With the recent announcement of his new work Prophets of Doom I thought it was high-time to offer some thoughts on the recently released work The Populist Delusion by Neema Parvini.
Released last year, The Populist Delusion is a clinical reflection on the mechanics of power. Seeking analysis free from ideological baggage Parvini invites the reader to understand the truth behind power:
‘An organised minority always rules over the majority’.1
This is the common thread throughout the work. Parvini structures his argument through the lens of eight thinkers, progressing chronologically. It works well. The reader is brought steadily along through the work and writings of each thinker without being overwhelmed. Moreover, Parvini regularly highlights connections between thinkers - just when the reader does as well.
I felt that the book might have dedicated a chapter to a single event in the current age or a single populist ‘movement’ to examine how-where-why-when this movement failed, how it contravened the arguments set out by elite theory. Despite this, I feel the book would be worse off without any discussion of current affairs. The context is helpful, if at times bulky.
After all, both the introduction and conclusion frame Populist Delusion around recent populist movements - notably Donald Trump and the ‘MAGA’ movement. Positioning the work in response to recent political movements gives the book a sense of urgency; we can relate to these actors in real time.
The thinkers- in order - covered in the book are:
Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941)
Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923)
Robert Michels (1876-1936)
Carl Schmitt (1888-1985)
Bertrand de Jouvenal (1903-1987)
James Burnham (1905-1987)
Samuel T. Francis (1947-2005)
Paul Gottfried (1941-present)2
I am most familiar with the work of Burnham. However, Parvini does well to guide the reader through the works of thinkers they may not be familiar with. Most readers would probably not know the finer details of all these thinkers.
Let us review the Burnham chapter, then, as our example.
Parvini focuses on The Managerial Revolution (1941) and Burnham’s five-page work ‘Managing the Managers’ (1960) for his analysis. Recognising the insight that Burnham had - far ahead of his time - Parvini brings us to the origins of the current managerial regime. We have transitioned from Parliaments to Bureaus, where managers now exert their will upon society3.
Burnham is an important thinker for the reader. The transition from ‘capitalist’ elites to ‘managerial’ is documented in real time by Burnham. Parvini neatly charts the slight differences in Burnham’s emphasis; his economic lens for instance over Pareto’s psychological dimension.
Parvini relates Burnham to Michels as well,
‘In effect, Burnham’s key insight was to apply Michels’s iron law of oligarchy to shareholders and corporate managers and then to apply the same logic to every other organisation across society’.4
This is a strong point of the work. Parvini works hard to relate each thinker to each other at the key moment. To his credit, this is done without assuming the reader is slow, missing the point or getting lost. Parvini leads, we follow. He writes as a tour guide, helpful but not condescending. Often my conclusion would happily coincide with Parvini illustrating a connection between two thinkers. There are few better pleasures.
Let us finish this overview of Burnham. Parvini presents us an example of managerialism in action - the history of Ford. From the direct kingship of Henry Ford to the ascent of the managers in the 1950s/1960s, Ford has transitioned into one of the premier managerial companies. The decision of Henry Ford II to give up control of the Ford Foundation is an American tragedy:
‘Since then, the Ford Foundation has supported almost exclusively left-wing progressive causes…For example, between 1970 and 2010, the Ford Foundation gave $46,123,135 to LGBT causes alone’.5
How the mighty have fallen.
This chapter is one of the more enjoyable ones in The Populist Delusion. Perhaps my affinity for Burnham colours my view, but I feel that Parvini does a good job of making the changes in society more tangible for the reader than the more abstract thinking of Pareto or Mosca - enjoyable as that is.
Having covered the good in The Populist Delusion, I will now turn my attention towards some critiques I have.
If elite theory is true and a disorganised majority will always be ruled - then why do they need to participate? Why bother? Why not take away elections and just rule? It appears the elites that rule us must on some level actually believe this - the ‘political formula’ of the current elite6.
What could the people actually do if the elites suspended elections, changed results or banned parties from running? March past Whitehall with placards, M&S lunches and raincoats? Terrifying. In all seriousness there exists a relationship between the rulers and the ruled.
One of the major critiques that I would level at The Populist Delusion is that it rarely - if ever - deals with the issue of populism at all. No attempt is made to define it. Occasional mention is made to Donald Trump or MAGA, yet the work studies elite theory only. In fairness this is not too surprising - after all, the blurb pitches the work as a ‘remedy for a self-defeating folk politics that has done the people a great disservice’.
Let us look at the relationship between populism and democracy.
Democracy doesn’t like populism. And rightly so. Populism is a hammer. In the right hands of the brave and bold (perhaps foolish) populism can be used to shatter the democratic status-quo. We all know the examples of Caesar and Bonaparte. Their military success and base of power in the popular mass combined to accelerate them to the very heights of power.
They were organised. They had elite connections and were elite themselves. They demonstrate that populism under the leadership of an organised and effective minority can be transformative. They were not democratic yet they were populist.
I think this book would have been better titled the Democratic Delusion.
There were alternative elites against the current regime. Trump. Farage. Bolsonaro. Parvini does not seem to acknowledge this, or more importantly acknowledge event he possibility that they could utilise democratic support against the regime for their own ends.
Maybe they simply lack the will to do so. Maybe there are no great men, men of action, men of will - ‘lions’ left.
Perhaps it would be asking too much for this all to be covered in the book. Its focus is the mechanical function of power. For Parvini (and the elite theorists) power is the car engine. There is an engine in the red car, blue car, orange car etc regardless of the paint job.
It would follow, then, that if this movement was a failure then it was a failure of its elites. The tens of millions of voters that supported Trump in two elections can hardly be asked to do more. After all, they are the disorganised mass. Responsibility - as Parvini implies throughout the book - falls on the organised elites. It is ironic that a populist movement would be let down by its leader(s).
Moreover to this point, then, this episode of recent populism may be seen as the failure of a counter-elite to the current regime.7 The introduction conflates democracy and populism. This is a shame. This is a shame because populism can be a counter to democracy itself. We will examine this thought shortly.
Before we look at the relationship between populism and democracy, let us see how Parvini frames them in The Populist Delusion. Let us turn to his concluding chapter.
‘The thesis of this book has been that democracy is and always has been an illusion, in which the true functioning of power where power where an organised minority elite rule over a disorganised mass is obscured through a lie that “the people is sovereign”’8
Parvini finishes the thought:
‘I have called this the “populist delusion” because of the number of other lies that this central lie conceals, chiefly the myth of bottom-up power or “people power” and the entirely inaccurate view of history this creates’9
There’s quite a bit to unpack here. It may indeed be the case that organised minorities rule. It may indeed be a lie that power is ‘bottom-up’. However, this doesn’t necessarily negate democracy - or populism - as a coherent system. Furthermore, the belief in a bottom-up form of history is also not literally a belief in bottom-up history.
For those that believe it is a history of acceptable, polite, agreeable elites who have challenged the status-quo or stood for what was right in the liberal mind. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Winston Churchill, George Orwell, John Lennon, JFK - the list goes on. Never mind the contradictory or disagreeable elites not remembered (Malcolm X comes to mind), this view of history is a feel good history.
What I have just outlined, however, is not the names of a million protestors or Woodstock attendees. These are all elites. On the grand scale, history cares for elites alone. Bottom-up history then is so because it is a history opened to the masses to pretend they take part in it.
Perpetual rebellion is an ugly mark of the status-quo. Perpetual rebellion vicariously re-enacted through every film, television show, novel, speech, social media post - horrific. I think this is what Parvini is really getting at. The masses have been led astray - but they have been led. They did not develop these sentiments by themselves.
Once again, faulty elites are at the core of the problem.
Parvini struggles with this, it seems. The masses are seemingly blamed for believing their elites are looking out for them, or new ones have the stomach to oppose them. It is easy for us to hold this view, but I strongly believe the people desire most to be ruled well.
The Populist Delusion is a strong, hearty introduction to elite theory. Thanks to Parvini I have encountered new thinkers and new ideas that I am eager to explore.
However, I feel that this works deprives the reader of any relationship between populism and democracy, or populism outside of democracy.
In fairness to Parvini, this work is not explicitly concerned with political systems per se, but with a more mechanical understanding of power.
So, what is my score then?
4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A real pleasure to read and learn from. A very good boo. nearly a great one.
Neema Parvini, ‘The Populist Delusion’ (Perth, Imperium Press, 2022) p.3
There is perhaps only one thinker missing from this list - Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924). Although Lenin was a more practical student of elite theory.
Parvini, p.97
Parvini, p.95
Parvini, p.100
Parvini, p.18 - note that Mosca critiqued the idea that the people were sovereign
Whether or not Donald Trump was truly an opponent to the regime is a topic that deserves its own piece.
Parvini, p.143
Parvini p.143
Very good review. I especially liked your critique near the end on the distinctions between populism and democracy, as well as bringing up the point that Caesar and Napoleon both used a form of populism to come into power. This is something that has not been explicitly stated in other reviews for this book that I have read.