Why Democracy and Capitalism Don't Mix

An excellent article from two years ago which

is deeply relevant to today. — Molly

By Daniel Taylor

When he took office in January, Donald Trump declared that he was “transferring power from Washington, DC, and giving it back to you: the people”. As the rain fell on the half-empty National Mall, the new president predicted: “January 20, 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again”.

It was a strange claim to make, given that “the people” had just been defied: 75 percent of the American voting-age population had either not voted for Trump, or had voted against him. In fact, 20 January 2017 was the inauguration of the most hated person ever to run for president in modern history, according to all available polling data.

It was only the most recent outrage against democracy perpetrated in the name of the democratic process itself. Trump’s anti-democratic triumph came six months after the Democratic Party machine systematically dismantled the campaign of Bernie Sanders; two years after the Greek people voted in a landslide referendum to reject austerity, and then had the most sadistic austerity imposed on them as punishment; five years after police drove Occupy Wall Street from the streets, ending its campaign for “real democracy”; and 13 years after that epoch-defining atrocity, the US invasion of Iraq, was inflicted on a world that overwhelmingly opposed it. Meanwhile, polls showing landslide support for higher taxes on the rich and increased funding of social services are ignored year after year.

It’s no wonder, then, that many have little interest in what passes for capitalist “democracy”. For many of us, that lack of interest manifests as disengagement, apathy and cynicism.

Others – including many of the rich and powerful – are more interested in outright dictatorship. According to research published in the Journal of Democracy, around one-third of young wealthy US citizens think a military dictatorship can be useful, and that it’s more important to have a “strong leader” than elections.

When the system is under strain, the “democratic deficit” of capitalism becomes obvious. No matter how many elections take place, the things we want don’t happen; the things we don’t want, do happen; and the people we despise are in charge.

But the roots of the problem are deeper than the political process: the lack of democracy is built into the fundamental structures of a capitalist economy.

Democracy means “the rule of the people”. Capitalism means the rule of the market. Between those two concepts lies a gulf that can’t be bridged by any number of patriotic songs and firework displays.

A capitalist economy, based on private property, divides society into those who own and those who don’t: those who decide and those who obey. The first, most fundamental decisions that can be made in society – what to do with the tremendous wealth and technology that exists in the world – are made with no democratic oversight at all.

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