l Gore has taken a lot of heat for campaigning as a populist. The Wall Street Journal editorialized against his ''business-bashing.'' New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd made fun of Gore for preaching class warfare during an economic boom, presumably on behalf of spoiled yuppies.
Anyone who embraces ''populism'' can be made to seem like a pandering demagogue. But terms like populism and class warfare camouflage more than they explain.
The word populism has negative overtones for several reasons.
A century ago, some self-described populists, who battled concentrated economic wealth and political power, were also racist and antiforeign.
However, the original People's Party of the 1880s understood that the real problem afflicting farmers and factory workers was a lack of democratic institutions and not an excess of immigrants or freed slaves. Only when economic reforms were blocked did populism turn ugly.
Populism also implies a shift of political power to the rabble. Not surprisingly, those who warn against the excesses of the great unwashed are usually elites. Ordinary voters, who bear the burden of economic change, are said to lack a finer appreciation of such policies as free trade, deregulation of electricity, and the entrusting of political decisions to unaccountable experts like the Federal Reserve.
In that respect, populism is nothing but the expansion of political democracy. No wonder elites fear it.
This brings me to the other charge, that Gore is practicing business-bashing or class warfare.
A capitalist democracy necessarily performs a complex straddle when it comes to the role of business. On the one hand, we want business to succeed - to innovate, to create jobs, and to provide a wide choice of consumer products.
On the other hand, the whole history of capitalism tells us that business, left to its own devices, commits assaults that are not necessary for commerce to thrive but are merely opportunistic. Corporations poison the air and water, treat workers like throwaway parts, deceive investors, and lobby against the mildest of social reforms, like Medicare.
The only counterweight is an aroused citizenry and an effective, accountable government. If this is class warfare, so be it.
Pick up any newspaper and you can find a whole catalog of such assaults. Bridgestone/Firestone makes substandard tires that kill at least 62 people. It submits to a ''voluntary'' recall only because a federal agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is breathing down its neck.
Managed-care companies give doctors financial incentives to deny patients medically necessary treatments. Apparel companies, barred by US labor law from operating domestic sweatshops, move them to Third World locations - and to corners of New York and Los Angeles when they can get away with it. Drug companies lobby for even longer patent protection so they can charge even more exorbitant prices.
Pick up newspapers from 1910 and you would find variations on the theme: filthy meatpacking plants, dangerous drugs, and 10-year-olds working in factories. From 1930: massive unemployment and breadlines. In 1970: hazardous work sites, dangerous cars, dirty drinking water, and polluted air. At all periods: too many Americans not being paid a living wage.
The point is that business - and, remember, we want business to succeed - all too often takes the easy way out at the expense of people.
That's why ordinary people turn to political remedy.
Despite the predictable scolding that a Democratic candidate gets from elites whenever he proposes to rein in corporate excesses, this is exactly what ordinary voters expect of their government. Though it may escape the notice of Dowd's crowd, even in a period of general prosperity tens of millions of Americans are economically insecure.
Since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, Democrats have gotten elected when they were credible champions of ordinary people. Harry Truman's 1948 campaign caught fire when he gave the special interests hell. John Kennedy was poised for a landslide victory and a second term in 1964 as he expanded democracy and fought for economic opportunity.
After Kennedy's murder, LBJ won that landslide by delivering on both promises. By contrast, Democrat Jimmy Carter campaigning as a technocrat barely squeaked into office in 1976, despite the Republican Watergate disgrace. And Democrat Bill Clinton won only a narrow victory in 1992 because his mixed message was one part ''putting people first'' but one part ''Democrats should be more like Republicans.''
The people denouncing Gore's ''populism'' are the same forces who have opposed every social and economic reform. They more they squawk, the more it's a sign he's on the right track.
A happy Labor Day to all.
Robert Kuttner is co-editor of the American Prospect. His column appears regularly in the Globe.
