Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Joseph Stiglitz writes that history has proven wrong the theory that the weak recovery from the 2008 economic crash was the result of "secular stagnation" rather than a woefully insufficient public policy response. And Sam Pizzigati points out how the U.S. public is picking up the bill for obscene executive pay rather than seeing public money used for beneficial purposes.

- Thomas Walkom points out the futility of signing trade deals with unreliable partners. And Theophilis Argitis observes that there's been no reality to past threats about the consequences of failing to follow Donald Trump's regressive economic policies.

- Oliver Milman reports on California's move toward 100% clean electricity, signalling how forward-looking jurisdictions are planning their energy futures.

- Rick Smith discusses how the defence of democratic decision-making has become a genuinely controversial issue in the face of right-wing politicians increasingly determined to warp electoral systems and public institutions to exclude any other voices. And Linda McQuaig notes that Doug Ford has picked up a class war on behalf of the rich where Mike Harris left off.

- Finally, Luke Savage highlights the need to properly define and apply the concept of populism, rather than using it as a shorthand which simultaneously dismisses legitimate criticisms of the status quo and reinforces misleading messages:

(T)he label’s almost uniformly negative connotation has created a parochial shorthand by which any serious critic of the status quo can be summarily dismissed regardless of their actual analysis or their ultimate political demands (whether you favour them or not, calls for tuition-free universities or universal social programs are categorically not equivalent to closed borders or fear-mongering about immigration). For another, it often has a way of needlessly glamorizing political behaviour that is, in fact, quite traditional. Is Doug Ford, for example, really a populist or is he just the scion of an entrenched political dynasty who’s cavalier with the truth and likes to say “folks” so much that people forget he’s a multimillionaire? Let’s avoid ascribing some ethereal mystique to good old-fashioned political posturing or demagogy. But finally, and most straightforwardly, incoherence is generally harmful for democracy—when people go to vote, we presumably would like them to have some idea of what they’re actually voting for, and not all populisms are created equal.
...
(I)n its contemporary usage, populism seems to be more of a floating signifier than something that usefully connotes a specific ideology, tendency, or political project. True, antiestablishment posture seems a common thread in these examples. But establishment and elites are themselves quite mutable terms and refer to completely different groups and institutions depending on who you ask. Are “elites” and members of the “establishment” state bureaucrats? Academics? The media? Corporate CEOs? People who prefer a glass of sherry to a pint of beer or happen to live in a major metropolitan area near the coast? The various individuals, parties, and movements cited above would likely offer very different answers.
...
As fashionable as it has become, then, the populist label may only be useful in a broad, aesthetic sense, and even then its value may be limited. Unhelpfully, it often grafts an aura of novelty on to well-worn ideological divides and, in the process, puts completely disparate politicians and movements into the same box. In trying to interpret various movements of the left and right, let us stop conflating a political style with a distinctive ideology.

[Edit: fixed typo.]