A Definition of Populism

I've decided on a final definition of populism. The entire thing is too long to reproduce here, but in short:

Populism as an historical concept represents the conflict between labor and capital. For the purposes of this thesis, which will deal with southern populism and the agrarian revolution, labor signifies poor farmers, while capital encompasses wealthy, landed, southern aristocracy. The political goals of this movement include free silver and government control of transportation and communication. Paradoxically, these socially progressive policy goals coexist with populist nostalgia, a sentimental view of rural, agrarian life, and a desire to maintain the status quo.

Warren, though he portrays the socioeconomic conflict to great effect, concerns himself more with the sociocultural implications of the above definition than the socioeconomic ones. Poor farmers have no power over what is considered culturally significant, have no access to the knowledge that drives the political process; the elites do. Simply put, this system decimates any hope the poor might have of contributing substantively to the political process.

This dualistic representation of populism would be remiss if it did not consider Warren's tone when dealing with populist movements. The poor farmer never receives a face, an identity, a history--never anything but a brief description of the exterior. The elites, conversely, are fleshed out and loaded with personality. The conflict, then, is not Manichean; no one could reasonably suggest that the poor farmer is "good" whereas the landed gentry are "bad." Instead, Warren complicates the representation, suggests obliquely that no one involved in the movement or fighting the movement is inherently "good." I intend to expound on this idea by doing a close reading of the first encounter between Judge Irwin and Willie Stark in All the King's Men, post to follow.