Death of Democracy an Inevitable Possibility Under Capitalism
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SPECIAL ARTICLE Death of Democracy An Inevitable Possibility under Capitalism Rajan Gurukkal What happens to democracy when capitalism becomes emocracy has always been considered a goal which is a global? Capitalist expansion and democratisation are long way off, ever since the onset of differentiated economy and stratifi ed society. Throughout history, popularly represented by the magical term D we took oligarchy for democracy and always believed that “development.” However, the unbridled development bourgeois democracy could be transformed into real democ- of capitalism is invariably based on the over-exploitation racy through constitutional reforms. One liberal political sci- of natural resources, and the consequent entist even contemplated the globalisation of Western liberal democracy and the subsequent “end of history”1 as immi- impoverishment of tribal people, expansion of the nent (Fukuyama 1992). Expectedly, a total rebuttal of the end middle class and transformation of the nation into a of history thesis came, with reference to the reawakening of crony capitalist state. The latest phase of capitalism, history under the revolutionary force of the people (Badiou namely techno-capitalism—with its corporate system 2012). Hope for a people’s resurgence in the form of survival struggles does make sense, and it may be reasonable to of organisation and highly centralised top-heavy dream of the European lower middle class resuscitating their administration, or “corporatocracy”—signifies the revolutionary democratic values and passions of 1789 or 1848. measured death of democracy. However, few expect the North American elites to endorse a renewed call for liberty and equality, as in 1776. Capitalism and Democracy Capitalism denotes the means, forces and relations of produc- tion, facilitating transformation of money into capital, through industrial production and profi t-maximising exchange. Capitalist development means the enhanced accumulation of capital (Marx 1867). Its juridico–political devices were manifested in the post-feudal polities of constitutional monarchy and patri- archy. Colonisation of the new world was an early landmark of capitalist development. It was after the American war of inde- pendence in 1776 and the birth of the United States (US), that the patriarchal juridico–political system was transformed into bourgeois democracy. Since then, capitalist development has depended upon the democratic state, run by the bourgeoisie. The rise of a new Europe following the French Revolution of 1789 tended to democratise beyond the middle class, but the middle-class alliance with the bourgeoisie sabotaged this process, substituting it with an absolutist state under Napoleon Bonaparte. Capitalism developed through competitive colonisation, often turning state power into imperialism, by waging wars globally. Anti-colonial struggles and the constitution of liberal demo- cratic nation states as well as dictatorships emerged in Asia, where capitalism developed in alliance with both. Nevertheless, capitalists were constrained to fi ght dictator- ships for economic reasons, while they tried to retain bourgeois Rajan Gurukkal ([email protected]) is a historian and democracy, also called liberal democracy—guaranteeing in its social scientist, and is vice chairman of the Kerala State rhetoric, the freedom of the press and speech, and the right Higher Education Council. of habeas corpus—for ensuring a laissez-faire state. Both, 104 August 25, 2018 vol lIiI no 34 EPW Economic & Political Weekly SPECIAL ARTICLE people’s democracy and the free market, are part of the rheto- Broadly speaking, theories of development can be divided ric of capitalism, for its inexorably hidden “real” has never been into two mutually antagonistic categories, the liberal and the anything short of oligarchy and monopoly. Capitalists radical. Liberal theories of development are based on the instigated anti-communist bourgeois democratic struggles, notions of neo-classical economics, while radical theories are promoted liberal democratic states, and put up a sustained based on the critical political economy and development an- resistance against communism. However, communist revolutions thropology. Theories under the fi rst category constitute the gave birth to socialist dictatorships in Russia fi rst, and subse- core of modern economics, which provides capitalism with its quently, in China, where capitalism was yet to develop. In due foundational knowledge, allowing for the articulation of neo- course, capitalism developed even in communist countries by colonial, neo-liberal and neo-imperialist ideas within the “sug- transforming socialism into state capitalism. In spite of the ar-coated” rhetoric of development. Some of these are indeed contrasts between state capitalism and transnational capital- liberal theories—based on pragmatic criticism and upholding ism, capitalism has continued its inevitable development into democratic values and social ethics—but which function global capitalism. Under it, perhaps the only relatively appreci- largely as eddies in the capitalist current. Radical theories of able democratic state since the world wars might be the Nordic development are founded on Marxist epistemology, but with model in the Scandinavian countries. However, their social varying levels of praxis intervention, ranging from armed rev- democracy based on privatised Keynesianism has proven olution (Marxist–Leninist) and social –democratic collective unsustainable, demanding enhanced collective res ponsibility operation (neo-Marxist), to civil society reformist initiatives. (Crouch 2009; Castells et al 2017).2 Of all the theories of development justifying the capitalist The fate of democracy under capitalist development has never agenda, Walt Whitman Rostow’s (1960) formulation ranks the been a topic of serious debate, despite the fact that Karl Marx’s foremost. It conceives development in terms of fi ve stages, and theory of capitalism, as applied by Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1999) accordingly classifi es economies as traditional, underdevel- to state power, had brought about the thesis of imperialism as oped, developing, developed, or post-industrial. It was the highest stage of capitalism.3 Rosa Luxemburg found impe- Rostow’s work that popularised the term development. rialism to be a theoretical inevitability in the process of develop- ment of the capitalist mode of production, through global-level Theoretical Engagements capital export and extension of accumulation under monopoly Several scholars have highlighted the cultural strategies of capital (Luxemburg 1913; Wolfe 2001). Under capitalism, the capitalist expansion, camoufl aging imperialist ways of capitalist life of democracy is positioned as “being-toward-death,” in ref- exploitation and legitimising unequal power relations (Adorno erence to what Martin Heidegger said about human death: an 1991). There is an impressive body of literature by neo- Marxists inevitable and imminent possibility, which everybody ignores. like Louis Althusser, Etienne Balibar, Fernand Braudel, André Gunder Frank, Immanuel Wallerstein, Walter Rodney, Samir Development Rhetoric Amin and others, analysing relations of diplomacy, trade According to Marx’s theory, development means capitalist agreements, development treaties and technology transfers, development. However, in popular parlance the term “devel- which expose the presence of imperialist state power behind opment” is taken to mean all that people aspire for them- the so-called democratic governance of capitalist countries. selves. Its usage cleverly and successfully conceals its real Their reinterpretations of hardcore Marxist political economy meaning: capitalist growth with underlying implications of have brought to bear the incompatibility between democracy “colonialism” and “imperialism.” Another related popular and capitalism, by demonstrating how capitalist states created term, “globalisation,” similarly hushes up its actual meaning and sustained the underdeveloped world (Wallerstein 1976; of capitalist globalisation, which implies “neo-colonialism” Frank 1971, 1979; Rodney 1983; Amin 1990, 1997). Neo-Marx- and “neo-imperialism.” Despite the recurrence of recessions, ists or post-Marxists like Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, capitalism expanded through fresh strategies of accumula- Slavoj Žižek, Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt, Jean-Luc Nancy, tion, which were able to acquire social legitimacy under the Partha Chatterjee and others, discuss the sad plight of postco- ideological veil of “development.” Development is, therefore, lonial democracy against the background of the rising global a mischievous term, but one of universal acclaim for some- capitalist neo-imperialism. Their studies provide insights into thing ideal. It means the expansion of capital-, technology-, the politics of caste and ethnicity in postcolonial democracies energy-, and chemical-intensive industrial production for global with crony states, which are at odds with the nation state as consumption, in order to achieve maximisation of profi t, high well as capitalist development.4 To Partha Chatterjee (1993; rates of capital accumulation, a current account balance of 2011), the politics of ethnicity in India, although apparently an payment surplus, the lowest capital–output ratio, and the essentialist entity, is not a contrast to national democracy. highest per capita consumption rate; are all attributes of Neo-marxist theoreticians do not believe that democratic development (Ruccio 2011).