled, and had to implement a brand new political order on the fly while at the same time creditors were repossessing the only profitable physical plant in the state; the railroads and corduroyed highways that took goods to market. It looked like everything had completely fallen apart, and if I'm honest with myself I can't blame those - especially the older generation like Jubal Early and Frederick W. M. Holliday - who desperately wanted to cling to any vestige of pride and order they could find. And to their credit they didn't all run off to join the Knights of the White Camelia or the Klan like so many did down in Louisiana and South Carolina; they decided that their stand would be on the state debt. By god, it was a matter of honor - men pay their debts, and Virginians are men goddamn it. Readjustment, to these guys, would have been just one more admission that they were smashed, ruined, wrecked. At the same time, the leaders of the Readjusters weren't saints either. William "Extra Billy" Mahone, the former-Confederate General and failed railway President who was one of the driving forces behind the movement wasn't shy about the fact that he was primarily interested in two things: (1) establishing his home-town of Petersburg as the primary junction for a network of rail lines connecting the port of Norfolk to Tennessee and the middle west through the Cumberland Gap, and (2) screwing over the northern and english interests who took his railroad away from him during the crash of 1873 (funny anecdote; Mahone's railroad was the AM&O - the Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio - but due to his megalomania and shady business practices wags frequently joked that the letters actually stood for "All Mine & (Mahone's wife) Otelia's"). There were good intentions aplenty on the Readjuster side to be sure, but there was also an incredible amount of ambition, and quite a bit of corruption too. There are stories of campaign parties held on election days where big punch bowls were circulated to all the good voters; only instead of alcohol, the bowls were full of coins and bills. Almost none of the leading Readjusters came from prominent Virginia families with long ties to state government or business establishment. These were new men, up-and-comers who saw the main chance to clear away the deadwood of the old aristocracy, bring the state up to modern standards with technical education and the introduction of scientific farming methods, remake the state according to their own ideals (and grab a piece of the sun for themselves while they were at it) after the old system had been smashed to flinders by the war. So yeah, the economics were important. And yeah, to a certain degree populism in the late 19th century can be tied to broad demands for equity, opposition to capital, and all the rest of the good ol' progressive songbook. But I can't urge you guys strongly enough to try and minimize the generalizations as much as possible. Political phenomena which come from the ground up are always overdetermined and complex when compared to the nice, clean, comparatively simple history of generals and bankers read from the top down. For a portrait of the generation who fought the battles over Populism in Virginia in specific, I highly recommend Peter S. Carmichael's "The Last Generation." A good general history is Charles C. Pearson's "The Readjuster Movement in Virginia."

Tariq

But isn’t it the case that the policies and deregulation that went into effect in the 80s and 90s are impacting people harder now? I wouldn’t be surprised if the average person felt better in their position when it came to housing at that time, but the long-term effects of the positions of the right and that we’re seeing today seem to have been implemented around that time.

dave from outer space

Great show as always. <br><br>I always enjoy the "and then THEY elected Trump/Fascists/Bad Guy" line from the cubicle class. One walks into a voting booth and has to choose between Mr Turd or Ms Feces. When the whole rotten process is over, the highly credentialed are always like "but THEY voted for a big pile of Shit™"<br><br>

Elias Brander

Paul, the issue during the episode was whether the money supply should be bound to gold. Thus allowing central banks and governments to regulate the money supply as desired. During hard recession times it is desirable to increase the money supply and in boom times its desirable to decrease it. This is unironically economics 101. I dont think anyone in the podcast suggested that there is some unequivocal good in always having as high a money supply as possible. The issue is rather with how the money is distributed. If you compare the way the great depression was dealt with Keynesian mass investement in public programs and infrastructure and compare it to how the 2008 great recession has been amended by quantitative easing etc you see the big difference. But what exactly are you arguing Paul? That monetarism is good? If so just say it.

Paul Vd

@Elias No Elias. There isn't just a gold standard or not. Politics in monetary policy doesn't end with the gold standard. There is a gas pedal and a brake pedal. I NEVER said that they shouldn't have hit the gas in 08, but after U hit the gas, you are supposed to hit the brake. Which the Fed did NOT do. Rates were at fucking zero for 8 years. Blowing the biggest bubble of all time. Tech bubble 2.0 and housing bubble 2.0 & all of this obscene wealth to go with it. Now please don't make excuses for the Fed. (don't say "huh inflation is low, so why hit the brake) You said yourself that they are supposed to reduce during boom times. Yet they aren't. And it doesn't help anyone but the rich. But either way, left wingers should be AGNOSTIC on monetary policy. But they are NOT. They always think that easy money is helping the common man somehow. It's NOT. It helps the super rich. Even you, can tell, have a preference for loose money. When you should not.

Paul Vd

@Tareq There is some truth to that politically. Glass Stegal was repeal ed in that era which supercharged this investment banking crap that blew up in 08. But monetary policy wise, no. We didn't have the gold standard in the 80's or 90's. But we also didn't have super insanely loose monetary policy. I am just saying, that the common man was better off under the tighter 90's monetary regime. Yet there's ppl on here who think that this post 2008 super loose monetary policy is good for them. When really, this policy is what led to this obscene wealth, bubble finance, Tesla Amazon and all of this shit that drove Trump to get elected

Maggie+Al

Mark I think when modern elites talk about ‘populism’ their thoughts turn less to the Peoples Party or the Narodniks but to Julius, or rather a Caesar shaped caricature they inherited from forebares. Its deeply weird touchstone of their political thinking, but the early enlightenment liberals were classics geeks who learnt Latin rhetoric by studying the Catiline Orations . For example notorious Koch funded Cato Institute, is named for the pen name of 18th centenary pamphleteer who stole it from the Roman Senator (and reactionary loon) Cato the Younger. It’s not an isolated obsession either Americas Founders were so mad for this stuff they named a city in Ohio for a dead Roman dictator, and the French revolutionaries were even more over the top. The fun thing is, once you look at the late Roman Republic with a critical eye and control for the biases of the ancient historians you find a story that is very Radio War Nerd. You’ve got self serving corrupt elites, brutal imperial quagmires, shameless war profiteering, client states buying bribing whole sections of the political class, skyrocketing wealth inequality, agrarian displacement, bungling generals, a populist political movement, factional massacres, civil wars and massive purge. And that’s all before old Caesar is out of his teens you should do an episode some time.

Brian Fleitman

I loved Dr. Phelps' point about how agricultural producers AND consumers were somehow BOTH getting squeezed during the recessions of the 19th century. Absolutely insane.

teh_drewski

Wealth inequality didn't come from the finance rate being low. Wealth inequality came from all of the money created through low rates and QE being exclusively distributed to the already wealthy. You're mistakenly attributing the tool to the cause. The exact same policy in a highly redistributive wealth system would have had the opposite effect.

Paul Vd

@AndrewC Sure. That's probably true. But tell me. If your only 2 policy options are 1) open ended QE for the rich or 2) emergency policy for 08, then conventional policy from 09 & on, which would you choose ? You'd be a fool to pick QE for the rich vs no QE at all. And since fair QE wasn't in the cards, ppl from the left should oppose QE. QE for the rich simply takes water from the shallow end and dumps it in the deep end.

Shad Narcher

The ILWU's Harry Bridges was no McCarthyite. Ferchrissakes, he went through 20 years of attempted deportations (for alleged Communist Party affiliations) during the entire McCarthyite period.

Mark Ames

Gah, you're absolutely right! Now I'm mortified, the pedantic in me is shorting out. Looking through my jumble of back notes I can't find the name of the radical labor figure of the 30s who turned informant in the 50s who caught my eye a month or so before this show. I wish I could blame this on antiperspirant aluminum, or drugs, but decency calls for taking responsibility on this one. Bridges suffered enough in life to get smeared on a podcast decades after his death. There will be a full retraction next recording.

T. Fischer

There was a plug for Catherine's book at the end of the podcast but aside from saying it was available online I didn't hear where I could find a link.

xnfec

She is interviewed on Carl Zha's podcast - Clash. He has released it as a free listen.

David Crooks

Boris Johnson and other UK politicians are often seen in yellow vests and hardhats because of this country's obsession with health and safety, whenever they visit any kind of workplace they have to put them on, it isn't a populist dog-whistle.

xnfec

ok, fair point but if it turned out there was an attempt to co-opt these events, would anybody be suprised? Astro-turfing is a thing after all and the Tories have a lot of money behind them.

Winterborn

@Paul Vd I know I'm a week late here, I just wanted to say that you're correct in that QE for the rich is worse than nothing at all. I just think that most of on the left would like to see policies that are not simply lose /or/ tight monetary policy. I think we want Glass Stegal back, we want income tax rates like they were in the 1950s, we want more spending on education and social programs and less spending on fucking ludicrous defence department programs and so on... It's not an either/or question. Hope you enjoyed your Christmas if you celebrate it.

radiowarnerd

Mark apologized for this mistake on the show we just recorded.

Shad Narcher

I knew you guys were all right.

Cade Jameson

I second this. It is a great book geared towards contemporaries who don't understand how rural folk could have been champions of public ownership of utilities, public banking, etc. One thing that impressed me was how the Populists were influenced by Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward. Populism was very much an incipient American-indigenous socialism, and that's where the Populist movement went. Yes, it's organization fell apart with fusion and Bryan, but it carried over in Western states in the Socialist Party of America, with the likes of Eugene Debs, Julius Wayland, and others who were former Populists, while the Eastern and immigrant-Europeans in the Party were more orthodox in their Marxism.

Cade Jameson

Another one people might want to check out is Norman Pollack's The Populist Response to Industrial America.