Will populism become, er, popular?

I ask because it is sort of taken for granted that when the euro finally collapses, or when the sub-German (I use the term advisedly as well as ironically!) peoples finally grow sick of 'ze German vay', then the 'nasties' are likely to come out of the woodwork.  By 'nasties' I mean those ranters who, unlike all the current politicians and technocrats who seem to have failed to find a solution to the woes of life, have an all too obvious and glib answer for everything.  And their solutions often have a new ingredient which somehow by-passed the old-style politicians like, for example, blaming and then killing all the Jews, or, blaming and then killing all the bourgoisie! 

However, Daniel Korski over at The Coffee House rather doubts that these 'nasties' will appear this time.  He suggests that we are simply re-running old scenarios and projecting them into the future.  And he points out that even back in the 'bad old days' of the 1930s recession/depression, the 'nasties' never made much headway in Britain or America.  In modern times, the Japanese have suffered through a 10-year period of stagflation without the political scene being disturbed unduly.  Der Spiegel is becoming very excited by a gang of vicious terrorists who certainly had murderous ambitions but then again, every few years Germany manages to produce yet another group of anarchist thugs to the point where it is now looking like a traditional minority sport!  In Spain the election, to be held this weekend, seems to be proceeding without too much heat - or light, come to that - and the Conservatives are likely to take their turn at the tiller and prove to be as helpless as their Socialist predecessors.

Anyway, Korski remains unfazed:

If the Euro crashes it will have profound effects on European politics. But in our modern, interconnected world I can't see a repeat of the 1930s and even think the EU — and the single market — would survive the Euro's demise. For now, the fears of a ‘populist’ wave seem exaggerated.

Well, I hope he's right but personally I am more doubtful.  We have only just begun.  The Greeks, the Spanish and the Italians are going to face a decade of hardship - and I do mean 'hardship'!  And everyone will suffer, from the elderly with their pensions slashed to the educated youth with no job prospects.  Perhaps Korski should have looked across the Mediterranean to see what has happened there during this year rather than looking back to what happened in the '30s.

 

Comments

[Whyaxye]

Yes, an excellent parallel with North Africa. It is possible that we will see the whole Med area plunged into greater poverty and instability. North Africans will be desperate to cross to Europe, and weakened states will not have the wherewithall to prevent them entering illegally. Cue inter-ethnic competition and religious intolerance. And when they all realise that there are slightly better paid jobs further north, we have the potential for yet further nastiness.

[Lawrence Duff]

But surely from out of all that it can't be long before a truck bomber detonates his payload outside an EU building in Brussels, Luxembourg, Paris, Berlin, etc.

And then the franchise will start, a la Al Qaeda, so it quickly becomes a monthly spectacular repeat performance.

And what will Merkozy do then, I wonder?

Bring it on, and let me know where I can make a donation (that was donation, not detonation, of course).

SoD

[David Duff]

Careful, 'SoD', even in jest truckloads of TNT are nothing to joke about. But read my post above for further wise words from your father which you will, of course, memorise and take to heart! (Sorry, didn't quite catch that . . .)

[dearieme]

Wise men were universally agreed that there would be no war. In early 1914.

[David Duff]

Hope springs eternal, DM.