The basic problem with populism as an indispensable element of the contemporary political lexicon is the constant migration between the analytical term that should explain the phenomena and the discrediting label that should denounce "populists". The denunciation itself starts from the premise that there are supposed to be objective political-economic laws. Populist techniques bypass these laws and offer false and unfulfillable promises to the people. Or at least promises that, in accordance with the aforementioned legalities in which the market plays a central role, will someday come to fruition.
Regardless of the analytical instability of the term, caused by political interests and biases, there is a tacit consensus about which phenomena, movements, parties and politicians "deserve" the populist label. It should be noted that populism is not exclusively a political child of the neoliberal period. History remembers well the North American populists of the late nineteenth century and the Latin American movements of the twentieth century. However, contemporary populism is a plant of its own kind. And no review or history of contemporary populism can begin without former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who died yesterday. Namely, almost no one has shaped the political landscape in which we live to such an extent as Berlusconi.
On the occasion of his death, the Italian political theorist Paolo Gerbaudo cataloged all the political innovations of that branch of populism. In what, then, was Berlusconi the first? He was the first business magnate to transform into a successful politician. The first to destroy all norms of institutional respect and decency. The first to integrate the far right into his government. The first who transformed his company into a party and thus created the party's business model. The first to turn various accusations against him into a propaganda resource. The first who shamelessly mixed personal business interests and political ones in the form of a kind of postmodern patrimonialism.
How did Berlusconi succeed in all this? He had three private televisions at his disposal, and the political space he entered was permeated with cynicism and demoralization. Namely, in the early nineties, the Italian political duopoly of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats completely collapsed due to corruption scandals, and the global ideological atmosphere was based on individualistic ethics. Given that Berlusconi entered the scene at that time, he did not have the political echoes of the crisis of neoliberalism that began in 2008 as his populist successors. He had to create his policy in the period of the "hardest" market fundamentalism after the collapse of the so-called real socialisms. He had to, in the words of Gerbaud, create neoliberalism with populist characteristics. He was actually the historical link between neoliberalism and populism.
Despite the fact that, at least at the level of ideological overflow, neoliberalism, here reduced to individualism and market-allocated social justice, was popular in the nineties of the last century, Berlusconi needed some background class division with which people would identify. He took that decisive step, which still functions as a prevailing class code today. Thus, he eliminated the material-property basis from the class division: labor and capital are no longer categories that register social reality. What the central social conflict boils down to is ordinary people who create everything with their own hands and the "left" elites who, with their regulations, prohibitions and taxes, prevent them from enjoying life and what they have created.
The division seems a little shaky and not entirely convincing. But Berlusconi activated the exhaust valves that culturally cemented it. Namely, he behaves like an ordinary man who does not care about the norms of the elites, his channels promote crude and sexist humor, and promise simple hedonism that stiff-necked bureaucrats cannot understand or allow. In addition to "enabling" the people exhaust valves and behavior in accordance with their own "authentic" and allegedly censored culture, Berlusconi also offered entrepreneurial freedom to everyone based on "illegalism". He allowed construction without permits, which was later amnestied, allowed small entrepreneurs tax evasion, and generally made it more difficult to prosecute bookkeeping crimes. In parallel with the classic neoliberal policies he implemented - lowering taxes and deregulating labor relations - Berlusconi spread inclusive entrepreneurial democracy through corrupt concessions. And destroyed the Italian economy along the way.
But to a large extent also contemporary politics. In these descriptions and definitions, you recognized Kerum and Trump and Bandić and Vučić and a whole constellation of contemporary politicians. Berlusconi created a populist pattern that many "downloaded" at the beginning of their political careers. It is a malevolent innovator who provided a false alternative to neoliberalism by stripping it of institutional procedures and managerial etiquette. In other words, he laid bare the hypocrisy of contemporary politics, and in return offered cynical hedonism and the rise of a lumpen bourgeoisie that does not care about manners and is supposedly class-permeable and open to all. Berlusconi deprived the categories of labor and capital of social and political persuasiveness, and until that process is reversed, we will live in his world.
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