Theorizing the Missing Element: A Democratic Society beyond Politics

• In Event: Democracy and Economic Inequality

Abstract

This paper will argue that there is an important emphasis missing from the current efforts to protect democracy, attention to which will prove crucial to its revitalization. This is the role played by opportunities for democratic participation and the development of democratic character outside politics, as highlighted initially in the work of John Dewey, as well as by some theorists in the socialist and feminist tradition. In view of the factors that have led to contemporary authoritarian social movements and the current political developments undercutting political democracies, it is evident that purely political remedies will prove inadequate, whether these are institutional reforms or improvements in public discourse (although both of these remedies are very much needed). The various ways that expenditures by corporations and capitalist elites and their differential economic power inevitably undermine the political process (especially in the United States, but sometimes via direct corruption elsewhere) remains untouched by (otherwise commendable) efforts to facilitate voting or other democratic procedures, while calls for civility are ineffective in addressing the current polarization and its exacerbation by social media, cyberattacks, foreign interference, etc. The situation is further complicated by the way current authoritarian social movements display a noteworthy intersection of nativism, patriarchal attitudes, and an endorsement of license as an interpretation of individual liberty.

This paper argues that what is missing from the remedies offered to counter such threats are ways to address the root causes that give rise to the negative and anti-democratic attitudes of such authoritarian and generally ultranationalist groups. While the proximal cause may well be a reaction to the progressive social movements of the preceding decades along with the grievances felt by those who perceive themselves to be bypassed by the global economy, it is evident that deeper issues are in play, including genuine powerlessness in social life, engendered by structural features of current economic functioning, along with relevant ideological counterparts. In the face of this, I argue that we need to look at the social, economic, and interpersonal spheres for some of the sources for potential transformation in our democratic politics. More generally, we can see that democracy has its own set of social preconditions—beyond relative availability of goods--which differ sharply from those that produce authoritarianism, and that can help to counter it. Needless to say, bringing about these conditions is a longer term project. But it is possible to begin to move to realize them in the shorter term, so they are worth theorizing, and I propose to sketch some features of that theory in this paper. The recommendations are not entirely new, but I think they can be implemented in new ways to address the current threats.

The central idea is to give people opportunities to exercise more cooperative forms of decision making along with democratic power (as a form of “power with”) in everyday life and perhaps especially at work. Indeed, with a broad enough understanding of democracy as entailing equal rights to participate in collective decisions, we can see the relevance of some elements of democratic decision-making for firms and associations. Likewise, we will argue for a new emphasis on democratic character formation in families or other interpersonal contexts. Here, the feminist desiderata of equal responsibilities for care, whether for children or other members of the family, can be understood to support the practice of egalitarian decision making needed in a democratic politics. The paper will examine the ways that greater opportunities for democratic deliberation about policies and procedures at work along with the accountability of managers to the workers can enhance people’s experiences of shared power and their feelings of control (though exercised cooperatively). Participation in more democratically managed firms in turn can reinforce people’s feelings of equal worth (and has even been shown empirically to be important in countering racism among workers in those contexts). At the same time, it can be argued that adopting effective models of co-parenting or other egalitarian models of care has the potential to provide the sorts of experiences that could engender greater commitment to democratic processes in politics. It can also be expected to contribute to the important set of dispositions involved in treating others as equals and to supporting them more solidaristically than at present.

Author

• Carol C. Gould, City University of New York