Does the Populist Revolt of the West Against Its Elites Continue?
The major French presidential candidates for 2017. From Left to Right:
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Communist (Wikimedia Commons / MathieuMD),
Emmanuel Macron, Center-Left En Marche! movement (Wikimedia Commons / Ecole polytechnique Université Paris),
François Fillon, Center-Right Les Républicains (Wikimedia Commons / Marie-Lan Nguyen).
Marine Le Pen, Far right National Front (Wikimedia Commons / Foto-AG Gymnasium Melle)
This Sunday, the 23d of April, 2017, will see the first round of the French presidential election. The burning question it poses is: Will the many revolts of Western civilization against its leftist, dirigiste elite be continued with the French election?
The Revolts of 2016: Populism or Revolts Against Dirigisme?
Western elites have interpreted the electoral revolts of 2016 as an expression of populism, and are propagating the idea the peoples of the West will soon and must return to dirigiste government to solve their problems. Some of the policies of these elites — free-trade, encouraged immigration, globalization, multiculturalism — might have to go on hold for a while; but as they see it, they have the solutions for what ails the populist masses.
Populism as generally understood is the political belief that the common people are being exploited by a privileged elite. Populists do not necessarily have to come from any particular part of the political spectrum. Depending on who and what they identify as the oppressive privileged elite, populists can come from the political left, center, or right. Currently, since progressives and other dirigistes have been in control of most Western governments in recent decades, most populists appear to be springing from the political right.
Consider the Bloomberg video below from a panel at the 2017 Davos meeting of the international economic elite. The panel includes some of the crème de la crème of the international elite, including Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund; Dr. Lawrence Summers, eminent Keynesian economist; Pier Carlo Padoan, Italian Economy and Finance Minister; and Ray Dalio, Founder and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Bridgewater Associates (real-time net worth as of 4/21/2017: $16.8 billion). Pay particular attention to what they identify as the seeds of the populist revolts.
Their diagnosis is a shrinking Western middle class, a growing economic inequality between the rich and the middle class and poor, a feeling their government is not fighting for its own common people but for others, and a growing disillusionment on the prospects for the future.
It must be said there is a very large seed of truth in the elites’ interpretations of their huge setbacks last year — Brexit, Italy’s constitutional referendum in early December, and Donald Trump’s election as U.S. President. It is a fact the middle classes are angry, particularly in the United States, about their loss in income growth and economic security. Over the past eight years in the United States, the Obama administration has throttled economic growth with its aggressive increase of economic regulations, including regulations from the Dodd-Frank Act, Obamacare, and other regulations, particularly environmental regulations. In recent decades, the European Union and the Western European countries have suppressed their own economic growth in a similar welter of stifling economic regulations.
However, both the American and European Left have tried to redirect blame away from their own policies and toward what they claim are the faults of capitalism. They cannot admit their most fundamental problem is not the many revolts of their own peoples against them. It is instead their own fundamental errors when they think about the nature of the world. The revolts against them are due mostly to the manifest failures of Leftist and Left-of-center policies to maintain economic growth and well-being. In addition, those dirigiste policies have eroded people’s freedoms and the peoples’ control over their own lives. Whether it is in Europe or in the United States, freedom of speech and thought is under dirigiste assault.
To top off all the destructive progressive and dirigiste errors in their views of Realty is their belief in multiculturalism. The most fundamental tenet of multiculturalism is that the values of all cultures are of equal validity within the milieu of their own societies. A corollary is that immigrants from other cultures should not be pressured to assimilate into the culture of their new country, but should be allowed to follow their old ways within their own, self-segregated communities. According to this view, the immigrants should not even be required to learn the language of their adopted country. The result in Europe has been the establishment of so-called “no-go zones”, where the emergency police, fire, and health authorities of the state do not dare venture after night-fall. Since the rise of ISIS, these no-go zones have become breeding grounds and safe havens for jihadist terrorists. As such, they have become existential threats to Western European civilization.
The most fundamental problem of Western societies today is not the rebellions of the electorates against their elites. Given the pervasive failure of the dirigiste elites to ensure economic and social well-being, or even existential security against the physical threats from other cultures, those rebellions are only to be expected. Instead, the most fundamental problem is how ill-fitting the ideologies of the dirigiste elites are to actual Reality. Perhaps it is time to choose new elites.
The French and The Future
So this Sunday the French will write the next chapter in this saga with the first round of their presidential election. As I have been writing this post, we have learned of a new terrorist attack in France. A single “lone-wolf” terrorist shot and killed a French policeman in the Champs-Elysées shopping district of Paris. Thankfully, the terrorist was killed by police before he could claim any other victims. Nearby his body was found a note expressing support for ISIS, and ISIS quickly claimed responsibility for the attack.
As one misery on top of another is heaped on the French, I would be astounded if the French would vote for more of the same. If I were a Frenchman, my preference would be for the center-right candidate of the Republicans, François Fillon. However, given the enormity of the reaction against the results of past policies, I would not be surprised if the two finalists in the second round would be the communist Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the far-right candidate of the National Front party, Marine Le Pen. Either result, I suspect, would be extremely unfortunate for France and for Europe. It is one thing to reject past mistakes. It is quite another to throw the baby out with the bath-water.
We seem to be cursed to be living in exceedingly interesting times. What is absolutely clear is that dirigiste government has almost totally failed, both in Europe and in the United States. What will take its place?
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