Populist Falacies

Part of what OWS and her sister movements are suggesting is that we rethink the superficiality with which we approach our world. An opportunity to re-imagine how our world should ideally work is not something that comes along every day and should be embraced with hunger, curiosity and maybe a little trepidation. Now that Yair Lapid has pulled the veil off of his political beliefs it becomes evident that these are both superficial and unimaginative. What is most disappointing is not that he entertains these ideas, what can you expect from someone that works so hard at giving offense to so few, but rather that the ideas he espouses are so popular.

Here, like elsewhere we find little more than an ill conceived collection of neo-liberal baubels and populist trinkets. At best there is a sentimental distortion of a past that never existed which all too often resembles just plain old chauvinism.

So, what are these populist fallacies then?

The market can solve problems that the state can not.

There is a tendency to look at how messy politics is, how imperfect the way that decisions are made is, how mediocre the results often are and look with envy at how “successful” businesses are at attaining results. This is, of course, a fallacy. Politics take place in a democracy and is conducted in the public arena when compared to businesses which conduct their affairs behind closed doors and are run by hierarchical organizations. Politics and government exists to serve the wants and needs of citizens, business exists to make a profit.

If there is something wrong with the way the Trains are run, why is the logical answer to privatize it? If we need to change the way this service is managed, let’s change it. The reason for it’s existence doesn’t need to and shouldn’t change. It exists to provide a service to the public, not to make money. Add to that there is no example that I am aware of where public transportation was privatized and this led to better service, less problems and ultimately less cost.

Not so, says Lapid, trains should be privatized. Let the market take care of it.

You are all middle class.

I keep on thinking about Monty Python’s the Life of Brian when I hear Lapid talk about the middle class. “You are all individuals”, Brian shouts at the masses proclaiming him the messiah, “we’re all individuals”, they answer. You are all middle class, Lapid seems to say, except for them. Them are the Arabs, the ultra-orthodox and the Plutocrats, leeches the lot of them, living off the sweat and toil of the productive middle class.

What is this all encompassing middle class? My very unscientific definition of the middle class would be those people that can afford to buy an apartment, raise their kids and retire without feeling uncertain that they can pay for all of it. Someone who struggles to do the same is part of the working class. Someone who is unsure if he can feed and clothe his family is poor. Someone who can spend his money frivolously is rich. I am most certainly working class by this definition. Lapid is banking on our tendency to identify up and despise down.

Talking in us and them always makes me uncomfortable. Lapid is suggesting pursuing the divisive, niche politics of them and us while at the same time decrying the divisive, niche politics of others. When talking about Shas and Yahadut HaTorah he calls them both free-loaders and also holds them up as role models for how small political parties can exercise disproportionate power. Talking in us and them disenfranchises the them. Does a society belong less to its poor than it does to its working and middle classes? Is Lapid suggesting a democratic society modeled on Athens, with few citizens serviced by many residents?

This place was once decent (when we were running the show)

The most disturbing sentiment is one which is not specific to Lapid but rather seems to be part of a general malaise. There is a longing for a mythical past when things where more clear cut, people knew their place, when “we” were in power and “they” were not. This is what he alludes to when he says that he wants to change the political system so that small parties can no longer exert power over the coalition. He acts as if there is a form of democratic government where these pressures don’t exist.  The whole point of democratic government in general and parliamentary government in particular is that it forces compromise. It does not allow any single political group to impose their will on the rest. This is a good thing.

Things were not better in Israel when it was being run by a single party. Corruption existed, cronyism was everywhere and whole parts of the population had decisions made for them without being consulted. We don’t live in the past, so why are we seeking out solutions that only partially worked then to solve different problems now? The sixties, which so many of us progressives like to hark back to, was not an era of liberty and social justice but rather an era of great strife as a result of tremendous injustice. Perhaps it is better to look to the past in order to avoid making the same mistakes rather than as a model for our future.

There is this Bertrand Russell quote that I saw on someone’s facebook wall the other day:

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, wiser people so full of doubts.”

A lot of people liked this and seemed to identify with the sentiment, many of whom are professed liberals, lefties and progressives. It triggered a long conversation about how easy it is to trigger that inner fascist we all have that longs for order and certainty and disdains the messiness of groping towards an uncertain truth. I surprised myself with how, when I thought about it, this seemed like such a chauvinistic sentiment. Whether he knows it or not, Lapid is flogging very similar wares and banking on people voting for sentimental reasons.