Populism builds cross-class coalitions while socialism centers one sovereign class

Evidence

The populist and socialist traditions have always competed to offer their own response to the same substantial dilemma of the left: With what base and what ideology can it grow its majority? Whereas socialism crowns the industrial working class as the sovereign around which all others must coalesce (peasantry, middle class), the populist approach has always been different. … Almost by default, populist movements traverse class divides. Their coalition typically encompasses a variety of social groups from the lower to the middle classes, from the urban to the suburban and rural. Most importantly, in populist politics, none of these groups enjoys a privileged role as the political actor par excellence. Rather than forging a social bloc around a class—which presupposes the existence of an acute class consciousness of itself and its historical mission—populism articulates a coalition across classes. As a result, populism’s political subject is both broader and vaguer than socialism’s proletariat: populism’s people is an abstract subject that all too easily merges with the subject of democracy. No wonder democracy is the true cornerstone of populism’s ideology. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 75

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines populism against socialism by their differing political base and ideology.
• XREF: connects to: Left-wing populists must unite heterogeneous class fractions without a stable base — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization…, 210; Class politics today operates by constructing working-class experience as the mediating core of coalitions — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 715

Broader Connections

• Left-wing populists must unite heterogeneous class fractions without a stable base #corroborates (0.85) — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 210
• Class politics today operates by constructing working-class experience as the mediating core of coalitions #qualifies (0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 715