Some Populism

                                          Some Populism           

Curious that there is a lot of talk about populism going on, as both an accusation and as a claim. Generally described as "the will of the people," populism is hard to define because "the people" are hard to define. Indeed, Asimov had a story where "the people" were embodied in one person picked by computer and that person cast the only vote for president. The "will of the People" has a background, sanctified by Rousseau

The tyrannical strand of the French Revolution—there was also a classical-liberal strand, rapidly overcome—was anchored in the thought of Rousseau, who made “the people” and “the will of the people” the foundation of his political philosophy in The Social Contract. Rousseau may be the father of modern populism of the left and of the right.

But on the basis of Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem and social choice theory, the “will of the people” simply does not exist. It does not exist because there is no “the people” to have a will like an individual has. The “will of the people” is a rhetorical device to exploit a large proportion of the individuals who are the only reality under “the people.” So Asimov's distilled voter is impossible. The people’s preferences cannot be aggregated into a sort of social superindividual without being either dictatorial or incoherent, which is the essence of Arrow’s theorem. Those who pretend to represent the will of the people, from the French Revolution until 20th-century populist experiments, can only be authoritarian rulers, with or without the legal forms of democracy.

(some from Lemeiux)