Deepening what is left of Democracy

The so-called "summit of democracies" had passed me by until a friend alerted me a few days ago - although I see that Brankovic is not impressed. I argued earlier this year that the US no longer deserves to be considered a democracy - so it's a bit cheeky of them (to put it mildly) to dare to offer a lead such as this....  But it does take me back to an important post in may which argued that –

- few (if any) societies can any longer claim to be democratic

- we need, very loudly, to be exposing such claims to be the falsehoods they are

- a better vision of democracy needs to be articulated

- pressure groups should coalesce around the demand for citizen juries – initially at a municipal level to demonstrate their benefits

- political parties no longer serve any useful purpose

- we should be insisting that governments start focusing on the big issues - which governments currently seem incapable of even attempting to deal with

- using citizen juries

- governments, in other words, should govern 

That same post went on to argue that, between 1950 and 1980, we had an effective and balanced system in which each type of power – economic (companies/banks etc), political (citizens and workers) and legal/admin/military (the state) – balanced the other. None was dominant.

Deindustrialisation, however, destroyed that balance – more specifically the power which working class people had been able to exercise in that period through votes and unions has been undermined. In its place a thought system developed - justifying corporate greed and the privileging (through tax breaks and favourable legislation) of the large international company. 

·       All political parties and most media have been captured by that thought system which now rules the world

·       People have, as a result, become cynical and apathetic

·       Privatisation is a disaster – inflicting costs on the public and transferring wealth to the few

·       Two elements of the “balanced system” (Political and legal power) are now supine before the third (corporate and media power). The balance is broken and the dominant power ruthless in its exploitation of its new freedom

·       It is very difficult to see a “countervailing power” which would make these corporate elites pull back from the disasters they are inflicting on us

·       Social protest is marginalized - not least by the combination of the media and an Orwellian “security state” ready to act against “dissidence”

·       But the beliefs which lie at the dark heart of the neo-liberal project need more detailed exposure

·       as well as its continued efforts to undermine what little is left of state power

·       We need to be willing to express more vehemently the arguments against privatisation - existing and proposed

·       to feel less ashamed about arguing for “the commons” and for things like cooperatives and social enterprise (inasmuch as such endeavours are allowed)  

But the elite - and the media which services their interests - noticed something was wrong only when Brexit and Trump triumphed – in 2016. But that was simply the point at which the dam broke – the pressure had been building up for much longer.

If we really want to understand what is going on we have to go much further back – not just to the beginning of the new millennium when the first waves of populist anger started - but to the 1970s when the post-war consensus started to crumble – as Anthony Barnett, for one, most recently argued in his extended essay “Out of the Belly of Hell” (2020)

The demos have been giving the Elites a clear warning – “your social model sucks”. We may not like some aspects of what the crowd is saying – for example the need for border restrictions….but we ignore its message at our peril. So far I don’t see a very credible Elite response. Indeed, the response so far reminds me of nothing less than that of the clever Romans who gave the world Bread and Circuses. Governments throughout the world have a common way of dealing with serious problems – it starts with denial, moves on to sacrificial lambs, official inquiries and bringing in the clowns - and finishes with “panem et circenses” 

But the post was too cynical. It failed to offer a way out. And for more than a decade, people in different parts of the world have been working on what is various called “deliberative democracy” or citizen juries to give inspiring examples of that way out. I hinted at this in an April post and indeed gave quite a few examples of other tools determined governments could use - if they actually wanted to develop their capacity. But that’s a bit like asking turkeys to vote for an early Christmas!

Let me therefore make amends with two shortish articles which offer the best introduction to developments in this field - first this and then the second part here

And, if that whets your appetite, I would recommend this short book Democratic innovations – designing institutions for citizen participation; by someone who was the research director of the famous UK Power inquiry of 2004

Update; Milanovic argues in this piece that the summit was a bad idea. I agree.