Members of the French upper class, who generally read nothing in the American press except the New York Times and the Washington Post, tend to see Donald Trump as the most visible representative of a deplorable “populist” wave. They take him for the voice of a contemptible, uneducated portion of the population that smokes, drinks, and pollutes the atmosphere with its exhaust fumes. Against them stand the openminded and civilized middle class.
Of course, this is a false conception of things. It was enough to examine the Trump vote in 2016 to observe that most white American college graduates voted for him (not those who went on to postgraduate studies, especially if they went to the best universities, impregnable citadels of intellectual conformism, also known as Clintonism). The truth is that Trump's election showed that his new proposals on economic, immigration, and environmental policy had already resonated, including among a segment of elites.
The opposition between what are called “populist” movements and movements of so-called “elites” has long been complicated by a major paradox: the “elites” express, in elegant and apparently moderate terms, absurd ideas that are characterized, in reality, by extreme violence. The discourse of globalization is nothing but—forgive the expression—shit in a silk stocking. Among its propagandists, we find well-bred persons who boast of every imaginable university credential, but who say awful things and condemn a significant part of the population to social exclusion. In the opposing camp, we find improbable personalities, such as Trump, who certainly utter obscenities, but obscenities that are in fact much more reasonable and moderate in their economic, social, and demographic implications.
Oren Cass's book, The Once and Future Worker, might be helpful in closing this gap. It is a remarkable intellectual articulation of “populism,” a kind of manifesto of a polite Trumpist, if you will, one relieved of excessive language and so rendered amazingly convincing. The proof is the very favorable review by the columnist David Brooks in the very anti-Trump New York Times.His column suggests that this book is one of those rare works capable of affecting a change in attitude among its less dogmatic readers: it convinces through its moderation, its open-mindedness, and its willingness to negotiate ideas.
Cass begins by stating a thesis to which a specialist on societal dynamics like me cannot remain insensitive: he argues that no political program whose objective is the nation's durable prosperity can be focused on purely economic questions. His critique of GDP and the rate of growth (which are not ends in themselves) is interesting because it avoids the usual pitfalls of anti-growth discourse. To be prosperous, Cass explains, a society must ensure that families and local communities fare well. And that is possible only if one gives people the means to earn their living through their work. Thus, economics is in the service of a higher goal: a general and more or less widely shared prosperity, which, in the end, benefits the economy itself, thanks to the effect of virtuous retroaction: “Policies that target growth without concern for the economy's longer-term trajectory, or for the well-being of the society within which that economy operates, will tend to erode the capacity for growth,” Cass notes. For example, to import cheap products to the detriment of national production, or to favor massive immigration of under-paid manpower to the detriment of local manpower, may well add a few points to the GDP. But this may not be a winning calculation in the end: “Even if gains exceed the costs initially, what happens if the losses undermine stable families, decimate entire communities, foster government dependence, and perhaps contribute to skyrocketing substance abuse and suicide rates?” he asks.
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