Undemocratic Liberalism

The neoliberal, globalized "world order" we've been hearing about for years is now falling apart. There is Brexit hysteria everywhere. Elites are panicking. The people have spoken! That's the last thing elites wanted to happen.

NPR actually did us a service today by interviewing Yascha Mounk, a lecturer in political theory at Harvard University and a fellow at New America. I subsequently found a recent article by him called Illiberal Democracy or Undemocratic Liberalism? (Project Syndicate, June 6, 2016). That's where I got the title. 

Take it away, Yascha!

CAMBRIDGE – How did it come to this? In the space of a few short months, the prospect of a President Donald Trump has gone from preposterous speculation to terrifying possibility. How could a man with so little political experience and such manifest disregard for facts get so close to the White House?

In a much-discussed essay, Andrew Sullivan recently argued that “too much democracy” is to blame for Trump’s rise. According to Sullivan, the political establishment has been shoved aside by the anti-intellectualism of the far right and the anti-elitism of the far left. Meanwhile, the Internet has amplified the influence of the angry and the ignorant. What matters in politics today is not substance or ideology; it is a willingness to give voice to the people’s nastiest grievances – a skill at which Trump undoubtedly excels.

In an incisive response, Michael Lind argued that Sullivan gets things backwards: the real culprit is “too little democracy.” Trump, he points out, has fared best among voters who believe that “people like me don’t have any say.”

And there’s a reason why more and more voters feel that way. Some of the most important political decisions are now made by technocrats. Even in policy areas where elected representatives still call the shots, they rarely reflect citizens’ preferences.

At first glance, the explanations offered by Sullivan and Lind seem to be mutually contradictory. But, to make sense of the deepening crisis of liberal democracy – which has also emboldened far-right populists throughout Europe – we need to recognize that they are actually complementary.

The political systems of North America and Western Europe are defined by two core components. They are liberal because they seek to guarantee the rights of individuals, including those of marginalized minorities. And they are democratic because their institutions are supposed to translate popular views into public policy.

But in recent decades, as ordinary citizens’ living standards have stagnated and anger at the political establishment has skyrocketed, these two fundamental components of politics in the West have come into conflict.

As a result, liberal democracy is bifurcating, giving rise to two new regime forms: “illiberal democracy,” or democracy without rights, and “undemocratic liberalism,” or rights without democracy.

Exactly. Undemocratic liberalism is what we have now. That's why you hear far more about LBGTQ rights than you do about income & wealth inequality in the mainstream media. Yascha explains what's going on.

In more and more countries, vast swaths of policy have been cordoned off from democratic contestation. Macroeconomic decisions are made by independent central banks. Trade policy is enshrined in international agreements that result from secretive negotiations conducted within remote institutions. Many controversies about social issues are settled by constitutional courts. In those rare areas, like taxation, where elected representatives retain formal autonomy, the pressures of globalization have attenuated ideological differences between established center-left and center-right parties.

It is hardly surprising, then, that citizens on both sides of the Atlantic feel that they are no longer masters of their political fate. For all intents and purposes, they now live under a regime that is liberal, yet undemocratic: a system in which their rights are mostly respected but their political preferences are routinely ignored.

Alienated from an unresponsive political establishment, voters are flocking to populists who claim to embody the pure voice of the people. Like Trump, they promise to cast aside the institutional roadblocks – from critical media and independent courts to international institutions like the EU or the World Trade Organization – that stand in the way of the collective will. But their nasty rhetoric should leave little doubt about what they hope to achieve: a clampdown on individual rights, particularly those of the people – from Mexicans to Muslims to muckraking journalists – whom they scapegoat in their speeches to such great effect.

In recent years, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has demonstrated how easily a country can slide into illiberal democracy. And since late last year, the new Polish government has sought to realize Orbán’s playbook. If Marine Le Pen wins the French presidency next year, illiberal democracy may spread to the heart of Western Europe.

The rise of Trump, like that of right-wing populists in Europe, attests to the key political dynamic of our time: The specter of too much democracy that Sullivan fears has arisen from decades of too little. As political elites have become insulated from ordinary voters’ preferences, they have created a wide-open space for appeals – often tribal and profoundly chauvinist – to communal unity and popular self-defense.

Here's the obligatory hope. But it doesn't last long.

There is still some hope of avoiding the disintegration of our political systems into either illiberal democracy or undemocratic liberalism.

Perhaps the main short-term priority should be to implement economic policies aimed at raising ordinary citizens’ living standards – and thereby soften widespread anger at the political establishment.

What an excellent idea! Why didn't I think of that?

Here's how Yves Smith explained it over at Naked Capitalism yesterday.

Brexit is a crippling blow to the neoliberal order of unfettered trade and capital flows, and citizens being reduced to being consumers who have to fend for themselves in markets, and worse, increasingly isolated workers who are at the mercy of capitalists who are ever more determined to reduce labor costs and hoard the benefits of productivity gains for themselves.

Whether they recognize it or not, and we’ll find out over the coming months and years how well different Leave voters saw the choice they made, they have chosen a lower standard of living as a price worth paying for a hope of more control over their destinies. Sadly, these voters are likely to realize the first part of that equation rather than the second.

Back to Yascha, who returns to his senses in the last paragraph.

If these measures turn out to be too little too late, or if the political establishment becomes so spooked by the populists that technocrats end up with even greater control over public policy, liberal democracy is unlikely to survive. In that case, we may confront the political equivalent of Sophie’s choice: sacrifice our rights to save democracy, or abandon democracy to preserve our rights.

All in all, an excellent summary of what's happening in the world today. We are so screwed.

 

Comments

[Jim]

It has been something to watch the media scramble in all of this. They are dazed and confused, and yes, liable to learn all the wrong lessons from it.

Every poll had the Remain vote up by several points prior to the vote, and I wonder if there wasn't more than a little wishful thinking and bias filtering going on with the pollsters. That could foreshadow a very similar result here in the States - although right now Hillary has a more than comfortable lead.

It's been the great failure of the political left to embrace globalization without realizing or even acknowledging its effects on the middle and lower classes. This is a clash between the utopian dreams of social progress and the colder realities of human nature. We can dream of the better world, while not seeing that greed, social stratification, and group identity would undercut it.