Jacobin Radio Confronting Capitalism: Populism’s Promises and Pitfalls
Sep 10, 2025
The podcast dives deep into the impact of populism on the Left, highlighting the success of candidates like Zohran Mamdani who center economic demands. It discusses the rise in popular anger towards elites and how this sentiment has reshaped political strategies. The conversation explores the need for political parties to revive their connection with working-class voters and addresses the paradox of polarization in contemporary politics. It emphasizes the importance of genuine representation to align candidates with the public's needs.
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Populism Simplifies Class Divisions
- Populism frames politics as a simple elite vs. masses conflict that flattens class differences.
- Socialism instead recognizes heterogeneous class interests and seeks programs to unite them.
Inequality Drives Populist Language
- Extreme concentration of gains at the very top fuels a populist vocabulary among the broader public.
- When the bottom 60–70% see almost no gains, politics naturally frames a tiny elite against everyone else.
Class Language Needs Organized Labor
- Class language appears only when labor movements or socialist parties insert it into politics.
- In the US, the absence of a mass socialist party has left class issues expressed mainly in populist terms.