This article have been first published in the academic
blog Global-e,
hosted by 21st Century Global Dynamics Initiative, Orfalea Center of the
University of California, Santa Barbara.
In the 1920s José Ortega y Gasset, an educated and conservative Spanish
thinker, observed with increasing concern that liberal regimes, in spite
of the fact that they extended suffrage and increased political and
social rights, were losing control over their political systems and that
the masses were inclined to support extremist political
forces[1] . The populist upsurge we
have witnessed in the last years could be the symptom, to use Ortega’s
term, of a new revolt of the masses. The rebellion is directed not so
much towards the very essence of the democratic form of government, but
rather towards those elites that have failed to share advantages with
the people.