Capitalism Versus Democracy? Rethinking Politics in the Age of Environmental Crisis

Boris Frankel

• Publisher: Greenmeadows
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9780648363354
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

For over 150 years, political strategies and policies have been formed according to whether parties and movements believed that capitalism is either compatible or incompatible with democracy. This book challenges both supporters and opponents of the 'compatibility' thesis and calls for a rethink of politics in the age of environmental crises. It is divided into three parts. Part One critically questions the dominant narratives and assumptions held by many of the broad Left about the origins, causes and alternatives to our present condition. Part Two focuses on how prominent neo-Keynesians and Marxists have explained the crises of the past decade and why they are still operating with essentially pre-environmentalist conceptions of the conflict between 'capitalism and democracy'. Part Three offers one of the first detailed discussions of what kind of organisational, political economic and cultural issues that advocates of alternative post-carbon or post-capitalist societies will need to confront.

In a penetrating critique of how the tensions between 'democracy and sustainability' have impacted the old debates over capitalism versus democracy, the author examines proposals and images of the 'good life' put forward by social democrats, greens, radical technological utopians, green growth ecological modernisers and degrowthers. Are the broadly held goals of greater social justice, ending poverty and inequality within and between affluent countries and low and middle-income societies possible without transgressing the fragile and damaged biophysical life support boundaries of the earth? Why is it that many who dispute the compatibility or incompatibility of 'capitalism and democracy' are yet to fully consider what policies, organisational forms and social changes flow from populations that favour democracy but oppose policies committed to greater environmental sustainability? These and many other issues are discussed in this unsettling new book which aims to stimulate us to rethink how we see our existing societies and future social, economic and political change.

Notes and References

Introduction – Setting the Scene

1 See for example, Slavoj Žižek, Pandemic! Covid-19 Shakes the World, OR Books, London, 2020; Patrick Wintour, ‘Coronavirus: who will be winners and losers in new world order?’, The Guardian, April 11, 2020; Adam Tooze, ‘Shockwave’, London Review of Books, April 16, 2020.

2 John Bellamy Foster and Intan Suwandi, ‘COVID-19 and Catastrophe Capitalism Commodity Chains and Ecological-Epidemiological-Economic Crises’, Monthly Review, June 2020.

3 Dani Rodrik, ‘Will Covid-19 Remake the World?’, Project Syndicate, April 6, 2020.

4 Clancy Yeates, ‘'Australia won't look the same': ANZ's Elliott warns coronavirus impact will be generational’ The Age, April 4, 2020.

5 George Soros, ‘Capitalism versus Democracy’, Project Syndicate, 27 June 2000.

6 For a brief sample of the literature and diverse accounts of ‘populism’ see C. Mudde and C. Rovira Kaltwasser (eds), Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or Corrective for Democracy?, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012; S. Gherghina, S. Mişcoiu and S. Soare (eds.), Contemporary Populism: A Controversial Concept and Its Diverse Forms, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2013; B. Moffitt, The global rise of populism: Performance, political style and representation, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2016; plus many articles by a range of authors in special editions of Politics and Governance, Vol. 5, no. 4, 2017; Economy & Society; vol.46, no.1, 2017; Thesis Eleven, vol.149, December 2018 and Constellations, vol.26, no.3, 2019.

7 An account of the exchange between Varoufakis and Schäuble is given by Yanis Varoufakis in his lecture ‘Is Capitalism Devouring Democracy?’, Cambridge Forum, Boston, 9th May 2018. Andy Storey, ‘The Myths of Ordoliberalism’, Working Paper 17-02, ERC Project ‘European Unions’, University College Dublin, 2017, observes that Schäuble had “the chutzpah to cite Eucken approvingly on the need for risk-takers to bear losses as well as to reap gains…” (p.14) Despite rejecting the needs of the Greek people, Schäuble ensured that little or no ‘Ordoliberal discipline’ was applied to German finance institutions when he bailed them out.

8 See Stephan Pühringer, ‘Think Tank Networks of German Neoliberalism: Power Structures in Economics and Economic Policies in Postwar Germany’ in Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian and Philip Mirowski (eds.) Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, Verso, London, 2020.

9 Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2018 and Thomas Biebricher, The Political Theory of Neoliberalism, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2018, especially ch.7, ‘Ideas, Uncertainty, and the Ordoliberalization of Europe’.

10 Interview with Yanis Varoufakis, “The European Union Is Determined to Continue Making the Same Errors It Made After 2008”, Jacobin, April 8, 2020. Also see Yanis Varoufakis, ‘Europe Is Unprepared for the COVID-19 Recession’, Project Syndicate, March 18, 2020. As he put it, “The 2015 Eurogroup meetings offer listeners a front-row seat on the blood sport that is unaccountable power. It’s all there: Crucial decisions flying in the face of science and simple mathematics. Bullying the weak until they surrender. Thinly disguised theft. Fake news weaponized against those who dare to resist. And last, but not least, contempt for transparency and the other checks and balances essential in any democracy.”

11 Karl Marx, On the Jewish Question (1843) reprinted in Loyd D. Easton and Kurt H. Guddat (eds), Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, Anchor Books, New York, 1967.

12 See for example, Jason Brennan, Against Democracy, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2016.

13 Thomas Piketty, ‘Brahmin Left vs Merchant Right: Rising Inequality and the Changing Structure of Politica...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Also by Boris Frankel
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction – Setting the Scene
• I. The Dominant Paradigm of Capitalism Versus Democracy
• II. Shifting Paradigm: The Last Gasp of a Pre-Environmentally Conscious Politics
• III. Emerging New Paradigm: Democracy Versus Sustainability
• Conclusion
• Notes and References
• Index