Populist Capitalists vs. Anti-Capitalist Populists: Class Hegemony and the Politics of Anti-Corruption

• In Event: 4447 - Open Topic on Marxist Sociology

Abstract

Before Trump, there was Fox: Mexico’s populist capitalist. Sporting a cowboy hat, this former Coca-Cola executive rode a wave of disgust with Mexico’s one-party establishment to the presidency in 2000. Why do populist capitalists like Fox and Trump win? The trend is not only vexing, it is perplexing. Just two years before the Fox election, Hugo Chávez, a former lieutenant colonel who railed against corporate corruption trounced competitors and forged an anti-capitalist populism. Why did these anti-establishment politics differ so markedly? This study answers this question with an analysis of variation in the politics of anti-corruption and its potential role in sustaining, vs. eroding, class hegemony. My research shows a difference in the types of anti-corruption politics in Mexico and Venezuela at the turn of the 21st century, which could explain the divergent fate of their left-leaning opposition parties. In Mexico, my systematic analysis of an original random sample of corruption scandals collected from Mexico’s leading daily (La Reforma) shows how the anti-corruption campaign of Fox smeared the establishment as corrupted by narcotics traffickers but not corporations; a bent which fomented anti-establishment sentiment without denting class hegemony. A parallel analysis of corruption scandals in Venezuela’s leading daily, reveals how the anti-corruption campaigns emphasized corporate corruption (Gates 2010). It demonstrates a politics of anti-corruption that primed people to sympathize with Chavez. These differences, I argue, can help explain why class hegemony remained entrenched in Mexico, but not in Venezuela.

Author

• Leslie C. Gates, Binghamton University