THEORIES OF DEMOCRACY

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THEORIES OF DEMOCRACY

• Variations among Modern Democracies
• MR DOUG PERKINS

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TODAYS AGENDA

• Talk About the News
• Administratia
• Presidential vs. Parliamentary Systems
• Political Parties
• Electoral Rules/Party Systems
• Welfare States

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POLITICAL NEWS
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ADMINISTRATIA

• Reminder about Office Hours
• Keep Up with Reading!
• Study Guide
• New Concerns?

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MARX AND THE MANIFESTO

• The history of all hitherto existing society is
  the history of class struggles
• Oppressor vs. Oppressed
• Always in conflict (open or hidden)
• Describes move from feudalism to capitalism
• Rise of bougeoisie and capitalist ideology
• And destruction of old ideologies and cultures
• No fixed relations
• Fluidity of capital AND labor
• Commodification of all labor

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THE DEATH OF CAPITALISM

• Internal contradiction of capitalism
• Overproduction (Sorcerers Apprentice), economic
  chaos
• Creation of Proletarians
• The Better Capitalism Does
• The more proletarians are created!
• New jobs in factories and destruction of
  small-scale industry
• And work is no fun for workers!
• They are also concentrated geographically

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SUMMARY

• The essential condition for the existence, and
  for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the
  formation and augmentation of capital the
  condition for capital is wage-labour.
  Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition
  between the labourers. The advance of industry,
  whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoise,
  replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to
  competition, by their revolutionary combination,
  due to association. The development of Modern
  Industry, therefore, produces and appropriates
  products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore,
  produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers.
  Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are
  equally inevitable. p. 1201

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THE ROLE OF COMMUNISTS

• Unite all working class parties
• Represent the whole class
• Immediate Goals
• Create a working class
• Overthrow bourgeois supremacy
• Conquest of political power by proletariat
• Summary of Communist Theory
• Abolish private property (p. 1202)
• Change all property relations
• At work even at home!
• How do you
• Create a working class?
• Organization is key
• Overthrow bourgeois supremacy?
• The big choice
• Conquer politically?
• Can it happen politically (given the choice
  above?)
• Can it happen economically (given the choice
  above?)

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CREATING A WORKING CLASS

• Cadre Parties First Parties
• Small Electorate
• Bourgeois and Conservative
• Mass Parties Came Next
• Historical Cause
• Unions
• Porous Bureaucracy
• Paradigmatic Party Type
• Effects of Mass Parties
• For Regime Stability
• For Socialization/Identity
• For economic policy
• Evolved into Catch-All Parties
• Decline of Working Class
• Utility of the media
• Evolved into Cartel Parties
• Cadre Parties Resurgent

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ECONOMIC POWER FROM WITHIN

• How do we improve the general welfare?
• Monarchial Welfare State
• Moral, disciplined and efficient
• Adam Smith and the Liberals use the market
• Minimal state interference (what kind of state?)
• Democracy could be dangerous
• Politicize economics and harm the economy/welfare
• Social Democratic
• Improve workers political power by giving them
  more resources, making them less dependent on
  bosses
• Improve economic efficiency and intra-class
  divisions
• Eventual goal of economic socialization/equality

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DESCRIBING THE WELFARE STATE

• Many Ways to Describe it (why? Comparison)
• Outcomes, overall spending, targeted spending,
  routine activity of the government, types of
  states (residual vs. intitutional)
• None are totally satisfying
• Normative biases creep in- can be a problem
• (Esping-Andersens bias?)
• Esping-Andersens Way
• Degree of De-commodification of Labor
• Are workers insulated from the market? (pros and
  cons)
• Degree to which it Creates/Reproduce
  Stratification
• Poor relief method and means testing (pros and
  cons)
• Corporatist Social Insurance Model
• Benefits to all, but vary by class (pros and
  cons)
• Universal Protection and Support
• Easily turns into dualism if the level of support
  is too low

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WELFARE-STATE REGIMES

• Liberal Welfare State
• Means tested insurance
• Modest universal transfers
• The market determines the top level of welfare
  provision
• the limits of welfare equal the marginal
  propensity to opt for welfare instead of work
  (p. 26)
• Results in stratification and minimum
  decommodification
• United States, Canada, Australia
• Modern Corporatist Welfare State
• The state as provider, little/no private market
  for welfare provision (moderate to high
  de-commodification)
• But still stratification due to
  conservative/religious bias
• Austria, France, Germany, Italy
• Social-Democratic Welfare State
• High level of universal coverage, full employment
• High de-commodification, high destratification
• Northern Europe (Sweden)

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CAUSES OF WELFARE-STATE REGIMES

• Not JUST economic development (although it may be
  a precondition for two of the types)
• Why? Two reasons I can think of
• Three Key Variables
• The nature of working class mobilization
• Degree to which workers are organized as such
• Sectional vs. Encompassing Organization
• Class-political coalition structures
• Was there a red-green alliance?
• But the US
• Was there a conservative - green alliance?
• Was the middle class a major player?
• Was the workers organized by both conservatives
  and socialists?
• Legacy of regime institutionalization
• Was there a pre-existing welfare state?
• Implications
• There may be no compromise solution between a
  minimal safety net and a universal system
• Both can exist in equilibrium
• When do people become discontent with their
  systems?
• Role of socialist agitators CRITICAL

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ANOTHER TAKE ON POLITICAL-ECONOMY

• The Rule of the People
• Elections for Politics
• People want things
• Politicians want votes
• Markets for Economics
• People want things
• Firms want money
• Assumptions? Problems? Role of Govt?
• The Rule of the State
• States can be somewhat autonomous
• With own interests (neopluralism to)
• How can it be controlled?
• The Rule of Capital
• Capital Rules How? Mechanism?
• A liberal defense Is there a conspiracy?
• A moderate view capital dependence
• A radical view hegemony

From Adam Przeworski (1990) The State and the
Economy under Capitalism
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CAPITALISM AND SOCIAL DEMOCRACY

• The Socialists Believed (Marx et al)
• The State was the tool of the dominant class
• The dominant class and the state were hegemonic
• The consent of the working class was artificial
• Was this the case?
• How can we tell?
• Does it matter?

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WHAT STRATEGIES CAN CHALLENGE HEGEMONY?

• Most important work Antonio Gramscis The Prison
  Notebooks

• Institutions and organizations had to be created
  that would create and support a "counter-culture
• Anarchy cannot work within the system
  (replace/destroy) Examples? Can it work?
• Communism cannot work with the system
  (overthrow) Examples? Can it work?
• Social Democratic combined solution
  (electoral/outside) Examples? Can it work?
• ALL required organization to be successful (even
  anarchy)
• But why bother?! Which one did they choose?

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THE RESULT?

• Political Participation Changed the SD
  Movement!!!
• The Mechanisms?
• Focus on short term gains (Vs. socialist society)
• Aristocratization of the Proletariat
• Robert Michels Political Parties
• Perhaps bad for the socialists, but great for
  consolidation!!!
• Comparison of the economic results
• Chart the valley vs. the hill
• Safety nets, welfare states, communism
• Exogenous Challenges
• Decline in relative size of working class
• Decline of utility of organizations
• Who is Left to Challenge the System?
• Question for Discussion
• What relevance does Marxism have for current
  democratic dialogues?

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QUESTIONS???