The concept of populism has the most common pejorative colouring. In common terms, populism usually means making promises without coverage in order to get current political benefits. This is what we usually deal with during election campaigns, during which politicians abruptly callback the problems and sufferings of citizens. specified populism is in fact a specified demagogue, meaning influencing public opinion by formulating popular and socially-generated slogans solely to get electoral support. These are frequently impossible promises, or worse, promises that, despite the apparent benefits, are harmful in the long term.
Although the concepts of demagoguery and populism are frequently identified and utilized interchangeably, populism is simply a broader word conceptually and has a somewhat different meaning. Politically speaking, populism means not so much a practice of action as an ideology referring to the "will of the people" and putting the interests of the masses above the interests of the elites. From this perspective, elites are treated as layers, separated from everyday reality and not acquainted with the problems of ordinary, grey citizens, and frequently profiting at their expense. Populism mistrusts the mechanisms and standards applicable to liberal democracy, preferring direct democracy and the institution of popular referendums. This does not contradict the support of a strong executive power based in many cases on charismatic legitimacy. The strong leader is to be a defender of the people against various interest groups and a heartless administration. The populist aversion is besides caused by rigid organization structures, frequently corrupt and pursuing peculiar interests at the expense of society. Population is therefore, in principle, not hostile to democracy as such, but only to its liberal form, which is appropriate for Western European countries and Anglo-Saxon countries.
Populism can be both left-wing and right-wing, and it can appeal to both socialism and nationalism – depending on whether there are slogans and demands of a class character or national character. For example, the governments of Juan Peron in Argentina, Kemala Ataturka in Turkey, or Gamal Abdel Naser in Egypt, were clearly populist. The current clear populist tendencies are seen in Belarus, where president Alexander Lukashenko tries to act as not so much a detached dictator as a kind of father of the nation. A circumstantial variation of populism is besides the "liberal populism" (trumpism) – a direction referring to both conservative values and free marketplace rules and Protestant work ethics. So populism has many faces and many names.
In Polish conditions Andrzej Lepper was widely regarded as a symbol of populism and a political organization founded by him – Self-defense of the Polish Republic. In fact, Self-defense has consistently acted against the political elite formed after 1989 as a consequence of the compromise of part of the opposition and power at the circular Table. This formation was born as a consequence of farmers' protests demanding the renewal and improvement of surviving conditions, but it rapidly expanded to another social strata dissatisfied with the direction of economical and political change in Poland. Self-defense opposed the monetary policy of Leszek Balcerowicz, which hit a large part of the Polish society, causing Polish entrepreneurship to choke, sale of Polish national assets, social impoverishment and mass unemployment. It should be stressed that the Self-Defense programme was not a collection of empty promises and wishful wishes, but a thorough socio-economic transformation. The programme proposed indirect solutions between liberalism and socialism, advocating among others the improvement and equal treatment of various forms of ownership, support and protection of Polish entrepreneurs (including agricultural producers), the protection of economically weakest social groups, as well as the fight against privileges and preferences for abroad capital and excessive fiscalism and bureaucracy.
The above-mentioned example of self-defense activities of the Polish Republic differed diametrically from the current policy of Law and Justice – a organization which any besides claim populism. However, while self-defense has advocated a thorough change in socio-economic policy (e.g. stopping monetaryism, unfair privatisation, supporting Polish capital, active fight against unemployment), the Law and Justice Office focuses primarily on handing out and shifting funds in the budget to circumstantial objectives, which is subject to immediate electoral needs. This is by no means a coherent and thoughtful policy of redistribution of national income, but only measures to fuel the spiral of inflation. The alleged "family policy", including the celebrated benefits of 500 plus (almost 800 plus) should besides be considered completely absurd, in which families receive equal resources regardless of their income. In conclusion, it is the policy of Law and Justice that can be regarded as demagoguery in its pure form, based on the cynical and instrumental treatment of citizens and the desire to keep power at all costs.
Michał Radzikowski
