Those puzzled by the rise of Jeremy Corbyn should recall what did not happen after the crash of 2008. The global economic crisis might have recast liberal capitalism. Instead, the financial elites got off more or less scot-free and the political establishment instead prescribed indefinite austerity for the masses. It is scarcely surprising that populists of right and left are now rewriting the rules of politics. Blame the bankers.
Corbyn is the frontrunner to lead Britain’s opposition Labour Party. Of course, the polls may be proved wrong (again) when the results of the contest are announced, but the fact that he is a serious contender speaks about the earthquake in a party that not so long ago had won three consecutive elections under the centrist Tony Blair. Some of the reasons are particular to Britain. The reckless arrogance of Ed Miliband, the previous leader, comes to mind. But Corbyn also speaks to the wider upheaval in advanced democracies.
Populists have been on the march across Europe: The National Front in France, Five Star in Italy, Podemos in Spain, New Democrats and True Finns in the Nordic states, Syriza in Greece and the United Kingdom Independence party among them. Corbyn is part of this movement. So, in a way, is Donald Trump, the billionaire maverick leading the race for the Republican presidential nomination in America. There is a point on the European political spectrum where the extremes of right and left converge: Where nationalists align with socialists in revolt against the status quo. National socialism, it was once called. One side waves the flag, the other demands a bigger state. Both rail against outsiders — the right against immigrants, the left against international capitalism.
They share a soft spot for authoritarianism, a yearning for state direction of the economy and a jealous regard for national sovereignty. They tap into the resentments of those left behind by change. Above all, they are against the status quo — whether centrist politics, the European Union (EU), globalisation or Wall Street.
Old divides get blurred. This is what has happened in much of Europe, where the crisis of economic stagnation has been followed by the influx of refugees from Syria and beyond. The ancien regime is left stranded between old notions of humanity and solidarity and fear of a popular backlash. Marine Le Pen’s xenophobic National Front wins over disillusioned socialists who like her brand of state capitalism. Corbyn’s allies promote him as a eurosceptic with appeal among working class supporters of the anti-immigrant Ukip.
Greece’s radical left Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras flirts with a closer relationship with Moscow. Corbyn blames the US for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, while Le Pen thanks Putin for his cheques. In Eastern and central Europe, nationalists rage against a supposed dilution of the continent’s Christian heritage by those fleeing the horrors of Syria.
Closer to home, Corbyn denounces financial capitalism and calls for nationalisation of strategic industries. Trump takes potshots at hedge funds and combines loathsome xenophobia with calls for higher taxes on the rich. The shared message is that the little people have been failed by a privileged establishment.
Corbyn is a clever politician. He has worked hard to cultivate an image of principled reasonableness, pitching to young idealists as well as grizzled Marxists. To borrow a well-worn aphorism, he is adept at faking sincerity. In truth, there is an air of menace about his campaign. The left, he says, is for peace and human rights — as long as we are not talking about Russia, Cuba or Venezuela, Hamas or Hezbollah. The accurate description of Corbyn’s foreign policy is blind anti-Americanism. In his twisted frame of moral equivalence, the killing of Osama Bin Laden must be set against the terrorist outrage of 9/11 or the US siege of Fallujah in Iraq against the evil of Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant).
Not everything about his domestic platform is barmy. There is a powerful case against indefinite austerity and the present fetish for balanced budgets; for tougher action against monopolies and for a clamp down on tax evasion. Put the elements of his prospectus together, however, and they add up to nothing much more than a series of self-serving impulses rooted in nostalgia for a socialist utopia that never was.
The problem is that the populists are on to something. Incumbent parties’ elites are paying the price of their timidity — for decreeing after the crash that the little people should pick up the bill for financial recklessness while the culprits were left untouched.
To say that capitalism is better than all the alternatives should not be to assume that things must stay as they are. The brand of unbridled capitalism that hands all the gains of open markets and economic integration to the top 1 per cent, while piling austerity and insecurity on to the rest, is politically unsustainable.
In many respects, the big surprise of the populist insurgency is that it has not been bigger. In another age, the 2008 crash might have triggered a revolution. Instead, Corbyn and his fellow travellers are now capturing the seething popular resentment. They do not have answers. Many simply preach hatred of the outsider. They have understood, though, that something has to give.
— Financial Times
