The movement of labor, waste, data, resources, products, and capital is globally interconnected and increasingly digital. How can democracy be conceived of and practiced in a way that aligns with these conditions? BG editors Magdalena Taube and Krystian Woznicki search for answers, explaining how criticism of capitalism should be combined with criticism of democracy.
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‘Capitalism is globalized, democracy isn’t.’ This sentence was surprisingly often heard at the Volksbühne in Berlin during the kickoff meeting of DiEM25, a new pan-European political movement.
It is no wonder, since it is a popular phrase in current socio-political debates. It roughly means: Democracy cannot counter the dominance of the global economy. Is it a capitulation? Or is it a call to arms to revitalize democracy?
In the face of increasing right-wing populism, Jakob Augstein thinks that it should be a call to arms: “When the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party demands that the borders of the export nation be closed, it is an anti-capitalist, downright revolutionary act. We must recognize that if democrats fail to contain capitalism, other forces will take up the cause.”
Under the condition of borders
Before searching for political alternatives, we must first understand what ‘capitalism is globalized, democracy isn’t’ actually means. Is it even a meaningful phrase?
Globalization gained new economic momentum in 1492. That year, Columbus set sail from Europe to reach East Asia via the western sea route but instead reached the Caribbean islands off the coast of the American continent. The heavily indebted ‘explorer’ promised the Spanish royal family gold and territories.
A new era began, one focused on expanding trade networks, opening new markets, and globalizing capitalism. It is no coincidence that its greatest critic also became one of the most profound thinkers of the globalized world: Karl Marx.
When we say that ‘capitalism is globalized’ but ‘democracy isn’t,’ we mean that democracy cannot grasp the workings of global capitalism, let alone restrict it. While the former operates globally and without borders, the latter functions nationally within borders.
So much for those assumptions. What is often overlooked is that democracy has always expanded in the wake of globalization. Indeed, one could argue that it has been globalizing for hundreds of years. But what exactly does that mean?
The spread of liberal market democracy
Since the time of Columbus, Europe has expanded its trade networks, spread Christianity, and disseminated Western values and models. This includes democratizing societies ‘overseas.’ Since the 20th century. One former European colony has embraced this legacy since the 20th century: the United States.
We still clearly remember images of the ‘liberation’ of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Above all, the mass media conveyed one message: a dictatorship cannot be tolerated in the post-totalitarian era. We need more democracy worldwide. Worldwide. Supporters of this “liberation campaign” in Germany argue similarly. On April 7, 2003, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Jürgen Habermas, and others praised the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s reign. They remember Adolf Hitler, yet they overlook Otto von Bismarck, who promoted colonialism.
However, they fail to mention that the triumph of democracy is primarily about the spread of liberal market democracy. Thus, it is also about the opening and liberalization of markets. In other words, Europe’s leading intellectuals ignore the fact that exporting democracy is closely linked to the colonial expansion of the capitalist economic sphere.
This is likely a key reason why the idea that ‘democracy doesn’t work’ has become so credible today. However, it is also certainly related to the fact that democracy has not spread around the world as idealists had hoped, nor does it function as they had imagined. Democracy’s potential seems to have ended up in the dustbin of history, overshadowed by capitalism. But that’s not all.
Conquista and Silicon Valley
Today, we are also dealing with a general narrow-mindedness that encourages oversimplification and historical amnesia. When people think of the globalization of capitalism, they rarely consider the entire expansion program. This leads them to overlook the important role democracy plays in this process and the involvement of the state.
Both capitalism and its globalization are reduced to the private sector – first trading companies and later corporations. Yet, from the beginning, the state has played a role in this, acting as a driving and organizing force, as well as a protective and supportive one. This applies to both the era of the Conquest and the birth of Silicon Valley: entrepreneurs rely on state measures to build and develop their companies.
Even Germany, the ‘world champion of exports,’ knows a thing or two about this. Chambers of commerce, embassies, and Goethe Institutes around the world almost make us forget that Germany played a comparatively minor role during the first 400 years of European expansion. Other European countries were significantly more ‘successful’ as colonial powers.
Partnership between the state and the economy
Today, there is great excitement when the state rescues banks or government agencies such as the NSA They help themselves to global corporations. Yet, the partnership between the state and the economy dates back hundreds of years. From the beginning, the close relationship between these two sectors has been a central feature of the emerging global networks in which capitalism has become the dominant systemic logic.
This dominance forms the basis for criticism of capitalism. However, this criticism is often overly simplistic. For instance, the assertion that ‘capitalism is globalized, democracy isn’t’ is often followed by unreflective slogans such as ‘lean government’ or ‘withdrawal of the state.’ Do such political slogans really know what they are articulating?
Withdrawal and shrinkage? Certainly, this describes the state no longer performing certain tasks or performing them inadequately. Keywords: privatization. Keywords: austerity. However, neither of these applies when considering European expansion. As I said, this expansion involves the growth of state networks and the spread of democracy as a ‘European export’ to open up new markets.
Global feedback effects
One could argue that ‘capitalism is globalized, democracy isn’t’ encapsulates all of this. However, this statement is more of a simplification that creates blind spots than an accurate description of this complex situation. I have mentioned some of these blind spots. But there are more.
Since Columbus, the state has been casting worldwide nets and has been dealing with the global feedback effects of these nets since at least the second half of the 20th century. In short, the state created the global, and now the global is reshaping the state. Reagan and Thatcher, in particular, remain associated with this upheaval. However, what is often overlooked is that this also marked the beginning of the postcolonial era.
The Eurocentrism that fueled overseas expansion now primarily motivates continental integration and all important EU decisions – known since then as the imperial dream of Eurafrica. The colonial mindset does not simply vanish in the process. Nor do Europe’s connections to its former colonies. Additionally, the destabilized borders along colonial-era territories have created unforeseen potential for conflict.
Thus, the global network that emerged during European expansion has become crucial to the growing number of wars in the Global South and to migration from former colonies to Europe.
Exclusion of the demos
This is the moment when networks created by the state begin to influence it in new ways. It is the moment when the state senses that it has created something it cannot fully control. Something that is beginning to change it. As this occurs, the state cedes more and more of its sovereignty. The history and current state of this process has recently been astutely described by Joseph Vogl.
In an article developed in dialogue with BG, Vogl clarifies how state architecture links the demos’ loss of sovereignty with its deprivation. The article reveals that the demos is gradually disappearing from democracy and has been excluded from the state’s architecture since the beginning.
This advanced disappearance and exclusion are becoming increasingly apparent. For example, consider how the state elite and financial public react to the demos’ rebellion as if the demos were not part of democracy. A referendum? Absurd! Democracy without the demos could become the new normal. This is another reason why DiEM25 came at the right time.
Loss of sovereignty without suffering?
If we want to ask questions based on the assumption ‘capitalism is globalized, democracy isn’t,’ then let’s ask this: If the economy and the state have become global players in cooperation with each other and democracy has been instrumentalized in this process, how can democracy be freed from this instrumentalization? How can democracy be conceived as an equal partner and put into action?
To answer these questions, we must understand that a loss of sovereignty does not mean the state has lost something and is suffering. No, it does not. It has simply become a neoliberal state. Looking back over the last 500 years, one could argue that things could hardly have turned out differently. However, nothing is inevitable. Suffering is rooted in this circumstance, among other things.
This is why the loss of sovereignty marks a state of emergency. This is especially true when we interpret it as the loss of the idea of a democratic constitutional state and equality. Thus, it is the failure to fulfill the promise that both citizens and non-citizens, such as refugees, will be protected and have rights. This loss points to suffering. It is the suffering of the demos.
A state that enables democracy
The demos’ suffering has become so great that the state must finally realize the ‘adjustments’ made over the last thirty or forty years are insufficient in the face of the global situation. Despite all its efforts, the people must once again become a central counterpart. Only under this condition can the state reach its next stage of development and provide a framework for a legitimate democracy.
In the process, the most complex institutional architecture of our time will likely become even more intricate. This is precisely why DiEM25 is taking the right approach by making Europe the central arena for all negotiations. Since the state no longer stands alone, it must change through dialogue with other states.
Europe offers a suitable starting point. On the one hand, it is a manageable space for dialogue. On the other hand, there are shared foundations, interests, and challenges. A very topical example is the so-called refugee crisis. More than other current crises, it confronts us with the big question of our time: Can we free democracy from the colonial-capitalist imprint it acquired during European expansion, despite our Eurocentric fixation?
We should make the following demands
First, every state in Europe must reform its political system to enable true democracy. Each state must understand its architecture as part of a network and restructure in an interdependent manner – not only in dialogue with other states and the market, but primarily with the transnational demos.
Second, the key dialogue partners are in Europe. Therefore, this reform process is also a process of European integration. As such, it must avoid repeating the mistakes of EU integration. Above all, this means that the redefinition of democracy in Europe must recognize the much-vaunted ‘shared values’ as a product of European expansion – i.e., the colonial oppression and exclusion of other peoples – and overcome them.
Third, the European democracy movement must establish equality as the core principle of a decolonial Europe. In this respect, we can only initiate a new beginning with an admission: Europe’s profound debt to former (and new) colonies. A minimum requirement for the present moment is that the right to asylum in Europe should be inviolable in every European state.