What Populism Can (and Can’t) Do for the Left
We live in an age of populism, on the Right and on the Left. In an interview with Jacobin, Vivek Chibber explains both populism’s potential and limitations for putting class and economics back into politics.
Recent electoral victories, such as Zohran Mamdani’s primary win in New York City, have shown the success of centering material demands with widespread appeal. (Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)
Populism is in the air, providing unique opportunities and challenges to the Left. Recent electoral victories, such as Zohran Mamdani’s win, have shown the success of centering material demands with widespread appeal. The strategy is not without its limitations, but it holds important lessons for how the Left can reshape a political environment that has been hostile to workers for decades.
In a recent of the Jacobin Radio podcast Confronting Capitalism, Vivek Chibber discusses how populist sentiment — popular anger at elites and a demand for economic redress — helped socialists reinsert economics back into politics.
Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber is produced by Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy and published by Jacobin. You can listen to the full episode here. This transcript has been edited for clarity.
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