Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:08:23.506Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

THE UNEASY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND CAPITAL

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2010

Thomas Christiano
Thomas Christiano
Affiliation:
Philosophy and Law, University of Arizona
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The basic question I want to ask is: can the exercise of private property rights abridge fundamental norms of democratic decision-making? And, under what conditions can it do so? To the extent that we view democratic decision making as required by justice, the issue is whether there is a deep tension between certain ways of exercising the rights of private property and that part of social justice that is characterized by democracy. To the extent that this tension holds, I will argue that commitment to democratic norms implies that private capitalist firms must cooperate with a democratic assembly and government in the pursuit of the aims of a democratic assembly even when this implies some diminution of the profits of the firms. The cooperation I have in mind goes beyond the norm of faithful compliance with the law. To be sure, there are limits to this requirement as we will see in the later part of the paper. To the extent that private capitalist firms fail to do this and partially undermine the pursuit of the aims of a democratic assembly, they act in a way that is incompatible with fundamental norms of democratic governance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 195 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For the classic study on this phenomenon, see Heard, Alexander, The Costs of Democracy: Financing American Political Campaigns (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1962)Google Scholar. See also Sorauf, Frank J., Inside Campaign Finance: Myths and Realities (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994)Google Scholar. For some philosophical work, see Beitz, Charles, Political Equality: An Essay in Democratic Theory (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), chap. 9Google Scholar. See also Cohen, Joshua, “Money, Politics, Political Equality,” in Fact and Value: Essays on Ethics and Metaphysics for Judith Jarvis Thomson, ed. Byrne, Alex, Stalnaker, Robert, and Wedgwood, Ralph (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001), 47–80Google Scholar. For an effort to demonstrate the disproportionate influence of the wealthy on the political system in the United States, see Bartels, Larry M., Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), esp. chap. 9Google Scholar.

2 See Block, Fred, “The Ruling Class Does Not Rule,” Socialist Revolution 33 (1977): 6–27Google Scholar, for the Marxist claim that the state is completely structurally dependent on capital. See Przeworski, Adam and Wallerstein, Michael, “Structural Dependence of the State on Capital,” in American Political Science Review 83 (March 1988): 11–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a critique of this thesis.

3 For a classic formulation of the argument that minimum wage laws increase unemployment, see Samuelson, Paul, Economics, 9th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973), 393–94Google Scholar. For empirical evidence that minimum wage laws do not have the effect of increasing unemployment, see Card, David and Krueger, Alan, “Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania,” American Economic Review 84, no. 4 (September 1994): 772–93Google Scholar. See also Neumark, David and Wascher, William, “Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania: Comment,” American Economic Review 90, no. 5 (December 2000): 1362–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a critique of the Card, and Krueger, argument, and their reply in “Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania: Reply,” American Economic Review 90, no. 5 (December 2000): 1397–1420CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See Barry, Brian, “Capitalists Rule OK? Some Puzzles about Power,” Politics, Philosophy, and Economics 1, no. 2 (June 2002), 155–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 See Lindblom, Charles, Politics and Markets (New York: Basic Books, 1977)Google Scholar.

6 See Christiano, Thomas, The Constitution of Equality: Democratic Authority and Its Limits (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a defense of these claims.

7 See Christiano, Thomas, The Rule of the Many (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996), part IIGoogle Scholar, for a defense of these claims.

8 See ibid., part III, for the theory of democratic institutional design.

9 Just to be clear, the aims need not always specify outcomes; the aims of citizens may include imposing constraints on the pursuit of outcomes.

10 See Christiano, Thomas, “Social Choice and Democracy,” in The Idea of Democracy, ed. Copp, David, Hampton, Jean, and Roemer, John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993)Google Scholar, for the argument that a democratic method of choosing aims is not undermined by the results of social choice theory.

11 This gives us another reason to call into question Barry's account of the relation between capitalism and democracy. It is not the mere fact that capitalists have greater power than others that abridges democratic norms; it is their willingness to exercise that power that can sometimes undermine equality.

12 See Cohen, G. A., Rescuing Justice and Equality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for an account of the egalitarian ethos.

13 See Christiano, The Rule of the Many, chap. 4, for this argument. See also Christiano, Thomas, “Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self-Defeating?” Ethics 115, no. 1 (October 2004): 122–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 See the evidence marshalled in the papers in Beyond Self-Interest, ed. Mansbridge, Jane J. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

15 See Christiano, The Constitution of Equality, chaps. 6 and 7, for a discussion of the nature and ground of democratic authority and its limits.

16 See Wittman, Donald, The Myth of Democratic Failure: Why Political Institutions Are Efficient (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 176Google Scholar, for an argument that seems to me to presuppose perfectly competitive markets as a reason for thinking that capitalists have no option but to seek the profit-maximizing course of action.

17 See Dowding, Keith, Power (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 72–76Google Scholar, for a nuanced treatment of the power and luck of capitalists in a mixed economy.

18 See Przeworski, Adam, Capitalism and Social Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986)Google Scholar, for a discussion of the influence of capitalists on the structure of modern liberal democratic states. See also Przeworski and Wallerstein, “Structural Dependence of the State on Capital,” for a critique of the thesis that capitalists determine choices of government policy. See also Przeworski, Adam, The State and the Economy under Capitalism (Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1990), 92–96Google Scholar.