When did being “populist” become a positive thing?

by Rishubhav
[Crossposted at Voice from the Middle]


About a week ago during the discussion we had on education, the Young Sentinel replied to a point I made about teachers unions by saying that “Another thing: teacher’s unions (and unions in general) are a good thing for the country. We need to return to a national psyche when unions are appreciated for the good work that they do.” Coming from someone who regularly condemns corporations for being “greedy” and “only caring about their own profits” this puzzled me somewhat (not that I’m picking on the YS mind you, his attitude is just representative of many liberals.) Continued: Click "Read More"


After all, what truly separates a corporation from a union? Both are groups of people who come together to more efficiently sell a commodity and to make the maximum amount of money possible in doing so; one group sells a product or products, while the other sells its labor. The important part is that (in theory at least; random philanthropy notwithstanding) both are essentially selfish institutions, dedicated to enriching their members at the expense of the greater society.

It is true that after 8 years of Republican rule our governments and laws have become biased towards corporations, but as oppositions are wont to do the Democrats/liberals have overcompensated, casting corporations in general as the Great Satan who exist only to greedily take the money of the common people. This mindset has spread across the country to the degree that even the Republicans are championing their VP choice’s anti-corporate credentials, with much being made of the fact that her husband is a union worker, and Karl Rove himself going so far as to call her “populist”.
This kind of corporation-flaming and pandering to unions might make some sense of union members occupied a sizeable chunk of the electorate, since the only ones who benefit from unions (at least in the short term) are union members themselves. However, according to a 2007 poll by Gallup only 9% of Americans self identify as union members. Yet according to the same Gallup poll a full 60% of Americans approve of labor unions. What accounts for this discrepancy? Part of it is that many Americans have a deep and historic mistrust of corpoarations and the rich, dating back to the Gilded Age and the Great Depression, which results in a support of unions the historic enemies of corporations.

Americans also dislike corporations and support unions for another reason - they need a scapegoat. For a long time, Americans have enjoyed a standard of living and wealth far above that of the rest of the world, to the point where we as Americans have come to take it for granted. As the American standard of living lowers (or really just equalizes with the rest of the world) American workers lash out at large corporations ignoring the basic economic realities at play.

To me the anti-free trade activists and economic populists project the belief that simply by the virtue of being born in America an American deserves to be richer, happier, and have a higher standard of living than those who are born elsewhere. As we steadily lose the riches we’ve begun to feel entitled to it would be wise for us to stop looking for someone to blame, and start adapting. The global economy is changing, and will keep doing so no matter how many companies we tax or tariffs we put in place.