We need more democracy: Our best hope for political reform is to push for a more inclusive system
We need more democracy: Our best hope for political reform is to push for a more inclusive system
CONOR LYNCH
Salon
Let us look briefly at the history of democracy in America. Throughout it’s existence, the country grew increasingly democratic with the passage of time — and this didn’t happen in a vacuum. Political, economic and cultural circumstances made it so. America at the dawn of the 20th century would be unrecognizable to inhabitants at the dawn of the 19th — owing to industrialization, the abolition of slavery, the westward expansion, the inflow of immigrants, etc.
Economic and political elites did not concede power to the people because it was the noble and moral thing to do, but because the people became increasingly organized and defiant (or, as Hamilton might have said, the rabble formed a mobocracy) — whether it be factory workers creating labor unions or women coming together and demanding suffrage. More democratic inclusivity in the West has, for the most part, always been followed by more progressive and liberal reform — and this is hardly coincidental.
So what is going on today? Have the people gone mad? For technocratic elites, this is a consoling thought.
But of course, the revolt against neoliberalism isn’t just coming from the right. On the other side of the political aisle, progressive leaders like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Labour Party’s Jeremy Corbyn have argued the very opposite of what elites postulate — that there is not enough democracy.
One cannot investigate the rise of populism today without understanding the past forty years of neoliberalism (and for this, George Monbiot has a very
good primer in The Guardian). America has largely regressed economically over the past several decades (in terms of economic mobility, inequality, and regulatory oversight) while democratic government has degenerated markedly. Since the financial crisis, the majority of Americans have seen their wages stagnate or decline and millions have lost their homes, while Wall Street banks were bailed out and the wealth of billionaires soared.
