On populism and political correctness

Two phrases that pop up more than perhaps they should are populism and political correctness. Populism has connotations of supporting the 'people' over the 'elites' (another horribly abused phrase in recent times). That would suggest that any policy that favoured, say pensioners over pharmaceutical corporations could be termed 'populist'. There is a clear hint in the term that such a policy choice is bad. However, as almost any economist this side of Genghis Khan will tell you, the PBS represents a world best practice model for reconciling drug delivery with low/middle income patients. So while technically it is 'populist', it is not bad policy.

However saying that policy helps the people must surely be a truism if we even imagine to live in a democracy which works in the best interests of the people. A better use of the term 'populist' might be to describe policy ideas that are at first glance 'popular', but on closer analysis reveal themselves to be bad policy. Such an analysis might apply to the petrol excise debate. The difference made by a 5 cent a litre cut would save a family maybe $3 per week in fuel, yet the excise cut would cost $1.8 billion. The policy would have little real effect on its target audience (beyond the psychological comfort of 'something being done'), but would potentially eat into funding for other areas such as health. It would also seriously compromise greenhouse abatement efforts and provide a perverse incentive for people to use more fuel, rather than move towards energy conservation and efficiency measures. On those measures, the excise cut call represents a populist policy in its truest sense.

Political correctness is one rather horrid phrase dreamed up as a backlash by right-wing bigots and their acolytes in response to greater ethnic and gender diversity in workplaces and society at large. The phrase is viewed by its proponents as a form of 're-education', akin to the worst excesses of Maoist zeal. By assailing measures aimed at reducing prejudice, political correctness becomes a de facto assertion of a right to maintain and exercise prejudice free from either government or commercial interference. How this is a good idea in an increasingly globalised world where disenfranchised individuals are easy prey for extremist movements of all persuasions remains to be seen. The recent Camden school controversy demonstrates a large group of Anglo-Saxon Australians either think exercising prejudice is not racist or they are locked into conservative doublethink which inverts anti-racist policies as de facto racism against Anglo-Saxons. Clearly the Howard-era messages of the dangers of political correctness have permeated the fields of Albion.

The concept of political correctness should be scrubbed from the political lexicon. In short, it is a backward-looking victim-mentality view based on pig ignorance and wilful misguidance by so-called conservatives. If anti-discrimination provisions and policies were recast as part of the rules of democratic society, safeguards rather than fetters, it would improve the prospects that the shock jocks and columnists would get the message. It is interesting that the very people who claim to be law-abiding citizens of the highest order are the first to denigrate laws put in place to safeguard the very order of the society they seek to defend.