Paul Kingsnorth

All of the work I have done over the last couple of years, and everything I have read, is convincing me that we are leaving one political age and entering another. Specifically, we are leaving the post-1990 world of triumphant liberal capitalism - the age of globalisation, which was the subject of my first book. We are leaving it because it has failed. And we are entering an age of populism, in which many things will become possible, many of them nasty.

I touched on this in a post a couple of weeks back. In one sense we are seeing a semi-repeat of the 1930s. Liberal capitalism failed then, too: the elite project that was the 'market economy' created, then, as now, vast amounts of material wealth but at the same time a growing gap between rich and poor and - perhaps more significant - between elite and mass. Then, as now, majorities of the population grew to distrust or even despise their politics, leaders and representatives. They seemed like a cosy cabal, who ignored the real concerns of 'the people'.

Today, across the democratic world, this is true again. In the UK, for example, people are angry about any number of things. Travelling England recently, to research my latest book, I came across this growing sense of a people feeling increasingly disillusioned with, even betrayed by, their representatives. On issues as diverse as immigration and climate change, the EU and the Iraq war, Post Offices and crime, people feel their views are being deliberately and coldly ignored in the interests of elites, corporate and political, whose agendas direct the hands of supposedly 'democratic' governments. However much politicians and their tame journalists protest, this impression is not too far from the truth, which is why it is gaining currency.

The financial crisis, and the bailout of the millionaires, has only helped focus this opinion (don't assume, by the way, that this disillusion is just confined to 'the West': jihadism and Al Qaeda are populist reactions to the power of unresponsive elites in the middle east and Asia). The result will be a turning-away from mainstream politics and all things associated with it, and a rise in support for those who offer easy answers and easy targets, all couched in anti-elite langauge. This kind of populism can come from left and right, but at the moment, with 'the left' virtually non-existent in any serious sense, it's far more likely to be the latter.

In the UK, this may manifest in immigrant-bashing and a rise in support for the BNP - though luckily for us, the BNP are so fanatically racist and dumb that their appeal is probably limited: they are strictly unintelligent populists. In the world's sole 'superpower', meanwhile, Sarah Palin and the neo-Nazis who even now are plotting to kill Barack Obama may be, rather than a blip on the chart, the true future of 'democracy' in that once-radical nation. Chris Hedges wites about this possibility chillingly here. And here's a video of the fire being nicely fuelled at a recent McCain/Palin rally:



A year or two ago, suggesting that this might be on the cards might have seemed far-fetched. But the world is moving very fast right now, and many things that seemed insane when the world was more comfortable now seem worryingly possible - even likely. Keep your eyes open.